2014 FIA European Championships Round 1

It will always be The Main Event to us and a fair few others I should think too! Anyhow, after the success of last meeting, Team Rampage knew we had to keep the momentum going for this weekend to keep our championship hopes alive; fair to say we sort of did and sort of didn't!

The midweek forecast for the long weekend was against us racers with only two of the days looking relatively settled (emphasis on the relatively) and so it struck us that we needed to qualify well to secure as many points as possible in case rain put a stop to eliminations. After the previous meeting, we felt that an 8.00 dial in would always be a good starting point for us as the dragster had the tendency to always run an 8.0 something. Running through with an 8.05 in round 1 of qualifying on the Friday did indeed confirm what we already knew. It wasn't bad, not at all, but it could certainly be better!

As Friday went by, numerous stoppages on the track for a number of reasons meant that we would only get one more run in so we tried to narrow it down a little more and shoot for an 8.02. The dragster hooked so hard, wheels higher than they have ever been, that it was a little unsettled when coming back down again, resulting in a few hundredths lost in the 60ft time. This in turn meant running through with a slightly off pace 8.08, not improving on our previous 8.05. After the end of that session, we were down in 15th. Not good!

Saturday arrived and pretty much everyone knew that the weather was supposed to be at it's worst and it didn't fail to deliver, although nothing compared to the test and tune on Thursday! Time went past midday and it was still raining, resulting in us all doubting whether we would see any racing at all. By some miracle however, the rain did eventually stop and it all dried up rather quickly in time for another round of qualifying; we could see some racing happening after all! Knowing that the track had been soaked for many hours meant it would be a little 'green' so we knocked down the dial in by a hundredth to 8.03 and to our delight she ran through with an 8.04, moving us up to 3rd, narrowly missing out on 2nd by just 2 ten thousandths of a second!

After a few pro sessions on Sunday, it was time for round 1 of eliminations and we were due to race 'that' monster of a pickup truck from the Netherlands. Unfortunately Reinier Van Schelt had informed us that he was out due to a breakage, so we were paired with one of the 4 first alternates Frank Esjkoot. We went for an 8.02 to Frank's 8.55. Knowing we had a slight advantage when it came to running our numbers, Dave tried to consciously not pull a red light...which in turn meant he pulled a -.03 cherry. Gutted was an understatement, but hey ho, the old saying of "if you never pull a red, you're not trying hard enough" definitely came into play. Frank running an 8.54 breakout to our 8.10 added insult to injury, but we were a little off our time as it was. After talking to Felicity and Ian, who were on the startline, they came back and said that it had never been so sticky so we think the track may have been too sticky for the amount of power we have compared to the Pro classes, holding us down enough to make a difference. Fortunately for us however, was that the other championship contenders also went out in the first round so it wasn't as bad, as well as the advantage of having qualified higher in the first place.

We now look forward to the Summer Nationals where we can hopefully go a couple more rounds and keep the points coming in. See you all there!

2014 Festival of Power Race Report

Wow...yet another year of racing is upon us and still we never ask ourselves, why we still do it? Well, for us it's always an obvious answer: for the love, excitement and sheer uniqueness that Drag Racing is! There is nothing quite like the noise, the power, the "feel" that these cars produce for both the drivers and fans alike. Once the last meeting of the year is done, it seems to be an absolute eternity until the next one in the new year comes around; that is of course until it actually does come around and you think - bloody hell, it's been six months already?!

I'm sure everyone remembers last year's Festival of Power, in that it was basically arctic conditions with snow showers in between rounds. Well this year the weather couldn't have been anymore different, with a beautiful array of sunshine covering the vast majority of the meeting which gave us all the best possible start to the new season.

Team Rampage were all geared up and ready to go after a very quiet off season in terms of maintenance to the dragster, with only a bit of welding needed to the chassis. We got to the track Friday morning and couldn't wait to get going for the first round of qualifying. After a small conversation with Geof Hauser, we decided that we would try running slightly higher tyre pressures and see what would happen to our consistency. After going through previous runs and weather conditions, we chose to dial in an 8.00 so we could at least get a number on the board and a decent one at that. Once the burnout had been completed, it was immediately obvious that it was way better than it used to be thanks to the higher tyre pressures, which then made us think "oh bugger, we're going to break out".
The car hooked really hard, which made us doubt ourselves even more, but fortunately we ran through the traps with an 8.003 to go number one qualifier. Brilliant! That set the tone for the rest of the weekend, but did make us ponder: what do we do now?!

It was now the case of trying to beat ourselves and somehow trying to get even closer. Naturally we went for the same dial in for the second run which wasn't until the evening, after what seemed like numerous incidents on the track throughout the day, but it was to no avail as we ran through with a 7.991 break out, still close though right?

Saturday morning was upon us and had really good air conditions, something these naturally aspirated machines thrive upon, so we mutually agreed to go with an 7.99 dial in. In some ways, running through with an 8.002 was both good and bad: good because it was still a competitive run close to our dial in, but bad because leaving it with an 8.00 dial in would have beaten our 8.003, but it's always about the what ifs after it's happened! This did however make us feel a bit more confident that what we were doing was working and at this time the rest of the Super Pro field were catching so it was good to know we were consistent. Again, it wasn't until the evening that we got our second run of the day, which by then was changed from being a qualifying round to the first round of eliminations. As there were an odd number of cars qualified, we were given a bye run through to round 2. An average 60ft meant that we ran through with an 8.03 on our 8.00 dial in, still not bad when you look at it but an off run compared to our other runs!

Round 2 of Eliminations was Sunday morning and we were to race Phil Toppin in his altered. We would have been stupid not to go for an 8.00 so that's what we done, Phil going for an 8.97 giving the Rampage dragster nearly a seconds wait on the startline. Both drivers knew they had to cut a good light against one another and unfortunately for Phil, he tried a bit too hard cutting a -0.1 cherry to our +0.1. It wouldn't have made any difference as he ran through with a PB 8.69, completely annihilating his dial in! We ran through with an 8.02; confirming that an 8.00 was indeed our ideal dial in.

Sadly, before we could race Pete Walters in the quarter finals, on and off rain put an end to the weekend, which in a way was advantageous for us as it meant we left the event sitting 1st in the championship, even though we would have preferred racing to the end. Taking the runs over the three days meant we had averaged 8.009 on our 8.00 dial ins, which when you take a step back and look at it, is incredibly difficult to do. Trying to strategically predict what you will run over a 1/4 of a mile, trying to factor in so many variables, especially when these cars are as fast as they are, is really difficult so we think it's a hats off to all us sportsman racers who do it so well!

A huge thanks for our sponsors for this year: Mini Gears - who are a specialist gear manufacturing company based in Stockport that manufacture many types of high precision multi surface machine components and high quality gears - who have decided to remain with us for the fourth year running and to All Aces Couriers (01295 274050) - who can deliver your reputation for incredible prices - who have also decided to support us for the second year running. Also a thanks to the Walters for organising the sponsorship scheme again this year after it's success last year!