Main Event 2006

Results

The Main Event 2006 - Santa Pod Raceway May 27th - 29th

After the encouraging performances at Easter the team were raring to get back on track. The Main Event at Santa Pod saw us welcome 2 new sponsors to the team, Poggipolini Titanium and Winged Aviation Material Supplies. Both companies are well established suppliers to other forms of motorsports and the sponsorship of the Showtime Funnycar is their first venture into drag racing. An introduction to both companies will be released on this website in due course.

We look forward to a successful relationship for all concerned.

The advance guard arrived at the track on Friday and the first order of the day for Crew Chief Bob Jarret was to build up the spare motor. After the sacrifice of a block to the Aluminium god at Easter (see previous report), the "Old Faithful" motor from last year had been put back in the car and Bob had used his extensive contacts in the US to locate a new billet block. The rest of the crew busied themselves with setting up and checking over the car.

Saturday

Saturday dawned with grey overcast conditions. We were due out after the first FIA Round around 1.00pm. Racing got underway on schedule, but then the rains came around 11am, putting a stop to racing until around 6pm! We were asked to be ready to run at 8pm so the car was warmed up in readiness. Down at the start line time was ticking away and at 8.45 there were still FIA cars to run before the 9pm curfew. There was no chance we would get a run, so we made our way back to the pit and hoped for better luck on Sunday when we were scheduled for 2 runs.

Sympathy must go to Toby Middlemiss from sponsors Balzers, who came to the track for the first time and never saw a wheel turned.

Sunday

What a difference a day makes as the song goes. Blue skies and sunshine! We were pleased that Ron Ryton of new sponsor Winged Aviation Material Supplies, and his daughter, had been able to join us for the day for their first experience of drag racing.

Again we were scheduled to run after the Pro Classes, which turned out to be around 3 o'clock. The format for the event was a series of match races against Shockwave.

John did his usual strong burnout, and on the hit the car launched with a 0.95 sec 60ft but a cylinder went out soon after. John kept with it to half track before clicking off and running through in 6 seconds.

"We had a cylinder go out which made the car drive left so I was trying to keep the car in the groove. But with only 7 cylinders working the car was not running fast enough to make the necessary downforce to keep it firmly planted to the track. So the car broke loose and was moving around, even though it may have looked like a straight run. So I clicked off early"

The car had been set up with more weight on the clutch to come in through the 2nd half of the track. The cylinder going out didn't give chance to see if it worked or not.

As part of the car service one head showed damage where the cylinder had gone out, so had to be replaced. No other problems were found and we were ready to run again.

It was still a fine sunny day as the car was fired up at the start just before 7pm. Mr Consistency Spuffard made yet another 0.905 sec 60 foot . "The car launched good and kept all 8 cylinders alight then just as I thought we were on for a good pass, almost 2 seconds into the run, the car started to smoke/spin the wheels. I tried a courtesy slap but to no avail and I was left to coast thought to the top end".

Servicing the car is in danger of becoming a little routine now that we have a good handle on the tune up. There were no dramas and everything was put away ready to run on Monday.

Monday

There was a possibility of 2 runs on Monday, the first being scheduled after the second elimination round of the Pro classes. The skies looked threatening all day and there were

several short rain delays. The Track Crew did their normal fantastic job of drying the track in between the showers, Thanks Guys!! We took to the track around 2.15pm. Need we say yet another 0.913 sec 60 foot. The car launched well but once again it smoked the tyres and no matter what John tried the run just didn't come together.

We had been trying to tune the clutch to the track and weather conditions all weekend, but it proved to be difficult to say the least. The weather was constantly changing and after the last run we noticed that the corrected altitude had dropped by 900 feet in 1 hour!

So although we tried to make the necessary changes it seemed we had been fighting a losing battle.

The weather intervened to call a halt to our day but not before there had been brisk activity on the "souvenir stall". One dedicated fan is now the proud owner of a new 'coffee table' (Well that's what he called it. We called it a block with dirty great holes in it, which were in addition to the bores!)

A big thank you to all the crew, our sponsors Balzers, Ferrea, Nimbus, Poggipolini Titanium Winged Aviation Material Supplies and Rose for the photos