Into the darkness

Overall a pretty good weekend, with personal best times and speeds and surprisingly warm weather.
Fridays test day didn't start quite according to plan as the M6 was closed and i had to invent an alternative route along with thousands of other people, and didn't arrive until nearly 1pm. The rather late start meant we only managed 2 runs, however the changes we wanted to test proved to require no further setting up and the second run netted a reasonable 7.98 even with a loose spark plug cap and accompanying missfire.
Saturdays qualifying was interrupted by drizzle and some unfortunate on-track incidents and our first run of the day wasn't till nearly 5.30. Worth the wait however with a fairly clean run  and a new pb time of 7.80 @ 165.45mph.

The datalogger seemed to show a small change i made to the clutch setup wasn't working, however the 60ft time was saying different so we stuck with it. At that point everyone presumed that would be it for the day as the track usually closes about 6pm and half the classes still had to make their first qualifier. However rumours started to circulate that they were planning to run till 9pm. And so we readied the bike and i changed my tinted visor for a clear one as it was rapidly coming dark.
Sure enough at about 7.30 we were called to the pairing lanes. I was looking forward to running in the dark, there's something - just more dramatic about drag racing in the darkness, like that's the way it was always meant to be.
The run was awesome, my favourite to date, it just picked the front wheel up cleanly and off it went into the darkness.

The time, every incremental, and top speed were our best yet, a 7.72 @167.32mph.
A great way to end the day, but the time only good enough to qualify 3rd - Comp bike is stepping up!
Somewhat of a shock from Saturday was points leader Lizz McCarthy not making the field due an electrical problem which thwarted her only qualifying run. This would make a large dent in her points lead, but still leave her 200points or so clear.

Onto race day then, and in the first round i raced Harold Wolfenden, who has been steadily regaining form. But the bopchop ran faultlessly again and pulled another 7.7 (7.76@163.68mph) against Harold's 8.2 and took us through into the next round.
Beating Jemma in the semi's was going to require either luck, or a faster bike, as she'd been running well all weekend and had the potential to run a lot faster than we've been so far. We went for both options and tried a couple of things, but it didn't really work and despite being ahead till nearly 1000ft she had gained 25mph on us by that point and came hurtling past to take the win with a very quick 7.44 and a comp bike record speed of 192.14mph.

Our run had good short times but then slowed slightly and ran another 7.8. It does seem the problem we are having is the bike running very rich, especially further into the run as nitrous bottle pressure drops and the fuel rate doesn't. Nothing which can't be changed with some different jets or a clever graph in the controller.... hopefully!
The next race - and final round of the year happens in just 10 days time. The all bike 'Extreme bike weekend' again at Santa Pod, everyone is gonna turn it up...... it should be a good one.