Hi everyone!

Here are the (not so) brief results from the amazing 10^th Annual Dragstalgia event at Santa Pod last weekend, 9^th – 11^th July.

The Wild Bunch had a brilliant field of 35 teams taking part in this amazing event. (We had 38 entries, but sadly 3 teams could not make it). Great to see such a big field again and a great variety of cars, with so many regular members, returning teams and a couple of new teams all joining in for a great weekend’s racing! There were some historic matchups, great performances and a superb show from the whole Bunch as always!

We were lucky with the weather for most of the weekend! At least 10 teams participated in the RWYB during the day on Friday. Apart from some rain on Friday evening, which meant no race classes got their first practice round in that session, it was dry for the rest of the weekend, though very humid and close at times.

On Saturday we had two good rounds of practice at 11am and around 3:30pm. About 32 teams were out for the first run and 29 for the second.  Unfortunately Andy Stones had a really bad incident in his beautiful historic ‘Frantic’ Jag-powered altered. Andy had fired up in the staging lanes and somehow it seems the throttle stuck open, and the car ran in to the upright of the barn and through the shutters. The safety crew were immediately on the scene and took great care of Andy, who later went to hospital for a checkup. It was such a relief to see him back safely at the track a few hours later, a bit bruised, but thankfully okay. We are all gutted to hear that there is very extensive damage to the team’s lovely car and are sending all our love to Andy and Cathrine while they assess their damage and next steps. I know they are hoping to come to the next event, crewing so it will be great to have them back with the Bunch. They are very appreciative of everyone’s concern and kindest wishes.

We would all like to thank the safety and rescue crews, track marshals and officials for their excellent action and care in this situation and throughout every event. They are all amazing and professional and we so appreciate all they do for all of us.

Saturday was a good day’s practice for many teams, and then on the evening 5 Wild Bunch teams took part in the static ‘Cracklefest’ and put on a great show: Rob & Pete Brown in ‘Rebel’ and ‘Wrathchild’, Bradley Cooper in ‘Back from the Past’ ably assisted by Dad Ken and partner Denise (and I’m sure the ‘flattie’ was the last one running!), Andy Clifford in ‘Snake Eyes’ and Rob White in ‘Happy Daze’ enjoying their first Cracklefests.  Then Steve Heaven was the only participant in the Fire Burnouts with ‘Tight Fit’ and he did a great job, for his first ever attempt!! He’s now even made it in a photo in ‘The Times’ newspaper!! Congrats to Rob Brown & Hayley Fyfe on their 10^th Anniversary together, after meeting at the first Dragstalgia, and that amazing proposal 2 years ago!! And to super crew and future Wild Bunch driver Thomas Cook-Abbott & fellow Junior Dragster driver Purdie Hadfield on their 1^st!

On Sunday, the Bunch were scheduled for 2 runs, though we were hopeful of squeezing 3 in! Our first run was due to be brought forward an hour or so, but in the end, due to delays, it happened around 1:30pm!  We then had our second round at about 3pm, and luckily got a third at around 4:45pm, so were all pleased with that! Many thanks to the marshals and officials for making the extra round possible and well done to all the Bunch on being ready to be flexible!

Here are the Top 6 at the event after the 3 rounds of competition. Many Congratulations to all!:

1^st Place: Rob & Pete Brown in ‘Rebel’ .0537 average

2^nd Place: Phil James in ‘Rampage’ .0773 average

3^rd Place: Pete & Rob Brown in ‘Wrathchild’ .1301  average

4^th Place: Ian Wild in ‘WildCat’ .1804

5^th Place: Rob White in ‘Happy Daze’ .2845

6^th Place: Steve Heaven in ‘Tight Fit’ .2880

[Plus the other 3 finishers to complete all 3 rounds without redlights were: 7^th - Jim Tanner, 8^th - Ollie H-Smith and 9th - James Auld].

Here are the Spot Prizes that were won. Congratulations to all:-

Closest to Dial-in (in the rounds): Kev Whiting in ‘Tip Top’ with .0018 off!! (Spot on!)

Best Reaction (in the rounds): Pete Brown in ‘Rebel’ .0855 (Great stuff!)

Quickest E.T. of the event:  Alan Lloyd in ‘Gonzo the Great’ 7.920 (also fastest with 165.49 mph) (it was a great honour to have British Drag Racing Hall of Famer Dad Ian being a part of the Wild Bunch and crew-chiefing for Gonzo and still in strong competition after well over 40 years in drag racing!)

Best Burnout:  Steve Heaven in ‘Tight Fit’ (for several strong burnouts and a great fire burnout!)

Best Appearing Car:  Tim Roy in ‘Boston Straggler II’ (great new paint job and all those PB’s!!)

Best Wheelie: ‘Crazy Chris’ Hartnell in ‘Backdraft’ (plus quadruple wheelies on his first run of 150mph!!)

Best Appearing Team: Steve & Lesley Field with ‘Black Pig Too’ (great driver performances and lovely backup lady engine builder!)

Best Backup Girl: Jade Colston from Team ‘Couped Up’ (did expert crewing and looked stunning!)

Best Showmanship: Andy Jackson and the team in ‘Hammerman II’ R.E.D. (sporting amazing Union Jack outfits and flying the flag on their tow truck, great show!)

Spirit of Nostalgia: Ken ‘Mr Flathead’ Cooper & Bradley Cooper & Denise with ‘Back from the Past’ (such a huge honour to have British Drag Racing Hall of Famer Ken being a part of the Wild Bunch and crew-chiefing for their team and still in hot competition after 55 years at Santa Pod!!)

Many thanks to the trophy presenting team of Bella Hartnell (on roller blades and cute red & flamed dress) & Ada Cassisi (Junior dragster driver and backup girl in training). Well done young ladies!!

Congratulations to ‘Crazy Chris’ who won the ‘Best Wheelie’ trophy overall for the whole of Dragstalgia, for his spectacular ‘4 wheelies in one run’ on Saturday!  

Well done to Chris Manning who ran some great numbers in ‘The Villain’ slingshot, a 7.07/202 on one run and 7.16/201 on another in the Cannonball Shootout class. But huge commiserations to him and the whole team, as after his last run, he tagged the wall after the chute deployed. Once again the rescue teams were quickly in to action and after the medical team gave him a quick checkup, he was back in the pits. So good to see him and Tania come along for our WB prize presentation, and to see he was a-ok, apart from some bruising. We hope there is not too much damage to your beautiful car Chris. Best Wishes to you and the whole team! Commiserations to Bob Hawkins and team also running in that class with Bob’s blown nitro ‘Time Traveller II’. Bob had several problems during the weekend with the new combination, so hopefully he will soon get a handle on those and be out running quickly next weekend in Wild Bunch at the ‘Summer Nationals’.  Commiserations also to Leo Knight who had issues with parts in his 7-second ‘Knight Rider’ altered. Hopefully he can sort this and be back out racing soon!

The PB’s this weekend were amazing! Some people set and re-set theirs:

Steve Heaven in ‘Tight Fit’  8.256 (more progress and consistently good runs this weekend)

Andy Jackson in ‘Hammerman 2’ 10.834 / 130.63 (great to see him and the team going in the right direction and curing most of their issues from previous seasons, due to a lot of perseverance!)

Andy Clifford in ‘Snake Eyes’ 9.199 (ever improving!)

Tim Roy in ‘Boston Straggler 2’ 9.449 / 142.60  (a string of PB’s reducing his previous best by over 2½ seconds!!!!)

Ian Wild in ‘WildCat’ 12.592 / 105.54 (taking nearly 1¾ seconds off his previous best checkout passes!)

Everyone put on a brilliant show and it was a huge pleasure to watch! Well done folks!! Here is the full field of awesome Wild Bunch participants!!!!

 

• WB 1: Phil James in ‘Rampage’ (Phil was ably crewed by Matt and sister Alison and put in his usual consistent runs, to finish strongly in the Top 4 again! Well done team!)
• WB 2: Rob & Pete Brown in ‘Rebel’ (the boys took turns in their gorgeous alky injected slingshot and made many strong mid8-second passes! They enjoyed the Cracklefest as always! Fantastic result to win the event amongst such strong competition!)
• WB 4: Mark Coulsell in ‘Ballbreaker’ (Mark had some excellent burnouts in the slingshot and a few good 8-second passes, but sadly some issues prevented him from making all the runs Sunday; hopefully he and Steve can sort these all out for next weekend’s Summer Nats!!  Lynne and Anna both looked stunning in their new black dresses and black and orange boots, and the whole team put on a great show as always!)
• WB 5: Lee Hartnell in ‘Metal Mistress’ (Lee and brother Mark had again worked long and hard to resolve some issues with the blown Rover, and thankfully, fingers crossed looks like they have cured the head gasket problems; Lee made a couple passes Saturday, starting with a run against Dad Chris, but unfortunately some gearbox issues prevented any further runs! Wife Sarah looked gorgeous in her matching blue dress on Sunday and along with her, son Liam and daughter Bella also gave great support to Dad!)
• WB 6: ‘Crazy’ Chris Hartnell in ‘Backdraft’ !!! J J J (fantastic to see Chris back out celebrating both the 52^nd year of the car and its 27^th year as ‘Backdraft’! He started the weekend with a crazy launch, and by commentators’ count 4 wheelies on the first run netting a 150mph pass. I was chuffed to debut a cool Union Jack dress for the occasion and thrilled to be backing Chris up again! On Sunday he lost fire after the first burnout with electrical problems but he, Lee and Mark swapped Lee’s MSD over to the car and Chris then made two strong passes, finishing with a great 8.76!)
• WB 18: Antony Colliver in ‘From Hell’ (Antony was excited to bring his awesome looking Bantam altered back out again, and though it sounded really strong, he had some issues over the weekend, so hope these are cured soon, and we can see him back running PB’s!)
• WB 19: Wayne Colliver in ‘Misfit’ (Wayne made some really good 9-second runs over the weekend, but a hopefully small issue prevented him from making the 3^rd run Sunday; hope he’s back out soon running more low 9’s!_
• WB 20: Pete & Rob Brown in ‘Wrathchild’ (the boys took turns in their ‘firstborn’ slingshot, and really enjoyed their racing and the Cracklefest! It was fantastic to see them finish in the Top 3 in this car too!! A first for the boys, and the Wild Bunch to have both brothers in the Top 4! They finished the event pairing up and had a fantastic weekend!)
• WB 22: Bradley Cooper in ‘Back from the Past’ (it was so brilliant to see Bradley, Ken and Denise back out running the flathead powered slingshot! Great for Bradley to finish the weekend on a strong 11.30 too! Great team effort as always and a very Happy Birthday to Ken this week!!)
• WB 34: Gary Atkinson in ‘Time Lock’ (Gary and Julie and team really enjoyed the event, and Gary put in some great runs! Unfortunately Gary had a redlight on the first round, but the car was running strongly and the team will be sure to keep on improving!)
• WB 42: Bobby Wright in ‘Alturd’ (2 years since Bobby’s debut, and he is running firmly in the 9-second bracket, ably crewed by his Dad; sadly a flat front tyre put him out of the running on Sunday, though thankfully caused no big problems as it was on the end of a run! Hope they can get that sorted for next weekend’s ‘Summer Nationals’! Best of luck guys!)
• WB 47: Andy Stones in ‘Frantic’ (Andy and Cathrine had made some more additions to their team wear and pits, and were so looking forward to running the car; we are all so devastated for them after Andy’s incident and hope they bounce back as soon as possible; we are sending them all our very best wishes)
• WB 50: Kev Whiting in ‘Tip Top’ (2 years since their debut, Kev and Judy had a great weekend with some strong runs and really enjoyed their racing back with the Bunch, running near the PB’s)
• WB 51: Jeff Morris in ‘Malibu Express III’ (Jeff and Sharon and the team had brought their awesome slingshot out for the first time since last Hot Rod Drags. The team spent all weekend going through the car, testing things and making sure everything was right; sadly a couple of minor fuel leaks prevented them from running. Sharon looked great in some flowery dresses and the car looks incredible so it was a shame not to seem them run! Better luck next time folks!)
• WB 55: Alan Lloyd in ‘Gonzo the Great’ (Alan had a good weekend running some strong 8’s and eventually a 7-second pass for quickest and fastest of the Bunch!; It was great to meet his new wife Rachel, on her first full event with Gonzo in the Wild Bunch; the car sadly suffered some (hopefully minor!) damage on the second run Sunday, so hope this is indeed minimal and the team can be back out soon!)
• WB 59: Callum Swinchatt in ‘Kings N/W’ (Callum made some strong passes throughout the weekend, but the team had to leave early on Sunday, as they only lived a couple of miles from something big going on at Wembley that night!! The car looked awesome as usual with great burnouts and launches!)
• WB 64: Steve Heaven in ‘Tight Fit’ (Steve had a great weekend with a PB and a string of very strong runs after starter motor issues! He put on a great show on his first ever fire burnout too!)
• WB 67: Darryl Howells in ‘Chemical Reaction’ (Darryl ran several strong 8-second passes and really enjoyed his racing, whilst Sarah looked totally fab in a range of great 60’s backup girl outfits!)
• WB 72: Dr Faye Hern in ‘Daddy Cool’ (the team had all come together for the first time in ages, and there were 2 brand new crew! Faye & Steve’s 6-month old daughter Eliza and Kyle & Becky’s 2-month old son Owen!  They also had some incredible new team wear; but unfortunately experienced some problems that prevented ‘Mummy Cool’ ‘The Velocity Doctor’ from making any runs! Great to see top crew man Al Grimes in the middle of the team’s efforts, and sure they will be ironing out all the issues and make a great show at the Hot Rod Drags!)
• WB 75: Andy Jackson in the ‘Hammerman 2’ Econorail (brilliant to see the team conquering their head gasket problems through sheer determination! A 10-second pass was a great reward! They looked amazing in their very British outfits!! And really enjoyed their weekend!)
• WB 76: Steve Field in ‘Black Pig Too’ (some strong 8-second runs from Steve, and great crewing by Lesley, Chris and fab tow truck driven by Nicole! The whole package being rightly recognised in the awards!)
• WB 78: Keith Crampton in ‘Soul Town Shaker’ (Keith was fresh from a brilliant 9-second pass in testing his new Chevy motor, but unfortunately had some issues which curtailed his weekend; the car sure looks amazing with its new power plant; kudos to crew Thomas Cook-Abbott in his white Saturday Night Fever outfit, bringing some more disco dancing to the team theme!)
• WB 83: Graham Rawlings in ‘Little Digger’ (the team had a great weekend all together again, and though not running PB’s this time really enjoyed their racing!)
• WB 85: Andy Clifford in ‘Snake Eyes’ (hardly seems 2 years since the car’s debut, and Andy already down to the low 9’s with this beautiful slingshot! Huge admiration for Mum Ruth too, as she crocheted her own dress to a 60’s pattern, and looked absolutely fab! Great crew shirts for Rachel, James and Terry, matching the colour of Ruth’s dress and the car!)
• WB 86: Jim Tanner in ‘Shindigger’ (Jim had gearbox issues, but a team of many Wild Bunch helpers, including Bradley Cooper, helped sort a box swap, and Jim was back out going rounds! He is very grateful to all those who helped and so appreciative of the Bunch as a whole for their support! The team had some great new crew shirts too in purple and flowers, all embroidered, and looked brilliant in a group!)
• WB 88: Ollie H-Smith in ‘Couped Up’ (Ollie made some 11-second passes this weekend, but couldn’t break back in to the 10’s; he and Jade and the team still had a fantastic weekend at the drags and really enjoyed the whole atmosphere!)
• WB 90: Tim Roy in ‘Boston Straggler’ (2 years since his WB debut, Tee improved the performance of his great Jag-powered slingshot, running his first 11, first 10 and then first 9!!) Wow!)
• WB 98: Robert White in ‘Happy Daze’ (the team had some fab new crew shirts in sky blue with all different messages on each crew’s shirt; Rob’s partner Sarah looked fandabbydozy in her period correct 60’s outfit!; Rob improved his runs all weekend and the team had a great time! Great to see them in the Top 5!)
• WB 101: Steven East in ‘Ellie’s in Trouble Now’ (great to see Steven, Joshua and Ellie back out and enjoying their racing! A few little niggles, but they are sure to fix those soon!)
• WB 109: Bob Morgan in ‘B-Sting’ (Bob was one thousandth off winning the ‘Best Reaction’ award! He made several good 10-second passes throughout the weekend)
• WB 113: Paul Tarry in ‘Trigger’s Broom’ (Paul was enjoying his weekend with the altered and making some tuneups to improve performance)
• WB 115: Dan Boone in ‘American Pie’ (the team had a few issues with oil over the weekend, so hopefully will be able to resolve that really soon; the car looked awesome as usual!)
• WB 116: Ian Wild in ‘WildCat’ (a big welcome to Ian on his first event with the Bunch! Amazing to finish in the Top 4 on his very first attempt! A great WB debut with his cool Jag-powered altered!)
• WB 316: James Auld in ‘Little Fauss’ (welcome back James, keen as always! Made all the rounds after some small issues and made the Top 8! Well done!)
• WB 1066: Steve Garlant in ‘Sonic Attack’ (great to see this enthusiastic new team enjoying their racing and making progress with the altered! They had some great new team shirts, courtesy of Poppy’s Father’s Day present to Vinnie and the rest of the team!)

Highlights of this weekend included: The large and varied field of awesome Wild Bunch cars and wonderful people! Plus completing 3 full rounds of racing overall, and another good showing in the Cracklefest and Fire burnout. Other highlights include: the absolutely amazing show from all of the Wild Bunch (the second biggest class at the event), loads of gorgeous backup girls who made a huge effort (I was thrilled to be one of them! Plus it was great that we had a chance for a group BUG photo again!), great team wear, great performances, fantastic individual achievements and exciting matchups!! Everyone in the Bunch really did themselves so proud as they always do!!  Well done everyone!

Commiserations to all those who had breakages or issues. And sending lots of love to Chris & Tania and team and Andy & Cathrine!! Really hope you can all be back out racing soon!!

Congratulations to everyone who took part!! Many thanks to Keith Bartlett for all he does (great to see him match racing ‘Roaring Rat’ with Colin in ‘Bruce’), thanks to all the organisers, starters, track and fire and safety crews, marshals and officials, Simon and the whole eurodragster.com team, commentators Colin Theobald and Darryl Bradford for excellent commentary as always, and for their excitement and support of the Wild Bunch!! Thanks to all the photographers and media, James Forster and Dan Melrose and team and absolutely everyone at Santa Pod, for all their hard work, to run such a brilliant event for the 10^th ever Dragstalgia! Their amazing efforts are so much appreciated!! What a super weekend for the Wild Bunch!! So proud of all the teams and it was fantastic to be a part of it all!

All the best

Claire JJJ