The Allstar Nationals 20033

Nitro Funny Car Championship Round Three

Shakespeare County Raceway August 23rd-25th

Words And Pictures By Chris Dossett  On-track photos by Ivan sansom

Much has been written about the new Mustang body so you will know that it has come from John Force Racing and is one of only two that the Force guys have released. You will also know that it was used on Tony Pedregons car. Thankfully it had been an easy fit on to our chassis requiring modifications to the hooks at the rear, the tree at the front and the hole ahead of the screen where the injector sits. The paintjob was applied a week before the meeting by CC racing and featured a 'retro' Showtime logo similar to the one last seen on the Silver Pontiac, the idea of crewman Paul.

So how did it perform? Did we maintain our unbeaten record for the season? How many more things are now made of titanium? For answers to all these questions and more read on...

First job of the day was to get the car out of the trailer so that everybody could get a look at the new body (and we could get it ready to race).The Mustang has a number of differences to the Avenger and Pontiac we have used in recent years. The side elevation has a much more wedge-shaped appearance (complimented by the two straight parallel lines on our paintscheme) which is accentuated by the very square shape of the ledge along the side of the body. In addition to this the cockpit is visibly narrower and the nose is much wider. The whole thing is much more aerodynamically efficient having had the benefit of wind tunnel development. Close inspection of the body in the pits will reveal some very neat attention to detail which I am not going to bore you with here (I have many other things to bore you with right now) but I fully expect you to check it out at the finals.

There were some other changes around the car and trailer. The position of the radio antenna on the car had been changed. This was now mounted on the underneath of the chassis at the rear. This would eliminate the need to disconnect it every time we took the body off and also do away with the need to repair it every time I forgot to disconnect it! There were also shiny new headers on the car, two unused sets had been supplied with the Mustang body, and a new coffee maker in the trailer. You cannot imagine how important this last detail is! Once all these things had been noted it was time to play 'what's made out of titanium this time?' The answers, for those of you who missed them, are; the meaty looking body stand and the bracket on the right hand side of the chassis that the ignition components are mounted to. One of our previous additions to the titanium accessories range, the anti-gravity body prop, had to be modified since it was now too long for the new body, meaning that the car would not roll under the awning with the body up. The removal of a portion of this item reduced its weight from that of a drinking straw to that of a.....well...a drinking straw with a bit cut off it! The danger of the body prop blowing away in a stiff breeze is now a major concern.

If you have read any of this seasons previous reports you will be aware that the metal box on the front of the chassis that covers the clutch and fuel timers has had a bit of a hammering this year. Everytime the blower belt had come off it had taken a little time to drastically modify the shape of said box before leaving the vicinity of the vehicle by whatever means it could find. This was not a great problem in itself as we would simply hand the twisted remnants of the box to Nigel, put a hammer in his other hand and send him off to a place where the repetitive banging that ensued would not have us reaching for the Nurofen. In fact Nigel became so adept at this over the year that you could probably have handed him a squashed bread bin and he would have come back with a cover that would have fitted the box. All this time a brand new box lurked in the trailer waiting for its moment. That moment was now and Nigel was entrusted with the job of fitting it. This he did and we all stood and admired it. Shortly afterwards I'm sure I saw Nigel drop kick the old one into the field behind the trailer.

Other jobs undertaken in preparation for tomorrows runs (runs John?) included putting in the pushrods and setting the valve clearances, charging the computer batteries and assembling the clutch. As is customary at these times 'Wild' Bill Sherratt, Assistant Crew Chief, could be found at the rear of the trailer hunched over the clutch disc grinder gathering dust on various parts of his person. The Shakespeare County Raceway publicity machine was in full swing with both John and Bob doing radio interviews and John doing an on-camera interview later for the video of the event. This brought about one of my favorite quotes of the weekend. As the cameras arrived for the interview John asked Jo where his startline shirt was, in order that he would look smart for the camera. Her reply of "are you doing another radio interview?" didn't really require a response but one was forthcoming anyway! (Sorry Jo). The day finished with a rare treat as the red arrows performed for us. Well for the microlight folks actually but we got the full benefit. After putting everything away for the night Crew Chief Bob 'Bar-B-Q' Jarrett set about cooking the crews dinner which consisted of enough meat to feed a small country. We sat and ate as people passed overhead silently, separated from the ground by bits of flimsy fabric and tubing. I still didn't understand why they did it.

It was time to get down to business. The mags and plug leads were fitted while John checked out the fuel system. The Voyager tow car, supplied as ever by Myltons, was loaded up with the startline kit, the timing was set and the warm up followed. The usual routine, first on alcohol while the timing was checked, then on nitro. This was when we found that it had rained last night as the pressure from the headers lifted the awning and deposited the watery contents on the watching crowd. Everything checked out well except for a minor fault which was causing the RPM reading not to register on the datalogger. With this fixed we were ready for action at last.

The first qualifier saw us in the left lane with Gary Page in the right on his first Funny Car ride of the season. John launched hard and the familiar sight of header flames and clutch dust disappeared at an alarming rate up the track, not quite in a straight line but it looked like a good run from the outset and the numbers on the boards confirmed it. 5.383 seconds was a new Shakespeare County track record, beating our previous record of 5.564. A terminal speed of 271.08 was a nice accompaniment and talk in the tow car was of backing this speed up for a new UK record.

At the top end all seemed well except for a complaint from John about the chute release levers. The system was set up so that one lever had a large paddle attached which caused both levers to work together. John would normally pull one chute and then the other, or sometimes at Shakespeare County one chute would be enough. This time when he deployed the chutes at 270mph they came out together and the negative g-force was quite substantial to say the least!

Back in the pits the strip down revealed a motor in very good shape except for number three piston and liner. The bores were honed out, the liner replaced and fresh rods and pistons installed. All normal routine maintenance. Everything went well until it came to putting the last piston in, it just didn't want to be in there. Hardly surprising when you consider what we were going to do to it I suppose. A change of rings made no difference. Nor did a change of piston. Even the one that had come out wouldn't go back in. Eventually of course it fell in with no resistance. We are still not quite sure why. Despite this small set back we were ready for the next round of qualifying.

This time we took the right lane with Lex Joon in the left. Both cars launched hard with John getting ahead early. Lex was not going to give up though and he chased hard. John was still gaining speed rapidly after the eighth mile and he crossed the finish line in 5.409 seconds but there was a problem with Lex's car. A flash of flame from underneath was followed by a larger fire which engulfed the car after the finish line. The crews were held back until the safety team announced that Lex was ok. By the time we reached the car the drama was over and the MPM Avenger looked to be in a very sorry state.Thankfully Lex was ok. It was on the way back to the pits when we remembered that the top speed from that run, 272.73mph, had been within the required margin to set a new UK and European record, backed up by the earlier run. Hooray for us!

The strip down found that this time three pistons and liners had been damaged. These were replaced and the usual maintenance carried out with the addition of a full service on the cylinder heads. While dismantling the motor a rather unfortunate moment occurred in the trailer. A basic lesson in thermal conductivity follows: After a low five second run the motor becomes very hot. In fact it is not just hot. It is ever-so-very-hot-indeed. As you can imagine it then takes a while to cool down again, so it is still hot as we take it apart. The main bearing caps, being in the centre of the engine, are among the hottest parts. So when one of these was removed and placed on the bench for inspection it came as quite a surprise to those who witnessed it to see Bill Sherratt, without the aid of gloves or common sense, attempt to pick it up! A lesson was learnt at that point but you would think that in all the years Bill has been drag racing he would know that..........well..........enough said!

With most of the rebuild completed we packed away for the night. Although it was dark I could sense that there were people floating around in the sky above me, pointing and laughing as I attempted to find the tent that my wife had moved from its original location during the day.

The final preparations were made to the car and we were ready for the first round of eliminations. As number one qualifier we were due to meet the number four, Gary Page, and had lane choice. The left lane was the favored side and the two cars burnt out and lined up. Both cars launched hard but john had the edge, Gary chased hard but had problems and began to drop oil from the 1/8th mile mark, he was off the throttle and John was gone, shutting off early and slowing to a 5.862 at 177.87mph. At the top end John reported that the car had just not felt right so he shut off early. Back in the pits we found that he had made the right decision. One of the first indications that points to an unhappy motor is the condition of what can be found in the oil and the pan. A few particles of metal and a quantity of fuel are normal but in this case there were far too many metal bits for the crank to be fit and well. Imagine a sort of porridge with bits of metal instead of oats. And oil instead of milk. Used oil. With fuel in it. That's what it looked like. The crews attention at this point switched immediately from a routine service to a complete motor change. Having done this a few too many times last year the boys rapidly got down to business. The block was stripped of clutch components, blower, mags, blower belt and pulleys, heads and manifold. The block was extracted from the chassis and the spare installed in its place. All the oil lines, pump, tank and filter were cleaned of debris. Then the rebuild ensued which involves a reversal of the procedure and the refitting of all the previously removed parts. Obviously!

The turnaround was completed in good time for the final, a superb job by the crew. On the downside Bob discovered that to his dismay no data had been recorded from the previous run. This was due to the fact that somebody had inadvertently knocked the Racepak on/off switch into the 'off' position when refitting the mounting bolts which had shaken loose. Obviously the correct position for collecting data is 'on', not 'off'. And obviously when I say "somebody" knocked the switch off I mean that it was me that did it! Sorry guys. Won't happen again. (Sheepish look, clears throat and.................)

Anyway! Back to the race. For the final we were once again up against our old adversaries the Shockwave team. In the trailer before we towed the car to the fire up road John asked Bob "So what's the strategy?" The reply came quickly "Win!"

The right lane was Bobs choice for this run and the cars lined up with the acrid smell of nitro fumes filling the air. On the green the cars launched and in the right lane Gordon smoked the tyres and John was gone. The car roared up the track (grr), black striping the lane and showing header flames all the way. Once again John was off the throttle early but this time a huge cloud of smoke came from the car as he crossed the finish line. For the second time this weekend we were held back at the start until given the signal to go. Bill Sherratt was calling John on the radio to see if everything was ok. There was no answer but I could see from my vantage point in the driving seat of the tow car that John was already out of the car. After what seemed an age it was deemed safe for us to go and collect the car. On arrival it was clear that the motor had thrown a rod or two. Back in the pits removal of the oil pan revealed a hole in each side of the block and two chomped up rods and pistons in the pan (see picture, left). To make matters worse some of the debris had become trapped between the remaining rods and the block causing cracks and bulges in other parts of the block. A sort of fuel motor equivalent of a hernia. Despite this it was thought that repair of the block may be an option.

All that was left was for everything to be packed away amid thoughts of how we were going to be ready for the final round in just two weeks time. Somewhere on the other side of the airfield a man packed away his homebuilt flying contraption and, having watched cars travelling through the top end of the strip at 200+mph, on fire, wondered just what the attraction was of such a sport!

Check out details of all the action from the Championship on the Nitro Funny Car Championship web page where you can also find the latest points standings. You can also see more reports and photos from this meeting on Eurodragster.com, Dragsterworld, Togs Drag Racing Page,  Sharkmans Top End Tales, Feel The Noise and Bad Boys Imagin.

The next outing for the Showtime team will be the fourth and final round of the Nitro Funny Car Championship at Santa Pod Raceway at the European Finals meeting on September 5th - 8th. See you there!

Qualifying Round One

Qualifying Round Two

Eliminations Round One

Eliminations Final