Festival of Power 2015
Santa Pod 3rd – 5th April
After almost 2 years away the Showtime FC was back where it belongs – on the drag strip. We would first of all like to say a huge thank you to all our sponsors who have stuck by us during our break from racing. We would also like to welcome on board Brown & Miller, who have provided the hoses to re-plumb” the car.
Our return did look in jeopardy at one point due to a US Dockers strike holding up a container which had many crucial parts in it. However Bob was as resourceful as ever and tracked down more parts which were collected from California and delivered to the UK in 48 hours. Our thanks to Embassy Freight Midlands for an excellent service.
The Festival of Power is the traditional curtain raiser to the drag racing season and in a change from previous years was to be run over 3 days from Friday to Sunday. On arriving at the track on Friday the 3 days were more than likely going to be 2 as it was constant drizzle. Despite the best efforts of the track crew, the rain won and the day was finally abandoned at 4pm.
Saturday had us scheduled for 2 runs. In common with the Top Fuel dragsters the Funny Cars will now be racing over 1000 ft rather than the full ¼ mile. The first run was scheduled for 12pm. We had a couple of problems with the new oil system when warming up, but these were soon fixed and we were ready to go.
The reports coming back from the track when we were in the pairing lanes suggested traction off the line would be the major issue due to the cold conditions and “green” track. In light of this Bob made some adjustments to the clutch before we towed round to the start.
John announced he was back with a huge burnout, to the delight of the crowd. Backed up and into stage. Green and 0.9546 sec to 60 feet, a brief pedal then back on it, lifting at the 1/8 th and going through in 5.73 secs. No 1 qualifier, not bad straight off the trailer!
There were no dramas or damage during service and we were ready to go again. On the startline around 5 and the car was reluctant to fire and no sooner had it fired then it shut off with a bang
So we towed back to the pits and it was plain to see the damage was terminal and our racing weekend was over and now its time to find out what went wrong.
With the data and what we can see the problem is within the fuel pump/fuel management so
the fuel pump will be bench tested for flow and pressure and the fuel management stripped and inspected.