Hi folks, here is the news from the Wild Bunch ‘Summer Showdown’ at the ‘Mopar EuroNationals’ on 7^th – 9^th August. Many thanks to the Mopar organisers for once again including us at this great event, and even on their official T-shirt! Much appreciated!

This event was Round 3 of our 30th Annual Wild Bunch Series and Round 4 of the Spirit of Nostalgia Challenge. 

This event always has a more relaxed feel to it and there is usually lots of track time available. We were thrilled once again to be on the running order and scheduled as a class for our sessions. This worked brilliantly well for us in the Wild Bunch, as well as all the officials and marshals and organisers! Many thanks again to them for this! There was even a bonus run added on the Friday evening after the RWYB day! Though several teams did not have their full crews there by then or had arrived late afternoon so were not able to make use of this. Hopefully next year!

The Wild Bunch had 15 fab teams participating this weekend. The Friday was a test day / Run-What-You-Brung and 4 teams took part during this dry day. The most notable performance was by Loz Butcher in his fabulous ‘Mean Streak’ slingshot. He ran over 160mph for the first time ever and set a new PB 161.91mph! Very well done Loz and team! 

For the bonus round on Friday evening 6 teams took part: Dan Wilson ran a great PB speed of 129.04mph in his “Antique Toy” slingshot, Loz made another great pass of 8.250 at 160.18mph, Dave Shoemark ran a PB speed of 139.04mph in “The Crewman” slingshot, Joey Childs ran a PB 10.619 in the “Fortunate Son” altered, Mick Sharpe ran a PB ET and Speed of 8.691 @ 147.67mph in his “Ridin’ Dirty” altered, and Kyle Southworth ran a PB speed of 149.06mph in his “Big Bro” altered! What a fantastic round for them all! Well done! Many commiserations to the Browns who suffered starter motor and flexplate problems with their “Rebel” slingshot when firing up in the pits. This sadly sidelined the car for the rest of the event. Best Wishes to the whole team on sorting the issues.

Saturday started warm and dry as expected. The Wild Bunch had our first round of the day just after 11:25am. 11 teams took part. Personal highlights of this round saw the very welcome return of ‘Crazy’ Chris Hartnell and the “Backdraft” team, after a long 15 months of waiting for parts to build the slingshot’s new engine!! He put in a wheelying checkout half pass for starters of 11.66 @ 75mph. Another big welcome return saw Phil James and the “Rampage” team straight back into Phil’s regular numbers at 9.518 at 138mph! The Marras were back out with “Wrathchild” after having had issues on fireup the previous day. Our second run of the day was around  2:40pm and 13 teams took part. A personal highlight of that round was the debut of Tom Bushby in his slingshot.  Tom had literally just collected the car on Friday after buying it from Steve & Lesley Field, their former “Black Pig Too” slingshot. We all send our very Best Wishes to the Fields.  Tom put in a burnout and launch for a 17-second pass, his first time in any dragster, after having crewed for several years for the “Showtime” Nitro Funny Car and Brendan Murray’s slingshot in the States. Chris was on his second pass with the new engine and went right back into the 8’s with an 8.985 @142.15mph, still conservative on the tune. Dave Shoemark ran a brilliant PB ET of 9.492 in “The Crewman” slingshot! Rob White put in a strong 11.191 pass in the “Happy Daze” slingshot. Kyle Southworth ran a very strong 9.088 @ 147.16mph in his “Big Bro” altered. The third round of the day for the Bunch began at 4:18pm. 10 drivers took part in this round. Andy Roy posted a new PB ET of 9.559 @ 138.67mph in “The Shawcrank Redemption” slingshot, whilst Joey Childs set a new PB ET of 10.563 in the “Fortunate Son” altered. We also had a fourth round Saturday beginning at 6:50pm where 14 drivers took part. Chris was back out with “Backdraft” and ran a 9.11 @ 139mph with a ¾ pass. Tom Bushby ran a 12.98/58 half pass and Rob White ran an even quicker 11.16, showing that their new cam was working well.

Sunday dawned warm and dry again! We were able to get all 3 scheduled competition rounds in and might have been able to squeeze another one in if it had been cooler, and all the cars had been cooler! The first round was around 11:10am and saw 12 teams taking part. This was a stellar round for many teams! Phil James ran a fantastic .0029 off Dial straight off the bat! Dan Wilson was .004 off and Joey Childs .007 off. The top 4 teams were all within .015 and the top 8 teams all within .059 off Dial! Great competition! Tom Bushby posted the Best Reaction overall on his pass with an .056! Unfortunately Loz redlit, on another low 8-second/160mph pass. The second round took place at 2pm, right on schedule!  12 drivers took part. Dave Shoemark led the round with an .0021 off Dial, which later proved to be closest of the day. Tom Bushby bypassed the 11s’ and 10s and posted an excellent 9.058 @ 122.08mph on his first full pass!  Unfortunately Allan Schofield redlit on this round. Mick Sharpe posted an excellent PB ET of 8.508, reaching his target of getting into the 8.50s! Dan moved into the lead after this round, courtesy of his .029 off Dial. Our third and final round started at 4:10pm. Andy Roy posted a new PB ET of 9.552, very consistent across two of his runs. Tom Bushby knocked his new PB out of the park, posting his first ever 8-second run on only his 5^th ever pass in his slingshot, and in fact in any dragster! He recorded an excellent 8.868 @ 140.67mph for his first time over 140mph too! What a debut!! Well done to him and the whole team who made excellent progress on the learning curve! Welcome to the Wild Bunch Tom, Jeff, Jane and Molly!! Dan was closest overall on this round with an .013 off Dial, so had three excellent runs! Great to get 3 full rounds of racing!

Our winners were:

1^st Place: Dan Wilson in ‘Antique Toy’ .0160 average (Great to see Dan and team back to winning ways!)

2^nd Place: Joey Childs in ‘Fortunate Son’ .0422 average (Great performance for his highest place yet!)

3^rd Place: Dave Shoemark in ‘The Crewman’ .0449 average (and closest to Dial in Round 2)

4^th Place: Phil James in ‘Rampage’ .0527 average (Great to see Phil back out and straight into the Top 4!)

For info, the other teams to complete all 3 rounds without redlights were:

5^th: Kyle Southworth in ‘Big Bro’ (.0572 average)

6^th: Andy Roy in ‘Shawcrank Redemption’ (.1007 average)

7^th: Mick Sharpe in ‘Ridin’ Dirty’ (.1818 average)

8^th: Marie Mills in her purple altered (.2083 average)

9^th: Rob White in ‘Happy Daze’ (.2193 average)

10^th: Tom Bushby in his slingshot (2.307 average)

 

Spot Prize winners were:

Closest to Dial-in: Dave Shoemark in ‘The Crewman’  .0021 off Dial in Round 2

Best Reaction:Tom Bushby in his slingshot .056 (real sharp already, great to win a trophy on his WB debut!)

Best Burnout: Loz Butcher in ‘Mean Streak’ (for his strong smoky burnouts)

Most Improved E.T.: Mick Sharpe in ‘Ridin’ Dirty’ (improving from a previous PB of 8.938 to 8.508 (an overall improvement of 0.430 of a second! Well done on reaching that goal of an 8.50 run Mick!)

Best Appearing Car & Team: Mick Sharpe in ‘Ridin’ Dirty’ (smart team shirts and a very well turned out car!)

Commentator’s Choice: Dave Shoemark in ‘The Crewman’ (ET & speed PBs, close, consistent, nice slingshot)

The full list of participants with PBs added is as follows:

 

WB  1	Rob & Pete Brown	Rebel
WB  3	Pete & Rob Brown	Wrathchild
WB  4	Dan Wilson	Antique Toy	129.04 mph
WB  6	Chris Hartnell	Backdraft
WB 23	Loz Butcher	Mean Streak	161.91 mph
WB 45	Phil James	Rampage
WB 76	Tom Bushby	Slingshot	8.868 / 140.67 (DEBUT!)
WB 89	Andy Roy	Shawcrank Redemption	9.552
WB 98	Rob White	Happy Daze
WB 104	Dave Shoemark	The Crewman	9.492 / 139.04
WB 130	Joey Childs	Fortunate Son	10.563
WB 164	Marie Mills	Purple Altered
WB 301	Mick Sharpe	Ridin’ Dirty	8.508 / 148.15
WB 526	Allan Schofield	Scud Altered
WB 546	Kyle Southworth	Big Bro	149.06 mph

Please do let me know if I have missed any PB’s!!

Loz was the Quickest and Fastest Wild Bunch driver over the weekend, with bests of 8.250 and 161.91mph. 

Well done to all on a brilliant event!! Massive thanks to the hardworking track crew in the warm weather. Many thanks to all marshals and officials and everyone at Santa Pod for all they do, so much appreciated!

Huge thanks to our great sponsors this weekend: “Boxo UK - Tool Supplier” and “Field of Dreams CL Caravan Site” in Suffolk who sponsored all of our 6 Spot Prizes. 

Highlights of the weekend were some great matchups throughout, and some friendly rivalry like the mini PB battle between Dan Wilson, Andy Roy and Dave Shoemark and the Marie Mills & Mick Sharpe contest with the pair only 1 place apart! We were so pleased to welcome Phil back after several months off, and welcome fantastic newcomers Tom and team as well as a massive welcome back to Crazy Chris and the “Backdraft” team! There was some really close competition this weekend and it was an excellent event where we were thrilled to have a fully dry weekend again! It was another great show from the Wild Bunch with so many PB’s and close runs to Dial-in and also getting the 3 full rounds of racing completed! 

Well done to all those who took part and really did themselves proud again, and congratulations to our winners! Commiserations to those with breakages or issues which we hope can be fixed soon!! Thanks to Max Frost for all his organisation and assistance, superb commentator Colin Theobald for his great support, and to Graham and Julian and the brilliant team at eurodragster for all their hard work to bring the news and photos to everyone! Many thanks to every single person at Santa Pod and to all the Mopar guys and girls for all their hard work during the weekend! Thanks very much for having us! Another fantastic event!!

All the best

Claire 😊