Festival of Power Report 2015

16/04/2015

A belated event report from our Easter weekend ‘Festival of Power’ at Santa Pod Raceway.

The weekend was a mixture of pleasure and pain. Unfortunately Friday 3rd April was rained off late in the day so no racing took place.

On Saturday, we were called for our first side by side run of the day. The dragster got to the startline but the starter motor would not fire up. After a couple of attempts, we were pushed back. Frustrating to say the least!

There was no time to fix the problem as we were straight back down with Number 3. The car ran a Personal Best and the quickest ever Jet FC pass in Europe at 5.72@268mph !

I decided not to run Number 5 again that day as I didn’t have time to solve the issue.

The second run of Saturday with Number 3 saw another PB but this time over the 1/8th mile at a speed of 214mph.

Two PB’s for Saturday with Number 3 but no such success with the dragster yet.

Sunday, I had hoped all the bad luck was behind us. The first run of the day was 1/8 mile side by side Number 3 vs. Dragon Hunter. After a red light by Dragon Hunter, the car did an 3.97@206mph.

Another quick turn around and back to try again with Number 5 and side by side with Split Second. This time the starter motor worked fine but we had afterburner issues. 1/8 mile time of 5.51@145mph. At this point, the team were not in the best of moods!

Another exceptionally tight turn around and back on the line with Number 3 against Dragon Hunter. A second red light from Dragon Hunter and a 1/8 mile time of 4.06@200mph for Number 3.

The final run of the weekend for Number 5 and we got to the startline, fired up and then……… a fuel leak!!! We shut off and that concluded our frustrating weekend!

Since Easter we have tested the dragster again only to find we have a solenoid issue now! Over the next few days, the solenoids will be replaced and hopefully this will be the end of our bad luck.

Who said running jets was easy??

Photos courtesy of Dave Jones and Andy Willsheer