NSRA Nostalgia Nationals

Taking part in the NSRA Nostalgia Nationals was a first for Team Rampage and it turned out to be a good decision. Beautiful show cars and race cars made for a fun event at Shakespeare County Raceway and this time round it was the turn of the Monza Funny Car to have a play. We had entered Wild Bunch for the meet, as we have enjoyed the racing and atmosphere of the class in previous events.

Having taken the Funny Car over the day before, Saturday was a lot more relaxed than what the first day of an event normally is, this being because it was open practice for both days, so we could go out when we wanted and as many times as we wanted. The added bonus was that the weather was lovely and sunny, including a very strong tailwind! The first run in the late hours of the morning turned out to be a little disappointing, since the line lock which locks all four brakes used to launch the car was not working as it should, the culprit being the rear brakes in this case. This meant that Dave rolled through the beams and had activated the start time, resulting in time ticking away as he was still trying to launch the car. The Funny Car went through the quarter at a 10.08.

When we got the car back to pits after the run, we gave the rear brakes a thorough clean and tested the line lock from there and it worked, so hopefully the next run would be an improvement on the first. That proved to be the case as the car locked itself dead still and launched as it should, with Dave going through with a 9.59 at 135mph. The wind at this time was becoming more and more severe, so maybe the third run of the day would be even quicker.

The day soon shot by and it was time for our third and final run of the day alongside the Dorset Horn Funny Car which made for an exciting and photogenic race. The line lock did what it should, so the problem was well and truly solved in that department and the Rampage Funny Car ran through with a 9.57 at 139mph, the wind proving to be a factor for the quicker speed and time. That was the end of Saturdays racing and the team were certainly looking forward to race day the next day.

Like the vast majority of other events that had already taken place this year, rain had affected the racing at both Santa Pod and Shakespeare County and it was the same situation for the Sunday morning. On the journey to the track, it did look fairly promising as all the roads were drying from the heavy rain through the night and there were no nasty clouds that looked dangerous, however this was soon to change as the forecast had predicted. It wasn’t until the moment that the commentator had announced that the track was in a go position and the fire up roads were open that the heavens opened and boy did they open! Initially, it was just the odd shower but that soon altered into a series of monumental down pours. It really did not look promising and there was the thought to pack up and leave, however the rain did eventually stop and the sun came out, which really helped the drying of the track and more so the run off. "Could it be that we were going to have a run today?!" we said. 

It did mean exactly that! The track was opened and we, along with the other guys in Wild Bunch, made our way down to the start. We had decided to predict a run of 9.58 seconds and the Funny Car ran through with a 9.65, but of course we had forgotten to take into account that there was no longer a tailwind like on Saturday so the car would not run as fast. The time was 15:30 and it looked to be that if the weather stayed like this we could get a second run in too!

We did and we had to run quicker to get closer to our 9.58 to have a shot of being higher up the table. Running a 9.63 was indeed closer to our 9.58, but was not enough to get us any higher and so we finished the event in 4^th, coming home with a trophy. It was fair to say that we would never have anticipated getting one run on the Sunday, but to get two was very lucky.

The Nostalgia Nationals had lived up to the expectations of being good fun and we all went away feeling quite content with how the event went.      

Easter Thunderball 2012

The Easter Thunderball has always been one of those events where the weather decides to change throughout the four days and this proved again to be the case. However it has never failed to bring the closest of Sportsman racing over the many years since the event was created.

It was Friday morning and an extremely cold one too, the temperature gauge showing -3 in the earlier hours and this posed all sorts of problems for all the racers, but more so for the quicker classes including our class Super Pro ET. The decision was made by the team to not make a run for the first round of qualifications due to the track conditions and this was the same decision made by the majority of other teams too, just 7 cars who went out for the first qualifier. Luckily, the weather did improve slightly in terms of temperature and so we set ourselves for the first run of 2012 with a dial-in of 8.10 seconds. Unsurprisingly, the conditions were still too cold for the dragster to make a good run, resulting in Dave having to come off the throttle in the last third of the track due to the car moving about far too much, rolling through the quarter with an 8.45 at 148mph. Plenty more opportunities to rectify that! Next run then and the decision was made to bring the dial-in down to an uncharacteristic 8.21. This time the car hooked up nicely and ran what it’s supposed to run, an 8.08 at 166mph. D’oh! The breakout meant that we were lower down the field at this time. This run was the last of the day.

Saturday morning was an improvement on Friday morning’s weather, for the reason that it wasn’t below freezing. Waiting around most of the day for the fourth round of qualifying was something that we were used to by now and we all agreed on an 8.08 dial-in. The look on our faces when Dave went through running 8.07 at a terminal speed of nearly 168mph could only be described as frustrating, Dave’s even more so when we collected him from the end of the track! Unfortunately, that was the only run of the day.

The plans for Sunday were to have two more qualifying rounds and then go into eliminations. Well, the two more rounds never happened and it meant going straight into eliminations at a very late 19:45. What a good way to spend a Sunday evening! We were up against the newly built Fuel Altered being driven by Jim Draper and what a beautiful car it was, entering Super Pro for testing. The sun had nearly set at this point making it near enough night racing. We had gone for the dial-in of 8.07 and the altered with a quicker 7.40, giving Dave the start line advantage of 0.67 seconds. Dave used the advantage to his full potential cutting a +0.04 light, the altered was struggling up the track with what sounded like mechanical issues, if not then apologies! The dragster ran through with a much better 8.11 at nearly 165mph, 0.04 off of our dial-in. Not too shabby!

Yet again, the power that is Mother Nature meant that the Monday was a complete and utter wash out, with torrential rain and wind, giving Race Director Robin Shone no choice but to call the rest of the event. So, in a way, Team Rampage can come away from the event feeling relatively happy with the cars performance and consistency.

Thank you very much to all our Sponsors for their contributions, as always they are appreciated.

Season's Greetings

Wishing you all a great festive period and look forward to your continued support in the new season. Hope you all have a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year. Team Rampage.

Season Pics

Dragstalgia

The success of the first ever Dragstalgia can only be described as fantastic. Not only because of the amount of nostalgic race cars that had entered, but also for bringing back all the traditions, that these days health and safety have restricted. The cackle fest, flame burnouts, even the good old christmas tree was brought out, totally refurbished.

The event for Team Rampage was an absolute blast, and thanks must go out to Santa Pod's track crew, doing an awesome job as ever. Having looked at every possible weather forecast, they were all unanimous in saying that it was going to bucket it down pretty much all day. But this was until our prayers to the weather gods were answered by providing the event with rays of sunshine from around 3:00pm onwards, and this time it was the turn of our rookie driver Dave King, who had previously been up the track a couple of times. We had chosen to enter into Wild Bunch for the meeting, having done a few meetings before in the class and being more than happy to enter again. The first run was somewhat wasted, as we decided beforehand to change the rpm chip to shift at 6000 instead of the usual 5400, but as forgetful as we are, we didn't tell Dave that and he thought the engine was revving much too high forcing him to come on and off the throttle going through the traps running 12 seconds.

The decision was therefore made to put the chip back to the original shift point of 5400rpm, and being that Dave was launching the car using only the throttle and not the launch button, his second run was a more respectable 9.90. This was however the end of the day for racing, but certainly not the end of the day in terms of entertainment! All the late evening shows proved to be well worth staying the night, it was made even better when the beers came out!

Sunday morning, in the earlier hours of around 4:00am, looked promising as the sun was actually shining at this time, but it wasn't until someone jinxed it that it became cloudier. Eventhough this was the case, the forecast for the day was supposed to be slightly better than Saturday's, and it wasn't until we were a few pairs away from the first run of the day when it started spitting. This lasted around 40 minutes, but as it was only light, the track wasn't too badly effected, resulting in the track crew taking little time to dry it. We had said in the morning that we would run a 9.8 because in Wild Bunch its about getting as close to your predicted E.T but without dialing it in into the timing system, and to our delight, the funny car ran a 9.816, thats bracket racers for you! This put us into the number two spot, which we gladly took, however once again the good old british weather spoilt the opportunity for another run, right before we were due to run too, and the race director decided to call the meeting off as the cut off point for the racing had already passed. So Team Rampage at least went home with the runners up trophy, and big thanks to the organisers of Wild Bunch Claire and Chris, we had a great weekend in your class, cheers for letting us in! And of course the Rampage crew of Jeff, Ian, Graham and Daniel, and last but not least our sponsors, much appreciated.