Hi All.
Well this is a "quick" run down of the last 2 meetings.
We had a great time @ the 4 day Euro Finals. The Thursday was for the sportsman cars and we had 6 qualifiers. We had trouble finding the dial but eventually ran our best qualifier of 9.5705 on a 9.56 dial, at the time this got us no 5 qualifier. Since we were fighting to get into a 32 car field we were very happy with this. All our 60ft times were in the 1.39'S, bar 2. one which was our first and the other our last pass (1.42). Interestingly, we weren't pulling the wheels high and the vids were showing wheelspin
Anyway we were very happy to get some PB's since we ran 2 9.57's and bust 142mph 3 times ( Best by .53) Much beer was consumed. We also had 2 113.88 mph's in the 1/8th.
Friday was another fine day and matched the Thursday for good air. The wind was also in the right direction too, however, we couldn't find the 60ft again being first class out and had a long wait while the Pro classes ran. We didn't improve on our quallifier and I think we ended up @ # 10 qualifier. By this time anyone who was .09 or more off the dial wasn't in the first 32
We got 2 qualifiers on Saturday, the air was the same but we felt the track wasn't as good as a lot had poor 60ft times and the pod crew scraped the 60ft twice. The pro classes where having problems with oil downs, breakages, crashes
We ran a 9.62 and a 9.63 in our qualifying sessions. We dropped to # 11 qualifier. By now you had to be within .044 to get in the 32!
I looked at the tickets with a view to Sundays strategy, I had pulled 5 red lights in qualifying, I thought to myself " I'm gonna go out on a red here" That pod rollout is tight
We had drawn Niel Hunter in our first round, He's a seasoned campaigner and If I'm correct leading the championship at this point.
We pulled a pants .25 light to his 05 we had given him 2 tenthsI wasn't catching him anywhere on the track and I remember thinking "he's gonna breakout" sure enough he did, by .02. His 133mph terminal told me he'd backed off but not by enough. A gift.
That had us against Phil Sweeny in his altered for the 2nd round, a relative newcomer to pro et but experienced in drag racing. I went for the tree with a vengence given we didn't get any traction last time, low and behold we got traction..... and a red
Ho Hum.
We were happy to come away with some new PB's and drive the car back into the garage
Next weekend we got the car ready for the national finals, we had a vacuum leak but I couldn't find it, must have been small since we achieved full vacuum @ 3000 rpm anyway, it was just at idle we seemed to have probs
We arrived Friday afternoon set up and got ready for tea, there were 10 of us and Cath made Christmas dinner. Turkey, pork, all the trimmings Tinsel, tree, lights, crackers etc. It was surreal.
We got three qualifiers on Saturday, we were .06 off the dial at best. We couldn't 60ft and had probs with wheelspin and pulling to the left. We found the shock settings had moved (strapping the car to the trailer sometimes catches the adjusters) and managed to go streight again but we were way off unable to break 140 mph 'til eliminations. No point in looking for something wrong with the car, everyone was the same. A 9.67 and a 9.68 wasn't that far off anyway given the air and wind direction.
We cherried the first round, I should know by now that Pod's rollout is tight and I was slightly annoyed with myself.
But, we were happy to be able to drive the car back into the garage.
I'll pull the motor over the close season to check stuff and freshen the usual along with some mods for next year.
Thanks for listening.
Dave.
Posted: 05 Sep 2009 11:50
) and accurate dial ins saw us through the field only to be thwarted by an oil pump gasket in the finals 
We also ran a new mph PB of 142, which was nice 
If I remember rightly, all bar 2 of the 1/8 et's were in the hi 6.1's in the 112 / 113 mph range.
.gif)
That baby does hook up. Not as much frame twist as I have seen in others either.