ANOTHER SCORCHER!!!

Mr. Spokehead had been repaired and readied just in time for the Main Event, at Santa Pod Raceway, but we were slightly apprehensive about our tune-up against eleven of the baddest Supertwins in Europe. It turned out to be an incredibly intense four days of top class racing, in glorious sunshine, with all classes hard fought all the way to the finals.

We had big problems on start-up in the pits with a number of little problems compounding to make one big one. They necessited three complete re-build's of the motor over the event so sleep didn't feature much in our itinerary! Faulty oil control rings, sticking fuel valves, too aggressive settings,etc. So we decided to put it all back to a safe setting from last year and at least get one clean run and qualify. This turned out to be the smart move as it did a nice, lazy, 7.9 secs that went a bit rich at half track and fell out of the sky, but still beat a wall-hugging Lorenz Stauble. Things were looking promising! We were in at number seven, perfect!

The rest of the field were having similar problems finding a base with new bikes and new set-up's. Roel banged his motor, Tommy banged his, and then it was my turn. I had upped the tune to get with the pack and launched well against Matti, getting a big hole-shot, but it proved too much and the repair to the rear head let go again with an even bigger bang and a another 'FLASH'. It was another long night as Al 'Prawn Cocktail' Smith repaired the damage with Karsten and Per Andersson's help, then Paul came back to his workshop on a holiday Sunday and machined it all for us. We were all buttoned-up for 1am, hooray!!

Monday morning, eliminations day, and although we had been bumped to number 9, that meant we were first alternate, and I know how temperamental these bikes can be, so I was going to be ready!

Before we started the bike I decided to double check by turning it over by hand and immediately found a new problem, the motor locked up!!!!!! A quick bit of diagnostic reasoning told me that the valve was hitting a piston, but why??? I quickly stripped the cam-chest to check the timing and it was all good but then noticed that some cam bearings had collapsed. Damn, that was it, forty minutes to go, game over. I ran next door and told Tommy he had better suit up quick as he was next alternate and went down to the line with him. He never thought he would get to run but I told him to be ready, a nerve racking wait ensued. The first couple was Per Bengtsson against Martijn De Haas and guess what, Matijns' bike would not fire! I shouted to Tommy GO!!!! Per did his burn-out and then his clutch broke which banged his blower, he was now dead in the water!

Tommy could not believe his luck, not only back in the show, but with a bye! My crew just shook their heads in total dis-belief, "that should have been us", unbelievable. Tommy launched and gave it his best shot but blew his rear head a second time just exactly as we had done, what a shame. On reflection it might have been wise to just stage for the win but when the adrenaline is flowing that hard and the crowd is that big, well, you just have to put on a show. The rest of the eliminations were very exciting and the final was breathtaking. Job Heezen's 'lucky boots' kept him out in front of Lorenze to about half track when all of a sudden the tell-tale plume of fuel from one pipe showed the loss of one cylinder and Lorenz screamed pass for a well deserved win in the six second zone at over 200mph. I watched it from half track with mixed emotions and was nearly blown off my feet, fantastic! I never realised that was what we looked like to the spectators, blimey! No wonder they all look at me as if I were mad, ha!

I would like to thank my crew of Joe, Nat, Pete, Tim, Martin and Ingrid, who all went well above the call of duty last weekend. Congratulations to our young Jr Dragster star, Rhiannon Bellenie, who gave it her best shot in the eliminations, well done! Thanks to all the other racers who helped out all weekend and to Paul and Sue for giving up their day off to help me and Tommy. Santa Pod raceway can at last breathe a bit easier and we hope the rest of the year is as successful as this for them. Congratulations also to Ian King and Ulf Ogge on their wins, both great performances.

Faster, quicker, faster, until the thrill of speed overcomes the fear of death. Or you run out of money !

Mr.Spokehead, a tribute to Jim McClure.