16th april - Bennett Racing

Thunderball Win: Thursday 16th April 2009

Well what a meeting, considering the grief we had to come home winners made it very special indeed.

We got there early Friday morning, got the car out, set up the pit area and got cracking getting the car ready to run, me and my brother put the lash in and all was going well until I noticed that one of the rocker stands was about an 1/8th of an inch higher than the others…obviously we had to investigate further so we pulled the rockers back off and found it to be another broken lifter, needless to say we wont be buying that brand again, anyway that was that, we had a spare but we felt that if two had already gone then how long before the rest went? So the decision was made that we change the full set or none and we go home, but we didn’t have a spare set so we were basically going home even before the car had been on the track.

A huge hunt around the pits for another set was started but I new there wouldn’t be too many set about as we use hemi size lifter bore for more strength, anyway it turned out that Bob Glassup had a set but as he has switched to hemi they were back at Richards workshop in Somerset.

So on Friday night we had to remove the cam and install a new one, after being up since half five that morning, concentrating on that was hard work but it went in without any issues, and more importantly we got the lifter out.

On Saturday morning Steve one of our crew members arrived after 2 hours of driving and then had the news that he had to drive a 400 mile round trip to get the lifters, nice. Thanks Steve and Adam for the drive.

But him and my brother had a cuppa and then got on the road, while they were gone the plan was that we would do every other job so that all we had to do was install the lifters, fit the blower, do the lash and run it up. This turned out to be a blessing in disguise as we got so many other jobs sorted that we have been meaning to do for ages. Also the fact that it was raining (and sorry to the other racers) but it helped us massively as none of the other NFAA teams got to run.

Steve and Adam got back with the lifters at about five o clock I think and we dressed them up a little and fitted them, they were Crane lifters and looked and felt so much better then the others, got them fitted and ready to run.

We also had the new injector that we had made and so we leaked the barrel valve down and we were ready to fire the motor after making sure we had good oil pressure, the car fired but soon died, not enough fuel, tried again, still not enough, a couple of flats on the barrel valve and it ran but was very lean on idle to I added another 10 flats on the barrel valve, I could not believe how much fuel this motor wants on idle, considering we had already set the barrel valve to the same set up as the big and ugly was. Motor sounded very strong, fat as hell but safe, and in one piece so very happy. Gave the signal to switch it off and then got a nice round of applause so thanks to all that did.

Sunday the first run ended up at about 5 ish and the track was very tricky and cold, not to say anything about the track crew as they worked there selves silly trying to get the track dry so thanks guys. Anyway as we new the lifters and cam were all fresh we took it very easy and ran an 8.13 at 128mph against The Mob.

Next run was at about half 8 and again the track was slippery so we launched of idle and just took it easy to get the points and fight another day, think it ran a 9.46 at about 98mph.

Next day we all felt much happier as a team and were raring to go, bare in mind we still hadn’t made a proper full pass to get any indication of what this car will do, first run of the day was against Bob, was gutted when they couldn’t get into gear as without Bob, Richard and Lee’s help with the lifters we wouldn’t of been running at all, so I waited as long as I could but had to pull round due to the heat of the motor, nice little burnout and the track was a lot better so a nice gentle pass was in mind, left ok nice and straight few pedals and still a 6.90 at only 184mph. I was happy.

Back to the pits and a proper check of the motor, everything was spot on so very happy. Left the tune up the same as this was still only our baseline tune up as we had not run a full pass.

We had made the final too so we were happy, against Tony Betts who had earlier ran a 6.50 so we knew we needed a good pass, towed down and seemed to wait for ever to run, eventually did at about 6 I think, pulled round, nice burnout, backed up, motor sounded very strong, and in the back of my mind I new that if my old man cut a good light we could beat the nitro car as the tune up was capable of a 6.5 at worst. Anyway he left so well and straight and the car was won as it just didn’t stop pulling, as we were still testing (only our 2nd full run) he came off of it early with the chutes out and it still ran a 6.63 speed was only 181mph so gives a clear indication of what was there. But the team and I were over the moon, considering we were going home to repair the motor and then win was brilliant.

Thanks again to Xtreme Racing for helping us out, and for the huge applause from everybody when we came back to the pits.

And like I said in my last blog entry we came away from this meeting very proud.