The Cal-look Lounge

Well, another weekend away at the Pod - and another trophy! Runner-up this time again.

Sat 7am - checked the valve clearances only to find the bolt and some shims missing from my rocker gear. Managed to get it sorted and then flew through scrutineering

Q1 - Didn't quite go to plan. Tried some larger jets/tubes & airs and ran my street exhaust. Ran a high 17 - over a second and a half over my dial-in.
Q2 - Changed the jets, cleaned the air filter and put the stinger on. Ran 16.43 on a 16.25 dial-in. Up to 4th from 8th
Q3 - Missed 2nd gear and ran a high 16. Bugger. Got bumped down to 7th qualifier out of 12

Sunday.
E1 - Got drawn against Michael Outhwaite in his MK1 4door Jetta, fitted with a MK2 8V GTi motor. He dialed 16.4, and I dialed 16.38. He left early - way too early and red-lit gifting me the round. I gve it the full beans and ran 16.3731
QF - Got drawn against Polly Naylor in her MK2 GTi 8V again - a repeat of the Quarter Final at Big Bang. I left the line well and ran 16.3531 on a 16.29 dial-in. She didn't have a chance, but she broke out of her 16.95 dial-in anyway
SF - Got a bye, but still gave it some stick. Ran 16.3384 @ 79.63mph on a 16.29 dial in. Quickest/fastest run of the weekend, but still 0.083 off my PB (with fanbelt)
Final - Got it all wrong. Flustered on the line with steamy glasses and had a woeful reaction time of 0.55 seconds. In my temper at getting away so badly I missed 2nd gear and ran 16.99, arriving at the line over a second behind Lucy Matthews in her squareback.

Of course in between there were usual evening shennanegans on Friday/Saturday involving drinks and pleasant conversation.

And - we got rid off all the waterpumpers after the second round

This result still leaves me in the lead of the Championship - just. I have 2020 points against Lucy's 1940. Off to Bug Jam next month for round 5 - I still need to keep an eye on Lucy, Luke Stevenson and Martin Ayton as they can all bump me off the top.

http://www.eurodragster.com/santapod/live/2009sprcsummernationals/pictures/sunday/default.asp

http://www.santapod.co.uk/e_summer_nat.php

Good report Russ, and what a fantastic weekend. Keep chipping away at it and those times will fall.

I know how you feel about the final I only got a .2xx reaction compared to James .0xx so that combined with wheel spin off the line lost me the final. Not that I was going to give it away with out a battle- i ended running the motor to 7k about 500 more than normal in each gear to claw back some time. Shame really as saturday the car had been ultra consistant.

All to play for at Bug Jam mind as thats pretty much where the championship can be won or lost!

Just need to squeeze 3 tenths more from my car to get that golden 12.5  ;)

Russ,can you move this to Pure racing section please?

cheers richie,uk