Easter Thunderball: Day Three

Easter Sunday arrived and overnight we had cloud come in and the wind changed direction which meant that the weather was a bit cooler, which was perfect. The clouds soon cleared and the weather was spot on for the racing. We knew after yesterday that the track took some treatment after racing to help the conditions so the track was a lot better from our perspective to race on.

After dropping the oil after the 6.95 the day before, the weather conditions changed so much we decided to run some changes in the fuel system and took the car to the line. I took the left lane as it appeared to be holding out well. After a strong burnout, the car launched quite nicely but got into quite a uncomfortable bounce and skipping which caused the car to become quite unstable. After a quick pedal about 400ft out I shifted into high gear and drove it through to run a 6.78 @ 191mph.

When the crew came to pick me up I was suprised at the time as I knew the bounce would cost me time. Martin Cottle filmed a great video of the run, which can be seen in the link below:

6.78 @ 191 mph run

After this run during the maintenance we found a few issues with the fuelling which were quickly remedied. The later pairing in the day we were to run against Adam Gleadow in the Motor Psycho 34 Ford Altered, and we both pulled strong burnouts again. Sadly shortly before staging Adam's car shut down with problems so I took the solo.

The run itself was as close to perfect as I have ever felt in the car; the car launched great, didn't buck around after launch, and the ride was so smooth both shifts were great and it really charged through the finish line. The shutdown area got a little hairy about 200metres before the turnoff as I overcooked the braking and got into a bounce but no harm done.

The crew came up to get me and were all quiet, walking towards me like a mexican standoff was about to commence. In my head I thought I had either done something very stupid or very good!

Thankfully it was the latter! They told me I had run 6.54 @ 208.96mph and we were ecstatic! Martin Cottle again filmed the run, and that clip can be found below:

6.54 @ 208mph run

After a quick celebration we did the usual maintenance and found that a crank problem had reared it's head again, so with that we made the car ready for tomorrow. When Easter Monday came along we were to be in the final against Gary Page driving Chaos, but I decided after such a great weekend, and we knew the problem wouldn't go away with the crank, I aired on the side of caution and trailored the car so we can properly repair it for the next meeting.

So with that, after a few years of Easter being a problematic / head scratching first meeting of the year, we walked away from the 2011 Thunderball with a big smile on our face which was great.

Also quick facts; the Topolino is now the 3rd fastest blown alcohol altered in Europe!, and to add to that the 2nd fastest! Hopefully we can keep the performance consistant from here on in.

The next update will be a workshop update prior to Springspeed in 2 weekends time, so catch us then.

Thanks for reading!
Joe