2013 brings more ventures and changes for the FireForce team starting with the launch of our ‘New Look’ website. Hopefully, this updated site will prove as popular with our fans as the older site and should enable us to post quick updates about our news and events.

There is also a new site for the Fire Safety equipment and as European Distributor for DJ Safety, I will happily advise and assist racers with any questions about their Fire Safety needs. Please check out the new site for more information on www.martinhillfiresafety.co.uk

Happily, the launch of the new site coincides with some exciting news………………….

Over the last few months, we have added to our stable of Jet vehicles and can now reveal that at the FIA Main Event (24^th – 27^th May) we will unveil our Jet Dragster otherwise known as FireForce JD5!!!

Originally, we hoped to have the dragster ready for Festival of Power, but as is so often the way with these things, it wasn’t to be.  So although the body and paintwork won’t be completely finished, we aim to debut on the ¼ mile and at least get some safe and successful runs under our belt.

Stay tuned for more news……………

PS Our thanks to Nigel Holland for creating this new site and also many congratulations on the success of his book ‘The 50 List.’

I’ve come to the decision that writing a report after every event we attend is an impossible task. Especially for someone who is not exactly computer friendly. This along with the fact that we have at least 30 events on our race calendar, means that the reports unfortunately take a back seat.

This doesn’t mean that we don’t want to keep you updated with all the latest news from the FireForce camp however. And to this end, we are pleased to announce that the chassis for FF4 has had the repair work completed and it is now back in our workshop. Now that the season is coming to an end, this hopefully should mean that the team are able to put some time into getting FF4 operational again ready for 2013. We don’t have any events planned for FF4 to attend as our priority is to test the car numerous times before any launch date is announced.

After the crash, all the team were devastated, especially as so much time, money and resources were put into building the car. In hindsight, more testing should have been done beforehand and this only serves to make us more cautious this time round.

The team would like to thank everyone who has asked about the repair work and wished us well immediately after the crash and ever since. We appreciate that it has taken much longer than we thought to get all of the repair work done and we look forward to entering in to 2013 with some successful test runs and news of a scheduled event for FF4.
In the meantime, you can still catch the team and FF3 in action at Flame & Thunder on Saturday 27th October for our final runs of 2012.

As always, thanks goes to all the fans who have supported us this year. Your support is appreciated.
Martin Hill

“Since the last update, it’s been a troublesome few months . Many of the events have been plagued with bad weather and thereby reducing the number of runs we have done.

Big Bang was a total wash out with none of our 5 scheduled runs taking place. X Fest was much the same with only 1 run on Saturday and rain beating us again on Sunday and bank holiday Monday.

Street Nationals was slightly more successful with one run each day but the car was still in the 6’s. We were promised that the good engine would be back from the States ready for the Main Event.

The weather improved for the Classic Ford Show and we experienced a mini heatwave meaning that we managed both of our runs on the Sunday albeit still a 6 second pass. The primary engine has arrived all intact and now it’s just a matter of getting the power plant fitted in time for next weekend at the Main Event.

Main Event was still cursed with the British weather and although we managed a run on Friday, we only had one of our two scheduled runs on Saturday with the last run being cancelled due to racing reaching the 9pm curfew. Sunday was a complete wash out with rain all day and Monday we experienced a repeat of Saturday with only one run and the last one being cancelled. All in all, not the best event to test the engine, although the performance of the car was improved. It was still not running as good as expected and a little more tuning is required.

The following weekend saw the Performance Vauxhall Show and the forecast was yet again more rain. Luckily though, the forecast was wrong and we had a fairly sunny weekend with two runs on the Sunday. The first run was a steady 6.0 with an early click off which was promising for our second run. The second run was better and we ran the long awaited 5 second pass, the first since the end of 2011!! Needless to say we were all very pleased and ready for the next event.

JapShow weekend with a run at RWYB on Saturday at 6pm. Although it was dry, we now had to contend with gale force winds which meant only a half pass was run. Sure the summer is just around the corner. Sunday and the JapShow, with only one scheduled run, we managed to back up our previous 5 second run from the weekend before and this time it was 5.87 @ 273mph.

The car seems to be settling itself down with the primary engine reinstalled. We now need to find a baseline for the car’s tuning and to gain consistency in our runs.

Hopefully the weather will be kind to us at Summer Nationals and we can get some good runs under our belt.

Not the best weather to be starting the year off but you have to put up with the British unpredictable seasons. We were scheduled to do one run on the track then a caravan destruction which was enjoyed by the crowd last year and put into the show again. As we got the car ready the heavens opened curtailing any chance of the track being brought to a race ready condition. The car was prepped up and parked in the barn, which is convenient on days like these. The rain slowed down to a light drizzle and we decided to do a flame and vapour show to entertain the crowd who had endured the rain and stayed for the show. It was good to give the car some hard burner pops and warm the crowd up with the heat from the flame show but disappointing that we could only be on the start line. The car shut down ok and we retreated back to the cover of the barn to start prepping up for the next show in the arena.
We moved the car over to the arena which had a good crowd gathered around the stands and fencing, we got the car into position and totally destroyed the caravan to the delight of the crowd.
All done for the day and the car taken back to the unit for the post run checks and we found that we had our gremlin back. After a few hours of work and delving and frustration the decision was made to swap turbines to one of the spares and do some more investigative work.

Ok the car is ready, albeit with the spare -6 motor but at least we are back running. The -8 motor is on its way over the pond to get a new 1st stage turbine seal as this was the cause of our strange noise. The decision was made to leave all the settings exactly the same and see how it performed. Maybe we were expecting too much as the car got to the start line and the show was as normal with good hard burner pops and strong flames, easing the car into stage and bringing up the rpm and launching around 105% the car immediately put the burner out and coughed. The throttle was backed off, the burner re-lit and we continued down the track with an early shut off and only managing 220mph. This was our one and only run scheduled so back to the pits to look at what needs to be done.

Not sure on how the car would behave but we had a plan, launch the car at lower rpm as we didn’t want to change any of the set up that we have for the -8 motor as we had that running nice and consistently. We had one run on Saturday evening and two planned for the Sunday. Fingers crossed as the car was brought into stage and the rpm was limited to 100% and the burner was lit and to all of our dismay it coughed again. Throttle back and burner re-lit. The car was not performing at its best to say the least. Running 230mph is not the ideal for a car that regularly turns 270mph in the quarter. We had better sort this out or its going to be hard work till the good motor comes back.
The next day we tried launching at even lower rpm 95% and this worked but the performance was still well down in running 6.3 at 250 but it got down the track without problem. The next run we sneaked the rpm up to 98% and launched, the car just ever so slightly coughed, well more of a hic up, and ran 6.2 at 260mph so from this we had a bench mark to work from. We could lean on it more but we needed some more runs first to get some consistencies back into the set up.

The English weather eh? The forecast was not good and I think everybody expected the worst. It was probably the first time out for a lot of racers and the pits were full. Unfortunately the weather beat most of us and running was limited to what could be done. The decision was made to leave to the car settings as was and just to get some more runs to see if we could find a simple way to move forward and get the performance improved. The car was staring to get consistent, but slow, not what we are used to or the crowd. We had runs of 6.2, 6.2 and a 6.1 but the speeds were slow at around 260mph. I don’t think we can get the car into the 5’s with launching under 105% but I am sure we can sneak the mph up a little.

The -8 motor is being repaired and should be back in time for the Main Event.

Central Ford RS Day

Strong cross winds greeted us on this event, about time the sunshine came out and treated us. The crowd was better than last year and the site was full with all kinds of Fords. The crowd were very appreciative of our shows and runs and the lack of performance did not disappoint any of the public as 250mph was probably the fastest vehicle they have seen. Not sure if we are having another issue with the car as the mph does not want to get much better at half track. Maybe it’s time for some proper testing with the car tied down and a load cell installed so that all the settings can be adjusted and optimum performance can be achieved even though the good motor is not installed. Time for pen and paper as memories don’t get any better with age and let’s see if we can get the car doing what it should.

Our first outing at Pod for 2012 is Saturday 18th February at Stunt Fest. Last year we were delighted to unveil FireForce 4 and unleash the beast on a defenceless caravan, however this year we will be letting Number 3 loose whilst FF4 is away for chassis repairs and modifications.

The guys and myself are all looking forward to getting back in action after a restful winter (for some) and as always, our year looks as busy as ever.

So if you’re at a loose end and need to entertain the kids or the adults in the half term, come on over to Santa Pod Raceway and enjoy some fiery stunt action!!

It’s the start of another new year and as always, it kicks off with the Autosport International Show at the NEC Birmingham. We are displaying Number 3 as Number 4 is not quite ready.

Progress on Number 4 has been slower than we hoped but we will have it on the track as soon as possible. The body was repaired last year and all the modifications to the chassis were agreed and booked in at the chassis shop. This unfortunately has taken longer than expected due to the workload at the shop. Hopefully it should be back early next month and then the total re-fit can take place ready for testing.

We have another full calendar of events for 2012 starting with Stunt Fest in February. At this stage, we plan on Number 3 for this show as we can’t guarantee that Number 4 will be tested and ready. But whatever happens we will put on a show for the crowd.

Over the winter, my everyday workload has been heavier than normal so whereas the winter is usually a time devoted to the cars, I have been working at the Olympic Stadium. A sideline that I hadn’t anticipated so unfortunately I have slightly neglected my duties with the cars. This forthcoming week I will dedicate my time to Number 3 and the preparations for the Autosport Show.

No-one is more frustrated than myself and the team with the incident with Number 4 and the time it’s taking to get it repaired and tested. I am grateful to everyone’s patience and support and hoping that the forthcoming season will see a successful run with Number 4 and some dates confirmed when 4 is running.

Once the season gets in full swing, regular updates will resume. Until then, you can always follow us on facebook!

So a Happy New Year to you all and hope to see you at the track!

Martin

The weather was unexpectedly warm for what normally is a chilly event. The site was busy as everyone wanted to take advantage of running late at nite at possibly one of the last dry RWYB of the year. The car had settled back into running 5’s again over the last few events so fingers crossed it was not going to disappoint. We left everything alone on the car from the previous event and headed down to the startline. Our show was performed to the enthusiastic crowd and followed by a 5.95 @ a somewhat puzzled speed of 256mph. We thought the speed should have been in the 260’s with the increments from the 1/8th and 1000’ but the run was good and the lights don’t lie. Oh well a weekend off and the GTI show next.