Santa Pod Raceway, England, Sept.26/28

Team Turbo Ville could not afford to make the whole European tour this year but concentrated on the ACU National Championship instead. We did however contest the two Uk rounds at Santa Pod as it is always nice to run against the cream of European Supertwins. Unfortunately bad weather once again dogged the event, and like the disastrous Main Event at the beginning of the year, it looked as if it was going to be a complete wash-out. Monsoon like weather lashed the venue for four days until it relented on Sunday morning and race-day was upon us with a vengeance! The track crew never stopped prepping the surface all weekend and as a result they got us a racing surface by about 10.00 am.

The huge entry of sportsman racers unfortunately were dropped as there was just no chance to run them, so it was all pro racing with one shot qualifying on an untried track. We watched TF cars and pro-mods go up before us trying to get some indication, it looked like it was holding the power! It came to the turn of the Supertwins and first out was Roel Koedam on the new Zodiac blower bike, a really clever machine but an all new combination of a short-stroke, high revving, supercharged, Overkill type motor.

 The burn-out went well but on the hit there was a deafening bang and it was back to the workshop for Ton and Vincent. I know that bike will work once they get it dialled in. We were next up on a bye and were quietly confident we could put in a nice reliable pass and get into the field which was eleven bikes strong. We had suffered very bad handling problems at the previous meet and I was convinced it was the rear slick which had lost side wall integrity after only ten runs. It felt a bit 'slippery' in the burn out and I wished I could have done another to scrub the new rubber in but this was our only chance. Brum and Chris, from 'Northants Nitro' team, expertly set me up and staged me but I could tell the whole crowd were holding their breath to see if I would also explode or just veer all over the track and take out more timing blocks! I held my breath too, but on the green it launched great, accelerated nice and straight down the famous quarter mile, until at about 800 foot it suddenly stopped pulling, only carding eight seconds at some 164mph! We raced back to the pits, jumped all over it like a professional team and got it turned around for the next session in thirty minutes, just in time for the call! However, when we started the bike to warm it up we found that the cylinder head was blowing fuel out of the seal.

If we had another few hours we could have fixed it but to run like that would be suicide. So, hell and damnation, we were qualified number four, the perfect slot, but had to declare broken and were out of the game. I think Hans Olav, my opponent, was more disappointed than we were! I went down to the start line on foot and stood next to him as he made his solo pass as a mark of respect. It was a nice, clean 7.00, I knew I could have given him a good race. Next up was my buddy Job Heezen on the other Zodiac bike and he had been doing very well in his inaugural season in TF Supertwin. He launched hard but at half track both cylinders let go big time and his year was over right there. His crew of Daughter Evelyn and friend Bart looked very dejected but I know Job will have it all fixed very soon.

There followed a lot of very intense racing from all classes until the evening when the rain made a slight return. Coolest move of the weekend? Tommy Moller started his nitro-bike and rode it back down the fire-up road to his pit and great applause from all. Well that left us with the number 9 plate for next year which is my best placing yet in UEM. Congratulations to Svein Olav Rolstad who raced a six second bracket bike all year and a tearful farewell to my good friend Gunther Sohn who has decided to retire from drag racing,

I just know he will miss it as much as we will miss him. Big thanks to Brum, Chris, Pat, Ingrid, Martin and Dave for all the top-notch help at the weekend.
My favourite pass of the event????? Derek Flynn's barnstormer, man that was impressive!!!!!!

Pray for good weather at the national Finals on the 27/28 of September and let us see if we can end the year on a high! There should be three TF dragsters and three TF funny cars there along with plenty of nitro bikes so it will be a big event, don't miss it!

Mr. Spokhead appears courtesy of-
CUSTOM CHROME EUROPE, RED LINE OIL, GATES BELTS, ARIAS PISTONS, JIMS, CURBISHLEY AUTOMOTIVE, RUSH RACING UK, ZODIAC, SPRINT DAMPERS, RST WHEELS, FAST LANE RACING (CANADA), KING RACING, INNOVATE DATALOGGERS, BENTEC ENGINEERING, AASEN TUNING, EXHAUST GAS TECHNOLOGIES, SLIDERCOVERS.COM, TIMTIME.CO.UK, D.A.C.S. and I&S Logistics.