TURBO'S 21st but LAURA'S 1st!

Team 'Turboville' descended on Santa Pod raceway last weekend to attend what is probably the most enjoyable family outing of the year, The UK Truck Show.

We have attended the show every year so far and it really is a great weekend that just gets better every time. We get invited to do demo's for the appreciative crowd of truckers and enthusiasts and the weather has so far been absolutely 'scorchio' every year! After the cylinder damage we suffered at the Summernats' a few weeks ago we were left with just one set of used pistons and no time to order new ones, we had no choice, so I threw them in.

Whilst desperately searching for the tune-up to run a that elusive six we got a little lost so went back to basics and a setting we knew would work. We were going to do this scientifically this time. The bike sounded great in the pits and drew a large crowd every time we fired it up. The first three runs were perfect, nice soft 7.8's at 181mph to check things out and then we started adding settings to get us going quicker. There were rounds of Supertwin Top-Gas and Street-ET, a Superstreet Bike challenge, Supercharged Outlaws and Super Modified cars along with some demos from Jon Best in his 'mean green machine' and Trace Frome in his funny car.

Martin Hill put on the usual power show, which never fails to impress, and the serious stuff was the truck racing. Man those big rigs doing 100mph in the quarter is awesome! The two seater dragster was fully booked all weekend and left a lot of people with huge fixed grins that just would not go away!

There were lots of fantastic trucks on show, live action in the arena with stunts and monster trucks, this show has just everything for everyone. They even had the Blues Brothers band in the Fuellers bar marquee on Saturday evening!

On Sunday morning the sun broke through the early mist and it was race time again, and my birthday, 21+ a little bit!!!! Thanks to my crew for a great evening and to Barry Sheavills for a killer barbeque out of the back of his supercharged Ford F150 Harley truck, nice one!

Then it was time for disaster, we started the bike and smoke came out of everywhere...what the hell? A quick check revealed that one of the pistons must have been way past it's sell-by date and the crown had collapsed leaving a gaping hole. Damn, if it weren't for bad luck I wouldn't have any luck at all this year! There was no time to re-build the motor within the show slot so that was it for us. Apart from my 14 year old daughter that is!!!!!! As part of her birthday treat (last month) I rented the Santa Pod Club, Junior Dragster, for her to see if she might like it!

Oh boy, did she ever like it! I couldn't get her out of the car all weekend and with the help of Ian Marshall, Rob and the Santa Pod track crew, Pete and Rhiannon Bellenie, Joe Lann, and Chloe, she immediately got the hang of it with perfect staging routines eventually getting .08 RT's on solid, consistent runs!!!! Guess what she wants for Christmas? Well done Laura Leadfoot, welcome to the whacky world of drag racing, no going back now! I can recommend renting these cars for your kids, it is not expensive and gets them very focussed and responsible. It's also a great weapon for getting them to do chores, he-he!

Details are on www.santapod.com or if you are a member of SPRC then you can rent theirs. Thanks to Russ and Neil for a great event once again, don't miss it next year! Congratulations to all the competitors and winners in all the classes.

2010 'Let them Truckers Roll' see you there!