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APIRA Open Sports Nationals August 26 - 28
APIRA Series Open Nationals26th August - 28th AugustPoints awarded for the APIRA Series Round 3 & Real Steel Series Round 10
This event was Round 10 of the Real Steel Series, and Round 3 of the Ultimate Power/APIRA Series, the Open Sports Nationals. There was a field of 8 Wild Bunch cars competing: 3 Altereds and 5 Slingshots
| Real SteelS Series Points | ||||
| Position | WB | Driver | Car | Points |
| 1 | 100 | Roy Wilding | Chariot of Fire | 7 |
| 2 | 9 | Ed Yates | RamRaider | 5 |
| 3 | 3 | Helen Smythe | Hell's Belle | 4 |
| 4 | 44 | Sarah Howells | Destinys Angel | 3 |
| 5 | 4 | Chris Hartnell | Backdraft | 2 |
| - | 54 | Phil Sweeney | Antisocial | 2 |
| - | 57 | Neil Ward | Andromeda | 2 |
| 8 | 25 | Terry Clifford | Ratcatcher Resurrection | 1 |
| APIRA Championship | ||||
| Position | WB | Driver | Car | Points |
| 1 | 44 | Sarah Howells | Destinys Angel | 270 |
| 2 | 100 | Roy Wilding | Chariot of Fire | 260 |
| 3 | 9 | Ed Yates | RamRaider | 250 |
| 4 | 3 | Helen Smythe | Hell's Belle | 240 |
| 5 | 4 | Chris Hartnell | Backdraft | 220 |
| 6 | 57 | Neil Ward | Andromeda | 130 |
| 7 | 54 | Phil Sweeney | Antisocial | 120 |
| 8 | 25 | Terry Clifford | Ratcatcher Resurrection | 10 |
| Spot Prizes | ||||
| WB | Team/Driver | Car | Detail | |
| #1 Qualifier | 4 | Chris Hartnell | Backdraft | .025 Off |
| Closest To Dial-In | 100 | Roy Wilding | Chariot Of Fire | .079 Off |
| Best Altered | 100 | Roy Wilding | Chariot Of Fire | |
| Best Slingshot | 25 | Terry Clifford | Ratcatcher Resurrection | |
| Best Dragster/Radical | N/A | |||
| Best Engineered | 9 | Team Dogs Bollocks | Ramraider | |
| Saturday & Sunday Qualifying
Saturday was a qualifying day and there were scheduled to be 3 qualifying rounds. The day started off cloudy and cool, and there were a fair few clouds around all day. In the first round of qualifying, all 8 drivers took part. There were later a few oil down delays, and we queued up for a second qualifier, but unfortunately the rains came and the day had to be called early by the officials. Sunday was another qualifying day and we were scheduled to finish off the second cycle of qualifying and to run a further 3 qualifying rounds. The weather was a lot better, still with some cloud cover, and this made for some excellent times, a lot of breakouts and half of the Wild Bunch ran new Personal Best E.T.'s and 5 ran new Personal Best Speeds! We, like all the other racers, had completed 4 qualifiers by close of play Sunday, with 3 drivers improving on the last qualifier! And an amazing total of 6 Personal Best E.T. runs and 7 Personal Best Speed runs were made during qualifying! | |
| WB 3 | Helen Smythe in the Team Twisted Hell's Belle altered was lying in 1st place in the APIRA Series and 3rd place in the Real Steel Series coming into this event. She Dialled in at 9.62 for her opening bid Saturday and ran a 9.867 @ 138.01 mph. On Sunday's first qualifier she raised the Dial to a 9.72 and ran a good 9.675. She lowered the Dial back down to a 9.63 for the third round and recorded a good 9.573 at a new Personal Best Speed of 140.07 mph, her first time over 140 mph!! Congratulations Helen and Dean! They then lowered the Dial-in further for the fourth round, to a 9.52, and were amazed when Helen ran a new Personal Best E.T. of 9.464 @ 139.93 mph! Well done, Helen! And in fact it was only by lowering the Dial even more for the last round, to a 9.40, that she made a run the right side of the index, posting another good 9.495, and qualifying in 5th place overall! |
| WB 4 | ‘Crazy’ Chris Hartnell was hoping for some high 8's or low 9's in the C&C Drag Racing Backdraft slingshot, as he had made some tuning changes since the UK Truck event the weekend before. It was his birthday on the Friday of the event, and he was raring to go on the Saturday! He Dialled in at 8.90 for the first qualifier, and recorded a 9.160 @ 145.92 mph, which was an improvement on the previous event. For Sunday he had made a couple more minor changes and Dialled in at 9.04. He ran a slightly off-pace 9.235 and made another change for the next round, which looked promising so the team changed the Dial-in to 8.94 for the third round. Chris ran back into the 8's again, recording an 8.965 @ 147.58 mph, just .025 off Dial, and this put him into the Number 1 Qualifying Spot where he remained throughout! (This run had been against Neil in the Andromeda slingshot, and it was a great race with side-by-side 8-second runs, with Neil just getting to the top end .032 before Chris, by virtue of a great reaction!). In the fourth round, Chris lowered the Dial slightly to 8.92 and ran another 8, at 8.988, again at 147.48 mph. For the last run of the day the track was cooling, and he ran a 9.112 on an 8.95 Dial. Chris was very happy to be back in the 8's again and pleased with his qualifying runs! |
| WB 9 | saw Ed Yates back in the hotseat of the RamRaider slingshot of Team Dog's B's, eager to carry on improving his E.T.'s. He dialled in at 9.25 for the first qualifier and ran an off-pace 9.700 @ 137.38 mph, just getting used to the car again as his last drive was back in June. He sat out the second qualifier Sunday morning, but improved against the same Dial-in with his third round pass, posting a 9.567 @ 146.05 mph, a new Personal Best Speed. He improved slightly in the fourth qualifier, recording a 9.534, and saved the best for last with a new Personal Best E.T. of 9.336 in the fifth round, which moved him up to 4th place overall. Well done, Ed! |
| WB 25 | saw the first time in MSA competition for Terry Clifford in his Ratcatcher Resurrection slingshot. He dialled in very low, with 11 seconds even for his first qualifier so as to not break out, and posted a 13.269 @ 99.53 mph. He kept this Dial-in for the second qualifier on Sunday, and improved slightly with a 13.143 @ 101.18 mph, but unfortunately there was a big puff of smoke at the finish line, and on taking the car back to the pits, Terry discovered that a piston had let go and destroyed the engine! And although he was very lucky to not hole the block nor shed any oil on the track, this was such a shame, especially on his first time at an MSA event! Terry was very philosophical, and was pleased to have gotten as far as qualifying! We all wish Terry and the team a quick rebuild so he can be back out early next season racing with the Bunch again. Best of luck, Terry! There was one small consolation, in that Terry won the ‘Mr Bolt’ Best Slingshot Spot Prize for his lovely period slingshot, so congratulations to him for that award! |
| WB 44 | Sarah Howells was back in Bernie's Destiny's Angel altered of team Evolution Racing, and was currently in 2nd place in the APIRA Series, going into this final round. She Dialled in at 9.55 for starters on Saturday and ran an off-pace 10.089 @ 137.10 mph. She lowered the Dial-in for the first qualifier Sunday, to a 9.50, and ran a new Personal Best E.T. of 9.461 @ 145.23 mph! She then lowered this again, to a 9.45 and ran another PB of 9.401 @ 146.29 mph, a new Personal Best Speed! The team lowered the Dial even further, to a 9.30 so Sarah would not break out, but she did, and recorded both ends of yet more PB's with an amazing 9.232 @ 146.79 mph! The team once more lowered the Dial-in to 9.22, and Sarah ran a strong 9.262, and qualified in 2nd place overall! Fair play, Sarah, and well done to Bernie on some excellent tuning! |
| WB 54 | Phil Sweeney had just managed to get the gearbox in the Antisocial slingshot rebuilt in time for this event, after damage at the UK Truck Event the previous weekend! He Dialled in at 12.50 for his first qualifier, and had a troubled pass, running 14.555 @ 104.85 mph. He kept the same Dial Sunday morning, and recorded a much-improved 12.674 @ 110.01 mph. Phil stuck with the same Dial-in again for the third qualifier, and broke out with a good 12.358 @ 111.57 mph, so he lowered the Dial-in for the fourth round, but posted a slower 12.709. He then opted for the original 12.50, and posted his best run of the weekend, a 12.318 in the fifth round, and qualified in 7th place. |
| WB 57 | Neil Ward was looking for some more 8-second passes in his Andromeda slingshot, and started with a Dial-in of 9.00. He ran a 9.257 to open his account, and kept with the same Dial-in for the first run on Sunday. He went straight out and recorded a fantastic new Personal Best E.T. of 8.881 @ 150.38 mph! His first time over 150 mph!! Many congratulations to Neil and the team on this achievement! They then lowered the Dial-in to suit the car's performance, an 8.80. This run was against Crazy Chris and they posted side-by-side 8's, with Neil putting in a strong 8.935 @ 150.73 mph, another new Personal Best Speed! He kept this new Dial-in for the fourth round and posted a slower 9.213, with a nitrous glitch. Neil qualified in 6th place overall, and was thrilled with the car's performance! |
| WB 100 | Roy Wilding came into this event with his Chariot of Fire altered leading in the Real Steel Series. He started the weekend with a Dial-in of 11.38, and recorded an 11.450 @ 117.97 mph, and took temporary Number 1 Spot for the day. He then raised the Dial accordingly, to an 11.42, but broke out on this, posting an 11.305 on the first qualifier Sunday. He lowered the Dial back down to an 11.30, but broke out again with an 11.271 at a new Personal Best Speed of 123.71 mph. He once more lowered the Dial to an 11.27, but this time recorded an 11.368! He raised the Dial one more time, to an 11.35, only to break out again, with a solid 11.246, just one thousandth slower than his previous PB. Roy qualified in 3rd place overall. |
| On the Saturday and Sunday we also had the second ‘challenge’ round with the team from Paul Marston Racing. This was based on qualifying, with points for each position of 6 of our drivers and their 6 drivers, bonus points for #1 in class and reaction times. They had won the challenge at the Summer Nationals and this time they beat us even more, by 58 points to 36! It was a bit of fun, and we enjoyed presenting them with a couple of trophies for the wins! We have ‘Round 3’ at the Sportsman Finals, and we hope to improve further on our qualifying!!
Monday (Race Day) Monday started off cool and wet and it was starting to dry around 10am, but another shower delayed the start of all eliminations until about 1pm! All 8 Wild Bunch cars had qualified for the race and our first round was the quarter-finals, which eventually took place at nearly 3:30pm! Quarter-Finals The first pairing saw Sarah Howells facing Neil Ward. Sarah had posted a 9.22 for her Dial, slightly quicker than her PB, whilst Neil went for broke with an optimistic 8.75! Sarah had a good reaction of .098 and recorded a 9.351 @ 145.65 mph, which took the win over Neil's hard charging 9.000 @ 148.98 mph. In the second pairing, Helen Smythe and ‘Crazy’ Chris Hartnell matched up. Helen opted to go for it, with a 9.45 Dial, slightly better than her PB, and Chris went for a moderate 9.04. Helen got the jump on Chris at the start and recorded a 9.549 and Chris was unable to catch her, recording a 9.151 @ 140.49 mph, so Helen advanced to the Semis. The next race saw Phil Sweeney dialling in at 12.55 to Roy Wilding's 11.29. Phil brokeout with a 12.510 @ 101.35 mph handing the win to Roy who ran an 11.369 @ 118.39 mph. Roy was .079 off his Dial which eventually earnt him the “Closest to Dial-in” Spot Prize for the day. He also took home the “Best Altered” Spot Prize for his consistent performance and well-turned out car. Rounding off the first round was Ed Yates, who ended up with a Bye run in the “RamRaider” slingshot, due to Terry Clifford's unfortunate breakage. Ed Dialled in at 9.25 and ran a good 9.340 @ 145.17 mph. The team took home the “Best Engineered” Spot Prize for their well-turned out slingshot. After this round, we all went back to the pits and awaited the Semi-finals. There was another small rain delay around half an hour later, but then a big deluge fell at around quarter past 4. The track staff worked hard to dry this up, with dozens of them out on the track to try to bring the track round, and about quarter to 5 this was showing some promise, but sadly another big shower put an end to the day's racing, and the officials were forced to call the event off! Such a shame, as there was much more exciting racing to come! And although we only completed one round, we were able to declare a result for Wild Bunch purposes, by nearest to Dial-in of the four Quarter-final winners. This meant that Roy won the event, with Ed second, Helen third and Sarah fourth, so congratulations to all of them! This also means that Helen has now won the APIRA Championship for 2006, with Sarah finishing Runner-up! Congratulations, ladies! Very well done! And Roy has increased his lead in the Real Steel Series, with Helen moving up into 2nd place, 10 points behind him. Well done to all the Wild Bunch racers who put on excellent performances during the Bank Holiday weekend. Overall, it was a good event, and it was a great shame that it was cut short by the weather. Thanks again to all the hard working marshals and officials for their efforts, they really did try hard to get racing going again after all the rain! And we appreciate all their hard work. We are now looking forward to a fun weekend at the Hot Rod Drags at Shakey mid-September and then the final rounds of the Wild Bunch, Real Steel and Roy Wilding Nostalgia Race Cars Series, at the UK Sportsman Finals at Santa Pod at the end of September! | |