The Main Event 2004 - Santa Pod Raceway May 29th - 31st

Words and pictures By Chris Dossett, on-track pictures by Ivan Sansom

We were ready in good time and towed down to line up ready to take the right lane alongside Leif Helander. Everything went to plan until Leif was shut off after the burnout. A bye run for us and on the green John nailed the throttle and the slicks broke free almost immediately. As you can imagine to see the car idling down the track is incredibly frustrating for the team. We collected John from the top end and headed back to the pits to begin the service routine. The initial strip down revealed some minor damage to the crankshaft rear main bearing. This had happened as the engine had over-revved a little as the tyres spun. Often in these cases, when the revs go too high, severe damage can occur to this bearing, quite often blackening the crankshaft and damaging it beyond repair. In this instance however the damage was minimal and the crankshaft was polished clean in situ thanks to the digital dexterity of my bottom-end colleague Paul. This was good news for us as a damaged crank would mean replacing the engine and we only have one spare. As you can imagine facing two more days of an important meeting with no spare engine could make things a little tense for the team!

The motor was rebuilt and all seemed well. It was decided to check the timing before packing up as it would be one less job for the morning. Suddenly all did not seem so well. One ignition circuit was not firing. What followed was a painstaking search for the fault. As the darkness drew in various parts were removed, swapped, changed and re-fitted until finally a faulty crank trigger was found to be the culprit. We hadn't been expecting a late night but there you are. Sometimes the simple problems can be the hardest to find.

The weather forecast was not actually that good but the scene at the Pod was somewhat different. In fact the weather men were proved wrong as it turned out to be a fine summers day.

With the car rebuilt and ready to go the brains of the team, Bob and Bill set about tuning out some of the power with the intention of getting some grip off the line and hopefully getting the beast down the track under full power. We had another shot at qualifying scheduled and as we towed down Bob warned John that there was chance that he could experience some tyre shake. I don't imagine prior warning of something so unpleasant makes it any easier to cope with but at least John could be ready for it when and if it happened.

Left lane this time and Gordon Smith was to our right. Both cars rolled into their burnouts together and reversed back behind the line. All eyes on our team focussed on those rear slicks as the green light came on and the noise level suddenly increased by about 1000%. The car dug in and left the line, clouds of clutch dust emerged and suddenly we remembered what it was like to see hours of preparation all go right.The car was on a charge but it was short lived some tell-tale tyre smoke from the left and it started to head towards the left hand guardrail. Closer it went, and closer, and closer, and........blinking heck John! Spuff got it straight and coasted over the line in 5.9 seconds. Not bad when you consider he took the long way around!

At the top end, much to our surprise, the car was unscathed. Less surprising was the fact that John was as calm as ever, you would think he had just got out of bed. "It wasn't that close" he explained casually. "There was easily two or three feet there"  "I could see which radio station we had on in the trailer, then I got off it" (Our trailer was parked alongside the track between the eighth mile mark and the finish line). All looked fine with the car so we hitched it up and pulled it back.

We were in a more optimistic mood as we began the service. The car had got off the line, it launched well and got to 221mph by the eighth mile mark, which was getting back to our best performances, it hadn't backfired or gone bang in any way, we had some data for a baseline and as reference for future tuning settings. And the sun was shining. Time to get back into the swing of a routine service. Within ten minutes things looked a little less happy. Once the diaper was removed an alarming vision presented itself. There was a dent in the oil pan. A dent that was coming from the inside of the motor. Something had been trying to get out! Closer inspection revealed a tiny hole in the block, about the size of a penny but undoubtably many times more expensive. Either number seven or eight con rod had broken. Maybe both. The dent prevented us from getting the oil pan off to find out. Things had taken a turn for the worse. Could it get even more worse still? Yes. The car had had an attack of the shakes as predicted. One of the things that had suffered in the shake was the switch for the computer which had shaken itself into the off position. There were only two seconds of data recorded on the Racepak. Now there was only one course of action. Throwing our hands up in the air going "aaggh" and heading for home was not an option. The spare motor that had been lurking with intent under the bench in the trailer was summoned. The old motor was hoisted out and soon a bare chassis was sitting expectantly, waiting for a fresh motor and another race.

The engine swap and all that goes with it went as well as could be expected but the thought of two rounds of competition tomorrow with no spare motor was on everybody's mind.

The car was ready, we were ready. We pulled out of the pit early and waited at the top end of the fire up road for the Top Methanol Dragsters that were due to run ahead of us to go by. The sun was shining and we were quietly optimistic about a successful days racing ahead.

Now then, one of the unfortunate things that occurs from time to time in drag racing is the oildown. Some unlucky racer breaks his motor and deposits a quantity of oil on the track. The time that elapses while this is cleaned up is magnified in your own mind by a factor of ten if you happen to be waiting to run. Equally unfortunate is the unwritten law that states that if it isn't you that drops the oil then it will be you in the fire up road waiting to run when it happens. I lost track of how many oildowns happened in the time it took for us to get from the pits to the startline. Whilst this was going on I lost track of time and almost lost consciousness at one point. Suffice to say that it was over three hours. In that time we chatted, contemplated and conspired. We covered the car up when it looked like rain. When the clouds passed we took the cover off to discover that Will was still in there. We took a look at the engine block that had been split in half in Ulf Leanders pit and got a glimpse of "Nice" Nigels darker side as he delighted in bursting his three year old son Jordan's balloon. To make it worse he then taunted me with home-cooked food from the safety of the other side of a chain link fence. As we finally got to the pairing lanes John got suited up and took his seat in the car. More hold-ups followed and it looked like rain again so the cover went over the car. I idly wondered wether John would go to sleep like a fire-suited budgerigar once the cover went on.

Eventually it was time for us to run. As number one qualifier we had a bye run but after such a long wait an easy pass would be a real anti-climax and was never our intention. It seemed like we had been away from the pit for days as the sizable crowd watched John burnout in the left lane. After staging the car launched well but soon started to drift off to the left. John took the sensible option and clicked it off, coasting through to the final.

Back in the pits we were back to something like a routine service. No damage no problems and turned around in plenty of time. People gathered and watched the team at work and I was reminded of a new phenomenon that is becoming more and more common. People were holding their mobile phones up in the air and pointing them towards the car. I have yet to see anyone making a phone call on their camera though. I guess it is only a matter of time. We were back in the fire up road before we knew it.

The final was between ourselves and Leif. The trip down the fire up road seemed like a blast on the motorway compared to earlier. It was about 18:00 before we got to run. We were in the left lane. With burnouts completed the two cars moved into stage, on the green John launched hard, the car seemed to want to take off as it left in a haze of nitro flames and clutch dust. In the other lane Leif was going strong until a shower of sparks announced the demise of his clutch. John meanwhile was long gone and crossed the line first to take the win with a slowing 6.08.

At the top end the car looked clean and well. Once again we had got the right result which is always a nice way to end a weekend. we hooked the car up and made our way back. Back in the pits all that was left to do was pack it all away and look forward to the next outing.

Showtime Racing are next in action at the third round of the Nitro Funny Car Championship at Shakespeare County Raceway's Fall Nationals on the weekend of August 28th - 30th. See you there!

You can 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. They're all great, check 'em out!