OFFDRC

The SPRC Summer Nationals held at Santa Pod Raceway are a new addition to the Outlaw Flat Four calendar for 2009 and the event was the second round of this years Outlaw Flat Four Championship. Being just a couple of weeks after the Yanks Weekend & Gary's Picnic the timing made for a busy few weeks but when all was said and done it had definitely been worthwhile.

Saturday morning was a scorcher and the track was open according to the schedule and soon everyone was headed down to the pairing lanes ready for the first qualifying sessions of the weekend. Making up the field were Dave Dinning, James Wotton, Andy Marriott, Phil West, Peter Englezos, Bernie Newbury, Paul Bate and Adele Woodbridge. The first run of any weekend is always one drivers are wanting to get out of the way and sometimes this can cause times to be a little off target and whilst nobody had any issues everyone was a little out of the groove except for Adele who having run on the Friday was able to go straight out and put in a Personal Best (PB) running a 12.18. The first runs confirmed everything was OK with the cars so all was set for the remainder of the qualifiers. Perhaps the most significant run of the first session was that between Dave Dinning and James Wotton who were the first Outlaw Flat Four members to run at Santa Pod at an Outlaw Flat Four Championship round, something of a milestone for the club.

Despite a packed event with a good number of entries throughout the classes the qualifying sessions progressed quickly and by the time the schedule got back round to us it was the best part of an hour ahead and a couple of people were caught out having been aiming to have cars ready according to the timetable. This is not usually an issue for drag racing in the UK but with great weather and only very minor interruptions the classes ran through much quicker than expected but after a bit of a last minute thrash all the cars were once again back in the pairing lanes. The second session saw both James Wotton and Paul Bate storm back into the tens, Paul ran a 10.98 whilst James took a new PB with a 10.87, also of note was Bernie Newbury's run which was a 10.71 and a sign that the car was working as it should. The third and final qualifying session of the day saw Adele net her second PB of the weekend and the cars first eleven second pass with an 11.93. All in all a pretty successful day but the final session left James, Bernie and Dave Dinning with some work to do on the Saturday night. The most spectacular parts failure of the day was Bernie's clutch with had all but exploded but with enough spares for the entire field it wasn't a major issue.

As with Saturday's qualifying sessions the eliminations got started pretty quickly on the Sunday morning and ran through pretty much without interruption. The day saw both Bernie and Paul running some good times Bernie tripping the beams with a 10.20 and a 10.16 and Paul getting another pair of tens with a 10.96 and a 10.95 a performance which saw them both making the final with Paul emerging the eventual winner somewhat unexpectedly Bernie having taken a detour off the line on his way to the other end of the track. It had been two long hot days but by the time everyone started packing up on the Sunday it was pretty clear that everyone one had had a great weekend and for various reasons there's a couple of people busting to get back out again as it looks as if a few more PBs are now on horizon. Thanks to the Santa Pod crew for a really great weekend's racing.