The Cal-look Lounge

What a weekend, after what seemed a real long winter due to parking the car early and Easter being late giving me to much time to think of things to change/modify/tinker etc with leaving me wondering if all my ideas and changes would work. After a few weeks of mainly sun and nice long days we woke on Friday to find it was cold and windy >:(

I had chosen to run Super comp a 8.90 index class and we were one of the first classes to be called, with no real heat in the track and so many changes I planned on a test hit, well I am not sure where that idea went but after a good burnout it launched right, off the pedal & I got it straight and back on it, as it felt good I kept in it and it was real nice and straight and felt much better than last year. After I had parked at the top end a excited dragster driver pulled up and shouted at my " do you know what you ran" of course I had no idea and he told me 8.35@163mph,a new record for a aircooled vw in europe It felt so easy and suddenly I was optimistic all the winter work and changes were good ;D
We then had a long wait until our 2nd qualifier not helped by a couple of oil downs etc being at the front of the lane for 1 1/2 hours by now the track had got real cold, I did the same as the 1st pass but it spun the tyres a lot with a poorer 60ft which it has made up by the 1/8th mile but it was moving around a lot and I decided not to risk it and got out of it and pulled the chute running a 8.905@121mph making us number one qualifier!!!! I have no idea what the rest of the class made of it but I was amazed.
Saturday and we were not due out until midday and after a couple more oil downs we went out at 13.00.This was to be a wild ride much more like the old car with huge wheelies in 1st and 2nd gears.by the time I was in 4th it was moving around to much and I had to abort the pass. I had not noticed that the center wheelie bar tube had bent and on this pass it gave up allowing it to go right up high. That was the only pass we got Saturday but stayed number one qualifier :o 8).
Sunday arrived even colder with lots of cloud and really good air, nice for hp but not for traction, we were out at 10am so no real heat in the track, I made a small adjustment to a couple of things and hoped it would work, I was lined up with a dragster that seemed always close to the number so I went for run it out and see rather than trying for a close to index time.
It launched and spun the tyres hard but was straight still so I kept in it and was rewarded with the 8.2060@167.9mph time. With only a 1.37 60ft I know that there is lots left to improve on but for now I am happy to make such a huge improvement in one leap and to be Europes quickest and fastest Aircooled VW [is there any other type?  :D]

Here is the video of the 8.35 pass
 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ejw5DFRwarc&feature=em-share_video_user

and here is the 8.20 pass, there seem to be lots of videos posted already of the wheelie pass for some reason :D ;D  but I will add ours as son as its loaded


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FTQqpqo2lMM

We also got a couple of amazing slow motion vids from Ian@blackettphotography we will add as well, I learnt a lot from them already

Congrats on that Richie.   ;)

Congratulations Richie!! Well done, looking forward to see what`s more to come this season  8)

Fantastic! I know how hard you've tried, how long you've waited... Well done the both of you!  8)

Sounds like a good and well deserved week end. Congratulations. 

Great stuff Richie. Followed your progress all weekend. Really pleased for you. See you soon, Jonny.

Huge congratulations, what a fantastic few runs and to qualify number 1 too! The commentators were loving it. Shame I missed seeing your quicker runs but did see the 8.90 and was crossing fingers no one beat it  :D

Sorry I didn't pop over to say hello, but will catch you at the next one  ;)

Top effort - have been doing the eurodragster thing - really pleased for you and looking forward to seeing it all for real sometime soon I hope...
Congrats! :)
J.

Nice passes!

Kris

 :o
Bloody hell!
 ;D

Thanks everyone 8)





Here's the timing tickets for comparison , just need to swap those 60fts :o ;D

No doubt it will come when it's ready and the time is right....!

Main Event?

Dear Richie

My honest congratulations.
Really very impressive.
And if you swap those 60fts, what is possible, you are runnin' 8.091 less than one thenth away from the magic 7.
So keep on changin' just only small things to hopefully improve it.  ;D ;D
and

keep on pushin'

MeXX

Richie
Change you underwritings
Its so 2013

Gr

Well done Richie for all the effort you've put in over the years to achieve this goal.
Well done for having balls of steel for keeping your foot in during those sideways passes. Can't be many boys out there at half your age who wouldn't have soiled themselves.

 :D

Will do Henri ;D

The stunt driver video :o

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MuReZFh4SGU

Sorry Chris I did get out of it on this one ;)

and thanks to Ian@blackett photography the slow motion of it

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PJDiVCOZtZ4

This is probably the best video to watch, there is so much going on that most of which I had forgotten about by the time I got to the top end, its got a flame show on the start line, a lot of tyre shake which is bad enough to make the front wings flex and shake, 3rd gear with the wheels up near the 1/8 mile markers still spinning the tyres and then it way out of shape further up the track video really is one of the best tools in the box now.

Enjoy :)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CJPu5_YgkXg

Well done , totally awesome  8)

As been said,well done.
Looking forward to see you get the times down more.
Those slow motion movies are great to watch.

Henk!!!

Awesome!!!!
Congratulations Richie!

There is only a very very small group of people in the world who really know what it takes to build and drive a rear engine door slammer ACVW that far into the 8’s and I’m certainly not one of them.

That said I’m sure it takes a special kind of drive from man and machine to go that quickly, that I don’t believe the vast majority of the rest of us understand.

To make such a massive single step at this level from several high eights to be this far into the 8’s in one weekend is a bloody fantastic achievement.

Still a crap bracket racer though…..

Peter

Ball far larger than I'd manage to get into my pants, that's for sure.

Congratulations Richie, stout work, and was good to say hi, and see the car coming along so well.

Fantastic great to see all your hard work and perseverance pay off.

I'm sure there was a celebratory cup of tea involved afterwards!

When are you next out with the yellow beast?

Cheers

Wray

The videos are awesome on a projector in my classroom and 9AX5 really enjoyed them.  Well done.

Thanks Pete, you are so correct on all of that, even the bracket racer part, always hated it, never will understand  the fascination of braking at the top end to win ??? ::) :o or any of the other bracket racer tricks, its just not for me


cheers Richie

Main event is next 23rd to 26th may, Santa pod

I think the Ginger Tea maker is trying to get down to watch ;D


cheers Richie

Maybe you could tell us now what was the stupid idea you had in your signature long ago.

Was it related to this this stunning performance last weekend?

Thumbs up!

I guess guys like calabrese and Lauffer are really afraid now..............

Keep going!!!!!

 :D No nothing to do with this at all, it may come later if I can find the money

cheers Richie

Depends on if the set up is Bugorama Racing Series Pro Mod legal, I would venture to say?

Too many rules if you ask me ;D

Why?

 neither of the other Drivers mentioned ran there best times at a BRS event so why would it be relevant?

Maybe I missed something, I didn't realize that BRS had rules for quickest in the world? and I am still along way from Kris's time so I doubt he is bothered at all ::)  Hi Kris :P ;D


cheers Richie

find the money....... Im sure that's another road trip conversation for next week, "the only gay in the 8s......"


BTW, Well done again and I agree with Petes comments, your are very special.......  ;D

Seriously Impressive!!!!!!  :o

Congratulation  :)

Balls the size of coconuts!!!

I'm friends with one of the crew for the Wild Child dragster team and he was seriously impressed / shocked!  ;D

Cool, they were good to run against :)

cheers Richie

Well chuffed for you Richie, proper impressive leap forward!

Congratulations!! awesome passes! all the work is paying off..

Well done & well deserved, congratulations!

Great vids

reminded me of watching the skinne bros car run at scc a few years ago, wheel spin in all gears  :o

I'm sure that 7 is very near

Man those slo-mo vids are amazing. You can really see what the car is doing and how hard it is to drive.

Well deserved congratulations Richie!

Congratulations Richie , we can smell the 7 here in France  :D , it will be amazing to have one in Europe  :)

Congratulations Richie very nice large respectfully before your performance