Last weekend marked the
V8 UK Power Tour. This is the second year for the Power Tour, but for
one reason and another, this year's was a two-day, two-venue event –
Saturday at Santa Pod; Sunday at York, which also happened to
coincide with Round 7 of the NSCC.
I told James that plan
A was to arrive in daylight on Friday evening; plan B was to arrive
before the rain that was forecast to show up around midnight. It
started well when I arrived at James's around 7.30pm to find him
spray painting his car. At 10.30 we'd just finished refitting the
windscreen, so that was plan A well and truly buggered. We set off
for Santa Pod, driving along the A45 watching the lightning in the
distance, and arriving shortly after midnight to find the gates
locked. A security chap walked over, and we told him we were with the
Power Tour. He asked a trick question, “OK, where are you going
tomorrow?” This completely fooled me, as all I could think was that
I was hoping to be at Santa Pod tomorrow but fortunately James was
much quicker on the uptake than me, and gave the code that unlocked
the gate - “York”. We headed down to the far end of the pits
where the Power Tour crew were camped, opened a beer, and literally
the second I'd hammered my last tent peg in, the heavens opened. We'd
accomplished plan B with less than a minute to spare.
Jesus Christ almighty,
the storm that followed was biblical. Howling winds, thunder,
lightning flashing every four or five seconds, and torrential rain. I
grabbed my beer and ran for the V8UK guys' gazebo which, given the
weather, they had sensibly shut up fairly tight. It was about three
metres by two metres, and I walked around it twice looking for the
door before knocking (on canvas, yes, really) and pleading with them
to let me in. In those 20-30 seconds, I was drenched from head to
foot. It was at this point that everyone else thought “Bugger this,
I'm going to bed” so I then had to run back again. The storm, which
had then been joined by a plague of frogs and four blokes on horses,
continued for another two hours before finally heading north.
This meant that it was
fairly late when we got to sleep, and when I finally got up in the
morning, not only was the track dry and open for business, but about
four Power Tour cars had already broken! John Sleath and Moose had
arrived, and John had already broken too. Steve Neimantas had brought
the Charger out on the Power Tour, done his runs and headed off
already, but it turned out he'd broken down on the way back.
There was some interesting stuff about, like this Escort picking its wheels up.
The Taz Racing 126s are always good value for money, too.
Deb Laugher was out testing her Super Pro ET Corvette, which looked gorgeous, but was showing an alarming tendency to turn right at about 60ft
This thing puzzled me no end - a wheelie bar on a French FWD Civic? Then I realised it's tied into the roll cage, and is set very low to prevent the front end getting light and unloading when the power comes in.
I queued up to get a
run in, and the queues were already Mopar Euronats long. First run
into a fair headwind with a very gluey track was a 16.6, with the
transmission in D. There's a switch next to the shifter that alters
the shift points and such, so I switched it from Normal to Power,
queued up for another hour or so, and ran a 16.8. Hmm. One look at
the queue told me I wasn't going to bother waiting for another run,
and, try as I might, I can't get a feel for Hondas and such, so I
began decamping. James had made a balls-up of his first two runs, so
queued up for a third, ran a 12, decided that was as good as it was
going to get and packed up himself. Most of the other Power Tourers
had already buggered off, apart from a few other stragglers, so I
flung everything in the boot, poured the rainwater out of my tent and
threw that in on top, and we set off.
We had to stop at
Tesco on the way, but as our combined shopping list was sticking
plasters, milk, a bag of ice and some clean pants, we decided we'd
each get our own to prevent Wellingborough thinking we were a couple
with some 50 Shades thing going on. The cruise up the M1 was
uneventful, though as about half of it is limited to 50mph we were
more in danger of nodding off than anything else. The only highlight
came on the slip road onto the M18 where the driver of a white van on
the hard shoulder was frantically flagging down passing traffic. We
stopped to help, but it turned out that he was Hungarian, spoke no
English, and thought he was lost although (using my “speaking
English slowly and loudly to foreigners” technique) it turned out
he actually wasn't and was on the right road. Tit.
We stopped at the
Chinese takeaway in Howden on the way, and my accomplishment of the
weekend was being able to eat a whole Yung Chow Fried Rice, with a
fork, whilst keeping up with James on the 12 miles of B-road from
Howden to York Raceway. I didn't even spill any! Tent up, beer out,
job's good. That's when we found out that York had decided to run a
round of NSCC that day, so we had to go round telling all those who'd
taken part that they hadn't earned any points from it.
The evening passed
rather rapidly. It was one of those cases where you're standing
around talking and suddenly realise that almost everyone else has
gone to bed, so I did likewise. Sunday was a rather cool, overcast
and breezy day, but it did make for some good racing. After two
qualifying sessions, Ian Walley was out on top with a 10.28 at 129mph
after some stellar tyre-changing services from Jamie Hughes the
previous evening. Russ was next on 10.93, follower by Power Tourer
Doug Hague in the Skyline on 11.71. He was followed by James murray
getting back towards form with a 12.5, and John Peace not even close
to the potential of that Mustang on 14.0. Both of those guys were
also Power Tourers. Sandra-Lee Hughes was next with 14.3 from the
diesel Land Rover, then Steve Gilmour on 14.55 and a NPB from Andy
Errington, 14.83 from the Mustang. Andy Frear with another diesel
topped the lower half of the ladder with 15.2, then Terry Morgan's
Morris on 15.9, then me on 16.0, having suddenly lost 0.6 of a second
from the previous day. Nigel Henderson's Anglia was next on 16.1,
then Scott Presland in the fresh-back-out Pop on 16.9. Final
Power-Tourer Ryan Chatburn was on 17.2, slightly ahead of Mark
Butterworth in the Porsche 944 on 17.5, with Rick Swaine at the wheel
of Mark's 100E on 19.4 at the bottom of the ladder.
Round one began with
the top and tailers, Ian and Rick, Ian taking the win by a handy nine
seconds. The two Andys were next, Andy E's Mustang getting a mighty
drop on Andy F's Bronco at the lights and taking the win 14.8 to
15.3, then James ran a no-gas 13.6 to finish Scott's day. John pulled
a 13.8 at 106mph out of the hat against Nigel, before Russ showed the
Dunkirk spirit, his home-brewed British kit car defeating Mark's
mighty German meister-machine 10.9 to 17.9. Steve's 14.4 was enough
to head off Terry's rod, and Doug's Jap machine Pearl Harboured
Ryan's pseudo-Yank Probe. After the aforementioned stellar tyre
changing technique the previous evening, it was slightly ironic that
the Hughes dynasty's Land Rover was a no-show with a puncture,
leaving me to solo through to the quarter finals.
Round two began with
Ian Walley ripping off another 10.5 like it ain't no thang against
Andy's 15.1, then James turned the wick back up with a 12.5 against
John's NPB 13.6. Russ hammered home his advantage with an 11.0
against Steve's 14.5, then my brief good fortune wilted
embarrassingly in the face of Doug's 11.9 to set up the semis.
In the semis, James
turned the wick up again to record a sharp light and a 12.4 at
111mph, but Ian was conserving gas with a gentle 11.2 to take the
win. Then, once again, the Allied forces of British kit car and
American engine conquered the inscrutable cunning of the far East, Russ's
11.1 seeing off Doug's 12.4. This should have been Victory for Dutton
Day, but who wants to see a flag saying “Happy VD Day!”?
Talking of victory for
Dutton, there was a real upset about to happen in the final. Russ had
already been told that he couldn't take part in the annual Street
Racer Championship because his car couldn't be street legal, on
account of the rear tyres sticking an inch or two out of the arches.
Hmmm. This is in spite of the fact that the car used on the flyers
and adverts for the Street Racer Championship was... Russ's Dutton,
complete with sticky-out tyres.When we were told this, we all
wrinkled out noses at the sudden stench of bullshit, but it wasn't
over for Russ. He and Ian staged for the final and Russ got a
blinding launch, charging up the track to a 9.972 at 137mph against
Ian's slowing 10.7 to take the win. However, the second the scores
flashed up on the scoreboard, the voice of the Metatron* came over
the radios saying that this run doesn't count, and Russ is hereby
disqualified from this round of racing. Ooo-er. Apparently, Russ had
already been told that his car doesn't have enough cage to run under
9.99, but he's been careful enough to sandbag it for the past year or
so. Today, he slipped up, and The Metatron was waiting to spring the
trap. This added something of an EastEnders-style drama-laden
cliffhanger ending to the NSCC, but the drama was far from over.
Ian Walley had also
been contesting the Street Racer championship, and made it to the
final alongside Power Tourer Owen Forrest, all the way up from Kent
in a big-block Ford-powered Fox Mustang notch (ex-Nick Gunby). The
last race of the day, they lined up, blasted off and ran side-by-side
tens, with Ian's turbo power just managing to overcome the massive
cubes of Owen's Mustang. As they returned down the track to claim
their prizes, the fact that two Fords, each also powered by Ford
engines, had made it to the final of Street Racer had caused a
massive rip in the fabric of space/time. The Metatron was standing
atop the shithouse portacabin, brandishing his mop like Gandalf's
staff in an attempt to keep the beasts of the netherworld in their
own dimension, while, with lightning flashing to the south, the
prizegiving was a somewhat hurried affair. “Here's your trophy,
here's your money, now smile at the camera, good, now RUN!” I just
about made it to my tent before the rain hit, with hail, gales,
cosmic anomalies in the nature of reality and all-sorts hit. Once
again, the tent was thrown into the boot but, within 20 seconds, I
was piss-wet-through. Again.
Hey-ho, it was a
fitting ending to a really good weekend. Some excellent racing, a lot
of fun, and Owen picked up the All-Motor trophy for the Power Tour so
it was far from a wasted journey. A chap called Martyn with a
high-tech Nissan GTR picked up the Power-Adder trophy with a combined
average of 9.96... bloody hell, that Yellow Peril is never far away.
A top weekend.
Eugene
* - The highest of the
angels, the celestial scribe and chancellor of heaven. Or Steve
Murty, as we know him.
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