Run What Ya Brung drag race weekend 16-17 April '11

[Manky Monkey]

http://www.shakespearecountyraceway.com/eventdetails.asp?event=76

One of a series of RWYB meets at Shakespeare County Raceway, (formerly Avon Park, formerly Long Marston), Stratord on Avon.
This one will see forum member Scottie doing his licensing runs in "Tiki Munki", (recent cover car in Custom Car magazine), with fellow forum monkeys Brock & BlackPig, (my big brother & sis in law), crewing for him.
If you've been following the "What's in the workshop today Loony?" thread in General Tech, you'll know about Pedro's Rover V8 drag car, featuring a fibreglass bodyshell painted by our very own Loony. Pedro will be there, trying the car with the body fitted for the first time.
Of course, you could always give your own car or bike a blast up the track.  

[brock]

Strange sort of a day.

   Being under orders not to be late, Mrs B and I were up very early and on the way to the track way before it was sensible to do so. Having arrived and parked we sat for a while and watched the tumbleweeds blow by and wondered at how big the site looked when it was empty. We got some coffee and wandered about for a while, stretching and the like, some time later "our" racers arrived, opperating on a slightly different level of early and looking like a glorified pikey's parade  

[brock]

   With the cars offloaded without any major incidents we set to and gave them a bit of a clean and a look at. Scotty's is now a proven car but fresh from an engine rebuild and some minor changes to the controls and Pedro's has just had some major rebuilding so a little time here was justified. The wankey Rover inhibitor switch had failed on Pedro's and Scotty had fitted a better unit direct to the shifter lever so some rerouteing of cables was required, after that we jacked it up, fired it and topped off the transmission fluid levels, a check of all the nuts and bolts and we were good to go. About that time another car, possibly a TVR, also needed it's trans topping up, unfortunatly the box was full when he left the start line, so we waited while the track crew cleaned up a quarter mile spill of oil, good job men. Cars looked good in the sun though 

[brock]

   Some time later we towed down to the pairing lanes and queued with the rest to the head. The meeting was also a competition round for Junior drag Bikes, some of these are really quite special, one in particular caught my eye, a new build still in black gel coat, a full moly frame with some outstanding tig work, nicely worked alloy mounting plates and detail finish everywhere, never find the camera when I want it, later turned up in my back pocket !
   I thought the plan was to run them together but as I was walking back from parking the van out of the way Scotty pulled into the water box with Pedro still in the lanes, leaving Scotty to do his thing I went over to Pedro, there seemed to be a problem starting it, remember that new switch ? not neutral, pull it all the way back into park then try, there you go ! Scotty got away and ran something that I missed ( sorry mate) and we walked Pedro round to stage. There had been some concerns about the view from the seat but he was fine and staged himself without any drama, the tree went down and .......stalled, bugger. restart and a few more revs and away. The motor bogged slightly off the line and the low gear part wasn't special but as soon as the revs climbed a bit the little car seemed to start moving, a little twitch at half track, later decided to be due to pushing the throttle all the way down and having the kickdown do it's thing, and a nice clean pass with nothing broken or falling off, sucess !

[Manky Monkey]

They do look pretty cool don't they. So were the chaps happy with their respective runs?

[brock]

   Having got them both away the next job is to go and get them back. Into the van and drive down along side the track to the "safe" zone at the first turn out where they will be waiting to be towed back to the pits. We, Lesley, Gina and I, were quietly pottering along and had got to about the 1000 foot mark when Bruno, senior marshall in the first response vehicle, put his hand up to stop us passing in front of him, there was a bit of a bang behind us and a green and white missile went across the track beside us slamming into the far side armco beneath the finish gantry. Ian Norman in his Outlaw Anglia on his first time out for a few years was making a full pass when the car got proper lairey on him and turned hard into the wall ( the bang behind us ) Ian was apparently knocked out in the first impact which meant that he missed the car do a first class driving job as it came back off the armco, cut back across the track, across the grass, shedding body panels and losing a front wheel, across the safe zone behind Pedro's parked car ( mind the paint !) and between a parked Marshall's car and the fire engine before coming to rest on the further grassed section. After letting the response vehicles out we continued down to get "our" boys thinking that it had been an extremely lucky escape for everyone involved.
    Whilst we had been sat in the van watching the bulk of the race car careen across the landscape we should have maybe been watching the debris it was shedding in the process, the wheel in particular, luckily Sccotty was looking at it hard enough for all of us. After becoming detached it had bounced a couple of times and finally struck Tiki hard just behind the offside front wheel, pretty much buggering the draglink , bending the wishbone and bowing the top chassis rail. Good day gone bad, but, it could have been so much worse and that , as they say , is racing.

[brock]

   does that answer that ? 

[Manky Monkey]

Ouch!!
Jeez, that was a lucky escape though. Is Ian O.K? Was Scottie in his car at the time? As you say, could've been a whole lot worse
This is why I stick to spectating from a safe distance.

[brock]

   I'm told that Ian was OK but I imagine both shaken and stirred, Scotty was still in his car at the time, safest place to be, Pedro was however just walking up to him, could have been a whole lot worse, but wasn't.

   Scotty was done for the day but Pedro got another run in and with a cleaner launch drove it through at 100mph , not bad for only the second run. I've just ordered the tube to build Scotty a new drag link, the rod ends were shagged too so they are next on the list, also due to a slight error in loading I have Pedro's lower drag link in for replacement   .      

   I'm not sure you could call it a totally sucessful day, but at least the sun shone all the way through it

[Manky Monkey]

Play careful out there kids.