Bringing you upto speed!

It has been awhile since I posted on this blog for the race team, so let me bring things upto speed.

Springspeed as reported earlier didn't work out so well for us, but we moved onto the Summer Nationals with the hope of better luck.

The Summer Nationals worked out to be another real mixed weekend. We ran 6.81 @ 196 on the first run, which was very wayward at times and still having oiling issues, so we hoped the later afternoon run would be better.

The afternoon run still gave us oiling problem headaches, but I went for it anyway. The run was going great and looking at the incrementals was on for a 6.7 or so. However the car gradually went towards the barrier until 1000ft when the car double clipped the retaining wall, glancing the headers and then the rear wheel ever so slightly. When I first hit the wall I lifted, and the car cruised to a 6.96 at only 170mph. The car was really on one, it was a shame it was wayward as we lost the race by .017 of a second.

After a complete checkover of the car and replacing the left bank of headers, we waited for the Final round on Sunday where the car did the burnout but lost oil pressure almost immediately. I shut the car down and later inspections found huge bearing failure. Lucky I spotted it early otherwise it would have been Easter all over again.

After a lot more headscratching, the crank was inspected once more and a large crack on a journal was found; brank new crank (which I bought before the start of the season) lasted 2 full runs, a few launches and half dozen burnouts. Now, it's nothing more than a paperweight! To say I'm gutted is a understatement, but we have been able to use a replacement crank which we will be using for the Open Sports Nationals this coming weekend.

We hope this has cured our problems, as the lack of general performance after the magic 6.6 run at Easter needs rectifying. We hope to do that at Shakespeare County over the August Bank Holiday.

Anyway, I leave you with a youtube video of me hitting the wall at the Summer Nationals. This in-car footage is great, and thanks to Paul Venners and the guys at Quartermilehigh.com for letting me put it up on youtube. Click the link below to see.

Nuthin Fancy Summer Nationals In-Car Footage

Thats enough from me, see you at August Bank Holiday.