Hi everybody! 

Here is the news from our ‘Fall Nationals’ at the National Finals at Santa Pod, last weekend, 19^th - 21^st September, a 3-day event with the first two days scheduled for qualifying.  This was Wild Bunch Series Round 5 (Final), Spirit of Nostalgia Challenge Round 7 (Final), Springbridge MSUK Series Round 3 (Final) and the SPRC Championship for Wild Bunch Round 3 (Final). With the amount of entries and the points available, it was confirmed before the start of the event that Team “Rebel” have WON the Wild Bunch Series for 2025! They have also WON the Spirit of Nostalgia Challenge Series for 2025, their 4^th win of this Series! Many Congratulations to them on these great achievements!! Well done to the whole team!! In addition, they WON the Roy Wilding Nostalgia Race Cars Series at the Final event at the Hot Rod Drags! The Wild Bunch had a field of 5 great teams competing at the event. 

The weather forecast was very good for the Friday and had improved for Saturday but initially looked awful for the Sunday!! But thankfully this was to change very much for the better! And we got all of our 4 scheduled qualifiers on Friday and Saturday and all 3 rounds on Sunday with a completely dry day and an early finish to all Finals! Huge well done to all at Santa Pod for all their hard work in getting everything completed!  

On the first qualifier Friday at about 1pm, 3 teams took part, Rob, Philippa and Marie. Phil joined in with those 3 on the second qualifier at around 4:45pm. Our 3^rd qualifier on the Saturday was around 11:30am and all 5 teams took part in this one, and our 4^th and last qualifier was at 3:30pm. All 5 safely qualified. Philippa emerged as #1 qualifier for her great 10.590 on a 10.58 Dial! Very well done to her and to the whole team, who were managing a gear shifting issue!  A huge shout out to the track crew later that day, as after a fair bit of rain at about 4pm, just after the end of all the qualifying, they worked hard to open the track again for the first round of eliminations for some classes, which began around 6:30 and ran til 8:15pm! Massive well done to all of them!

On Sunday race day, our first round was the quarterfinals which took place just after 12:30pm. Philippa took her earned Bye with a solid 10.515 on a 10.42 Dial-in. #2 and #4 qualifiers Phil and Rob paired up. Their reactions were nearly even, and Phil broke out by just .006 with a 9.353 on his 9.36 Dial handing the win to Rob who recorded an 8.449 on an 8.40 Dial. #3 qualifier Marie matched up with #5 qualifier Bob.  Bob had been consistent over his two qualifiers so opted for a 7.31 Dial-in but was very pleasantly surprised when the car hooked up well and hauled to a fantastic 6.873 at just 181mph, backing off at 1000 foot and breaking out by miles!!  Marie ran a 10.333 on her 10.30 Dial-in to advance to the Semi-final.  Rob had the Bye in the Semis and ran a strong run with a PB E.T. of 8.341 on an 8.40 Dial, to go into the Final!! In the only race of the round, Philippa and Marie both broke out!  Philippa had a massive ET and Speed PB of 10.179 at 128.35 mph on a 10.53 Dial with Marie taking the win on a lesser breakout of 10.234 on a 10.30 Dial-in to go to her second Final of the season with Wild Bunch! So this set up a great Final! Rob chose an 8.33 Dial to be on the safe side, as did Marie with a 10.20! Rob recorded an 8.421 to Marie’s 10.277 and won on a holeshot! Great race!! In fact all our eliminations were great races and very entertaining to watch!

Here are our Top 4 winners:

1^st Place: Rob Brown in ‘Rebel’ (Many Congratulations to Rob on his first ever ‘Victory’ trophy!)

2^nd Place: Marie Mills in her purple altered (Very well done to Marie on making both Finals this season!)

3^rd Place: Philippa Turton in ‘Bitchcraft’ (A strong performance in the face of some gremlins! Well done!)

4^th Place: Phil James in ‘Rampage’  (Well done on another good Top 4 finish for Phil!)

Here are the Spot Prizes that were awarded:-

#1 Qualifier:  Philippa Turton in ‘Bitchcraft’ .0103 off (Fab!)

Best Appearing Car & Team: Philippa Turton and team in ‘Bitchcraft’ (Great appearance and PB!)

Commentator’s Choice: The Brown Brothers with ‘Rebel’ (Fantastic overall performance, PB and the Win!)

Here is the full field with PBs included:

Highlights of the weekend were completing all qualifiers and all 3 rounds of eliminations with much better weather than expected, and the small but amazing field of Wild Bunch! A great way to finish the season!

Massive thanks to all the Santa Pod marshals and officials, track and safety crews and organisers for all their hard work as always!! What stars they are!! Many thanks to all the fantastic team at eurodragster and Darryl Bradford on great commentary! Many thanks again also to our Springbridge MSUK and SPRC Championship Title sponsor Bob Hawkins of Springbridge Direct! His support is once again very much appreciated in those Series!! 

Very well done to all 5 of the Wild Bunch teams on another fantastic show!! And thanks very much for their support of the MSUK rounds! You all did yourselves proud! We hope we will get even more participants next season!

All the best,

Claire

:-) 

PS. Full final points and Series results will be updated as soon as I can!