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