Whoops, I did it again. Out in the first round by a red light - I blame it on being out of practice (and yes Mr. Morris, feel free to beat me up over it!). Hey, it's the first time I've competed in a dragster at Santa Pod in over twenty years!

Friday morning looked good to get a lot of qualifying runs in Paul Marston's 'Alien' competition altered dragster, but after a disappointing 8.9 second pass we found a pushrod and rocker arm had been destroyed. While it was an easy fix, we had to wait all day for the parts to arrive. With the motor repaired Saturday morning we got an early 8.3 second qualifying run in at a time of 8.3 seconds at 160 m.p.h.. The car still seemed down on power and further investigation found dirt plugging a couple of the injector nozzles, with this cleared the car ran a 7.95 second pass.

Sunday morning it was straight into the first round of competition, I was against Steve Johnson in his back-motored dragster. I used to race against Steve before I quit drag racing twenty years ago - and he's been doing it ever since! I guess I figured the only way I was going to beat him was by getting away first, which I did, but three hundredths of a second too soon, which accounts for the red light and my elimination from racing. I did however run a 7.94 second run - which is very respectable, and as you can see from the attached 'photo, the car launches incredibly hard (60 foot in 1.11 seconds - with the rear wheels activating the 60ft. finishing beam!).

All in all an enjoyable weekend, and it was fantastic to re-acquaint myself with many old friends, many of whom I'd not seen for all of those twenty years (boy did I get a lot of 'man hugs' - of course always remembering the 'man hug' rule, six inches between belt buckles at all times!).

I must take this opportunity to thank Paul (who, along with Gary Springford, was competing in one of his other cars 'Grumpy's Dodge') for allowing me to use his car. His crew, Sam, Gary, Peter, Mick and of course young Max, and Alli for not really letting on how worried she was and keeping an eye on things.

When I had a drive of this car last year it was a 'one-off', this time was also a 'one-off', but when Alli and I were giving the weekend a 'post mortem' it was Alli who kept saying, 'Next time.........'

It was a blast.