Hi folks!!

We had a great weekend at the 38^th Annual NSRA Hot Rod Drags on 18^th - 20^th  September with a fantastic field of 23 entrants. There had been 28 teams entered but unfortunately 5 teams had to withdraw for various reasons. We wish them all the best and hope to see them back out soon. We were able to complete 3 great rounds of racing on Sunday!! This was our last Lifestyle RWYB type event of our brilliant 30^th Anniversary season, and it was Wild Bunch Series Round 4, Spirit of Nostalgia Series Round 6 and Roy Wilding Nostalgia Race Cars Series Round 3 (Final). Roy has kindly put up a Prize Fund of £500 for the Top 3 in his Series this season, so once again, very many thanks to him!! 

Huge Thanks to all of our fantastic Sponsors this weekend! So very much appreciated! …

1^st Place trophy: C&C Nostalgia Drag Racing Team

Spot Prizes: Wild Jen Dog Grooming, Team Scumbag, Dave Shoemark of Footprint Racing and a kind anonymous donor.

Friday was a Run-What-You-Brung day and 7 teams were out testing that day, with Loz Butcher getting the most out of the day with 4 runs! All Race Classes were due to have one practice round on the Friday evening, but unfortunately an earlier rain shower meant that this did not take place. 

On Saturday we had 3 rounds scheduled during the Race class sections of the day. Our first session took place from just before 11am and 20 drivers made runs during this round. The second session was from about 10 to 4 and all 23 drivers made passes. The third session did not start til around 6:40pm and 22 drivers ran with the session finishing just before 7pm. Due to some delays during the day there was not enough time to hold the traditional ‘Cracklefest’ which was a shame as at least 8 teams hoped to join in! Commiserations to Kev Osborne and team who experience some damage in the ‘Texas Ranger’ altered. Such a shame!! We hope this is minimal and that they will be out early next season, having more fun! ‘Crazy’ Chris was still tuning the new engine in ‘Backdraft’ and the team were making changes each run, and sat out the Sunday, doing some checks on the new setup, being cautious after having to get the heads and valves machined after the last event, and preparing for the Finals next weekend. Best of luck Chris!! 

We would like to say a big shoutout to Jack Hewitt who has recently bought the iconic little ‘Spirit’ dragster and was at the track at the weekend, ironing out some issues and getting familiar with the car whilst meeting other Wild Bunchers. He and the team hope to join us next season! Also a very big warm welcome to the Johnstone family, as Lee and Ellie bought Dave Shoemark’s gorgeous “The Crewman” slingshot last Sunday and Ellie was making her first 3 passes in the car under the supervision of Dad Lee, and the expert advice and familiarisation support from Dave and all the team at Footprint Racing! She ran into the 12’s at nearly 110mph! Although the team were not running with us yet, they were welcomed into the fold and now can’t wait to join the Wild Bunch next year with their whole family team! For those that don’t know, the team ran the iconic ‘Ain’t No Saint’ Volvo Gasser for years with Lee and all 3 daughters driving, and Lee has decades of drag racing experience, with the girls and grandchildren growing up around racing. 

Sunday morning began dry and reasonably warm for the time of year.  Our first competition round began at about 11am and 21 teams took part. There was a bit of a wait for the second round which started at 1:45pm, with our third round beginning at 5 to 4. In both of these rounds all 21 running teams took part.  I might add that this is the only time in our history that I believe that all teams starting in the first round actually made all three rounds!! Well done to all! I am sure one reason was because no one wanted to go home early after such a great event celebrating our 30^th Anniversary of the Wild Bunch Series!!! 

So another great event where we were really lucky with the weather overall, getting to complete 3 practice runs and 3 close rounds of competition! In fact the 1^st to 3^rd place finishers were only split by less than one hundredth of a second over the total of the 3 rounds!!! So about three thousandths on average!!!

Well done to all of our great winners! Here are the Top 4 winners:

1^st Place: Gavin Meanley in ‘Charles Bang Special’  .0366  (the team’s first win with this historic slingshot owned by Dean Butler!!)

2^nd Place: Dan Wilson in ‘Antique Toy’  .0379 (a great result to finish the season!)

3^rd Place: Terry Clifford in ‘Ratcatcher Resurrection’ .0399 (great to see Terry back in the Top 4!)

4^th Place: Allan Schofield in ‘Scud’ .0551 (another great Top 4 placing!)

Here are the Spot Prizes that were awarded (expertly fabricated by Elaine Wilding of Coolengineeredart):-

Closest to Dial-in (Race-day): Marie Mills in her Purple Altered  .0022 off!! (Marie led after Round 2)

Best Reaction (Race-day): Harley Coulsell in ‘Ballbreaker’  .030  (a bit close!!)

Best Burnout: Harley Coulsell in ‘Ballbreaker’  (fantastic long smoky burnouts!)

Best Appearing Car: Bradley Cooper in ‘Back from the Past’ (great to see the whole team and Bradley back in the 10's!)

Best Appearing Team:  The Proper Charlies with the ‘Charles Bang Special’ and the ‘Charlie Banger’ (a fantastic period perfect pair of cars and great show by the team!)

Moment of the Weekend: Loz Butcher for unfortunately redlighting after the crew held up a sign to say ‘Don’t Go Red Loz’! Aw! Such a shame as he ran .003 off Dial!

Most Improved MPH: Damon Taylor in ‘Charlie Banger’ - improvement of 46.24 mph! (from 49.85 to 96.09! Wow!)

Commentator’s Choice: Wayne Colliver in ‘Funky Digit’ for his first ever 8-second pass! 8.921! Congratulations!!! Very well deserved Wayne and team!!

NSRA Quickest E.T. in WILD BUNCH competition:  Harley Coulsell in ‘Ballbreaker’  8.070 (fab run!)

This is Harley’s PB and he is currently our youngest Wild Bunch competitor – he is not 21 until next month!!

NSRA Award for Quickest Flathead overall: Bradley Cooper in ‘Back from the Past’  10.934 (one of two 10’s)

At our prize presentation we also paid tribute to the family’s legendary Crew Chief, Ken ‘Mr Flathead’ Cooper, British Drag Racing Hall of Fame Member, most senior and experienced Wild Bunch Crew Chief at the age of 89! Ken is celebrating 60 years of racing at Santa Pod Raceway as he first raced in ’66!! Many Congratulations, Ken!!

Also of note, Loz Butcher was our Fastest Driver of the weekend with his great 163.08 mph PB!!

 

Here are all the 23 participants along with lots of fab PBs!:

 

WB  4	DAN WILSON	ANTIQUE TOY
WB  6	CHRIS HARTNELL	BACKDRAFT
WB  8	HARLEY COULSELL	BALLBREAKER	8.070
WB 12	PHILIPPA TURTON	BITCHCRAFT
WB 19	WAYNE COLLIVER	FUNKY DIGIT	8.921 (first 8!)
WB 22	BRADLEY COOPER	BACK FROM THE PAST
WB 23	LOZ BUTCHER	MEAN STREAK	163.08 mph
WB 25	TERRY CLIFFORD	RATCATCHER RESURRECTION
WB 30	KEV OSBORNE	TEXAS RANGER
WB 42	BOBBY WRIGHT	ALTURD
WB 53	GAVIN MEANLEY	CHARLES BANG SPECIAL
WB 89	ANDY ROY	SHAWCRANK REDEMPTION	9.449 / 141.26 (first 140+mph!)
WB 113	PAUL TARRY	TRIGGER’S BROOM
WB 116	IAN WILD	WILD’SCAT
WB 130	JOEY CHILDS	FORTUNATE SON	10.450
WB 164	MARIE MILLS	PURPLE ALTERED
WB 245	JOHN SHAROD	NEVER SAY NEVER
WB 297	DAMON TAYLOR	CHARLIE BANGER	13.969 / 96.09 (first 13!)
WB 383	IAN ARMITAGE	OLD GUYS RAIL	8.620 / 156.36
WB 450	EMMA BUTCHER	4th DIMENSION	11.799 / 118.88
WB 526	ALLAN SCHOFIELD	SCUD
WB 546	KYLE SOUTHWORTH	BIG BRO
WB 740	CHRIS BARNES	The WAGE DESTROYER	11.145 / 117.31

[Please do let me know if I have missed any!!]

Many Congratulations to all those who ran PB’s at the weekend, especially those who kept setting and re-setting them!! Excellent!! 

Highlights of the weekend include the great field of Wild Bunch, completing 3 rounds of very close competition, some excellent match races,  and as always the brilliant group of people, who all put on a wonderful show and did themselves proud as usual!! There were lots of individual highlights and many PBs and it is such a pleasure to race with our fantastic club!! Well done to every team who took part and many Congratulations to our winners!

Many thanks to all of our amazing trophy sponsors this weekend! So much appreciated! Massive thanks to all the hardworking Santa Pod track crew and every single person involved at Santa Pod and the NSRA for putting on yet another brilliant event for the 38^th running of the Hot Rod Drags!! Thanks to Colin Theobold and Thomas Cook-Abbott for great commentary! Thanks also to Graham and Julian and the whole eurodragster team for great reporting and photos! Brilliant!!

We are really looking forward to our final event of the season next weekend, the ‘National Finals’ where we have 7 excellent team entered for the grand finale of our 30^th Anniversary Wild Bunch Series, the Spirit of Nostalgia Challenge Final, the Springbridge MSUK Challenge and the Santa Pod Racers Club Championship for Wild Bunch! Hope it’s another great event to finish the season on a high!!

All the best

Claire

:-) :-) 

 

PS. For info, here are all the finishers places (18 placings as there were 3 of 21 teams who had red lights):

5^th place: Marie Mills in Purple Altered          .0669

6^th place: Joey Childs in ‘Fortunate Son’       .1242

7^th place: John Sharod in ‘Never Say Never’  .1339

8^th place: Ian Armitage in ‘Old Guys Rail’      .1478

9^th place: Bradley Cooper in ‘Back from the Past’ .2516

10^th place: Andy Roy in ‘Shawcrank Redemption’ .2517

11^th place: Damon Taylor in ‘Charlie Banger’ .2803

12^th place: Philippa Turton in ‘Bitchcraft’       .2885

13^th place: Ian Wild in ‘Wild’sCat’                 .3369

14^th place: Harley Coulsell in ‘Ballbreaker’     .4466

15^th place: Paul Tarry in ‘Trigger’s Broom’     .4877

16^th place: Wayne Colliver in ‘Funky Digit’     .6810

17^th place: Chris Barnes in ‘The Wage Destroyer’ .6851

18^th place: Emma Butcher in ‘4^th Dimension’  .9051 (because she went so much quicker than Dial!!)