FESTIVAL OF POWER
Santa Pod March 30th – April 1st
The 2013 season got underway with the traditional Easter meeting. 2013 will have added interest for the Showtime FC as it marks a significant move forward for Fuel Funnycars. Trakbak Racing (parent company of Santa Pod) CEO Keith Bartlett has put together a European Funnycar Challenge Series with 3 rounds at Santa Pod and 1 at Hockenheim. Five cars were entered for the Easter meeting with more expected as the season progresses.
The action was scheduled to begin on Saturday and the Showtime crew were raring to go. Unfortunately no-one had told the weather we were going racing ! The Santa Pod crew had done a great job preparing the newly laid surface but near freezing air and track temperature did not bode well for the Fuel cars. Having spent a couple of hours warming the oil in the trailer, it was put in the car and we fired up. Everything sounded good. Off down to the start with the crew dressed like an arctic expedition, it was bl**dy cold!!!
John did a lengthy burnout to try and get as much heat into the tyres as possible, but to no avail. The tyres spun immediately on the hit, John tried pedalling, quickly lifting and idled through. No damage on servicing, maybe Sunday would be better.
During Sunday morning John was in front of the TV cameras doing 3 interviews for the upcoming TV and web broadcasts of the Funnycar Challenge Series.
On the racing side it was an identical build up with oil and warm up. Having fired up at the start, there was a slight problem and we were told to wait before re-firing. Another long burnout.
At the hit, the car disappeared in a huge cloud of tyre smoke, when it cleared there were “S shaped” tyre tracks away from the line. Being behind the car the start line crew were not aware what had happened. The car had turned very hard right at the hit and John had lifted and straightened it out.
The sequence below was taken from the spectator bank:
During servicing a potential clutch problem was identified, and it was decided to review further on Monday.
After consultation it was decided to miss eliminations on Monday, as John explained to www.eurodragster.com : “The car is suffering from the cold conditions. We are chasing a problem and are not sure if it is the weather or a genuine malfunction. The clutch is not working as it should and coming in all at once. These cars are not designed to run in these temperatures.We are having to preheat the oil out of the car and put it in at the last moment as running with cold oil could cause main bearing damage. Even with this we are struggling starting the car and getting the fuel to burn”
( The above quote courtesy of www.eurodragster.com )