You're in England now! Drive on the left side and watch out for the bowmen...
Dirty SS opened with a 10.88 straight in from the M1 after a 250 miles drive from the ferry in Newcastle.
Just the change of wheels, adjusting the four HAL shocks, turn on the valves for the race fuel system
and hook on the blower belt...which was totally shaved of teeth before the finish line!! Then what to do?
We had no more belts with us so we only got that one run the first weekend. Now I called back home
to Tommy "Aga" Olsson who fixed 6 more belts and arranged them to come over to England with
other racers - thanks Jörgen Leanders and Jöran Persåker. And again, thanks Tommy!
The Blackout Family Team stayed over at the Pod in a tent. It was cold. Even my wife thought so.
Now we had a couple of days off, just as we planned in January! Not far from Santa Pod you'll find a lot
of interesting sights. As Shakespeare's house of birth (1564) in beautiful Stratford Upon Avon.
The whole town is in old english style and in top shape. We will certainly go back there. And a visit to
the best preserved medievel castle in England - The Warwick Castle - was also a treat for all of us.
Wednesday - back on track! And new belts! But still they didn't last over the finish line! I wasn't at all
prepared for this belt problem because one (1) single belt lasted all summer on the 10 psi
set up. However, the resistance of making the 20 psi boost was a lot tougher than expected!
In one run I even did a soft and short burnout to save the belt a little - but it didn't help.
The belt destructions really ruined our racing at Santa Pod, even if we were really happy for being here
and meeting all the lovely english teams and getting into the first 10's.
Axel was very helpful, like spraying the bugs on the intercooler with WD-40! One pit neighbor was danish racer Martin
Boye and his brutal 1963 Impala with 600 ci motor. These Big Bad Black Impalas draw some attention.
Martin Boye also have Santa Pod as his favourite dragstrip since he ran 9.6's here already in 2002.
The 10.802 launch at Time trials, Wednesday. The preparation and hook at Santa Pod is just awesome!
But then I was losing power all the way. The teeth on the supercharger belt was again totally shaved off
by the finish line. FAST computer logged 20 psi in the burnout, 17 psi at the start and only 7 psi
at the top end! This uneven boost was of course giving the FAST a hard time and you can
both see and hear the problem in this 4,4 MB video:
The video of the 10.802 second run
(and eurodragster.com photographer
Sharkman in action as well!).
Perfect launches. 60's in 1.53 seconds. Still I've got big problems to stall at 2400 RPM which the Vigilante is custom
built for. Brakes don't hold the battleship still beyond 1800 RPM, it just moves into RED on the tree!
While pre-staging going into stage I also have to switch on the logging of the FAST computer. And switching off the
stereo. And stop talking on my mobile phone. So there I am, staging in hell. But then the POWER comes...
I boxed the inlet air to shield off the hot air from engine compartment. And the Gallery grew larger by the hour.
Another excellent launch moment saved by Stefan Boman!
We tried everything to get them to last. Hard tension, harder. Soft, softer. The tensioner pulley on the inside or on the
outside. No way. The race was over for us when all the belts were gone...with the Wind.
Old friend Lars-Inge Johansson got serious problems during qualifying. Newly built and finished Pro Mod
' 66 Chevelle Station Wagon didn't got the chutes out all right so Lars-Inge went straight out of the track
at the far end and was badly hurt and hospitalized in UK for almost two weeks! Car was wrecked.
Gladly, Lars-Inge is home in Stockholm again, already checking what was left of the car! I asked him if
he will build another one - and if it will be a '66 Chevelle Station Wagon again? "Absolutely" he said.
It has always been 66 Chevelle Wagons for him ever since he started with streetracing in the 80's.
Welcome back Lars-Inge!
Hometown Blackrace officials blackened the Santa Pod pit area.
Nice guys and girls.
This is the racecar of Team Northrace! Kenneth Feldthusen was first towed by the Blackout SS to the
inspection. Then he ran 6.89 for No 1 spot in Competition Eliminator. Then they repaired their bus that
broke the clutch on the way down, then smoked the tires (!) in the semis. Then he drove the bus home.
Only in Britain...Our other pit neighbor Malcolm Motler was No 1 qualifier in our class Pro ET. He wrote
11.12 on his Chevy SB-propelled Morris Minor and stopped the clock at 11.12. Hey, how do you stop a
bracketracer like him? Malcolm found the car in 1989 as a couple of rusted scrap pieces and then he
and his family have built it to this nice hot rod and raced it for many years. Now going into the Finals
he wrote 11.00 on car and of course ran 11.00. So he won the Big Event! Congratulations!!
Lauren Sommerville and Axel Envall found each other at Santa Pod.
And Axel wants to send great hugs to Sharkman and Tog who
gave him a big package of small race cars!! Only Lauren
was more interesting...
Agneta, Axel and I found the 10's at last! But the long awaited #@&+¤// 9's...? We promise to find them in 2004.
Please join The HUNT!
On the way home the 4L60E transmission suddenly slipped badly in 3rd gear! Had to call a tow truck!
Only one person was excited about that...
Online from England!
We had a daily update from our testing and racing at Santa Pod Raceway in England.
You can find it at "PITLANE" - the guestbook/forum.
Thank you Sharkman and Stefan Boman for letting me use your wonderful pictures! Now I'm spoiled!
(More of this at the tech pages when they're done!)
This is what happened. It wasn't the 1-3rd gear package that slipped as we first thought, it was these
knuckles at the rear of the drum that hold the ring and the package that just let go!!
Typical! Everything just has to come down on me!
Click MEDIA to read magazine article on Santa Pod