Easter Thunderball - Wild Bunch

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Easter Thunderball April 22 - 25

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Wild Bunch ResultsEaster Thunderball22nd - 25th April 2011 Real Steel Series Round 1. MSA Points Challenge 1.

The “Easter Thunderball” was the first event of the WB season. It was Real Steel Series Round 1 and MSA Challenge Round 1, and there was a field of 10 Wild Bunch cars competing: 3 Altereds, 6 Slingshots, a Rear-engine dragster.

Wild Bunch Points
Pos	WB	Driver/Team	Car	Points
1	91	Bob Hawkins	Timetraveller	10
2	3	Adz Price	Go Hard or Go Home	8
3	25	Terry Clifford	Ratcatcher Resurrection	6
4	6	Chris Hartnell	Backdraft	4
5	78	Keith Crampton	Soultown Shaker	3
6	2	Dave Rowlands	Destinys Angel	2
-	11	Dave Williams	Green With Envy	2
8	4	Dogs Bollocks Racing	RamRaider	1
-	8	Ballbreaker	Mark Coulsell	1
-	40	Darren Law	The Wicked Lady	1

Spot Prizes
	WB	Team/Driver	Car	Detail
Closest To Dial-In	91	Bob Hawkins	Timetraveller	0.017 off
Best Reaction	91	Bob Hawkins	Timetraveller	0.038
Best Appearing Team	8	Ballbreaker	Mark Coulsell
#1 Qualifier	3	Adz Price	Go Hard or Go Home	0.015 off
Quickest ET	91	Bob Hawkins	Timetraveller	8.774
Wildest Ride	6	Chris Hartnell	Backdraft

This was the 6th time the Wild Bunch had competed at the Easter Thunderball at Santa Pod as a class and we had our biggest ever field at the event! The Wild Bunch welcomed back a great group of racers, many with new parts, and 3 racers ran Personal Best E.T.s and 3 ran Best Speeds. All of the teams were hoping for good weather for the start of the season, and we got more than we bargained for – 4 days of glorious sunshine and warm temperatures for the first 2 days, and slightly cooler for the next 2 made great racing conditions for the season opener. An absolutely fantastic weekend which will be talked about for years to come!! Qualifying Friday This was a qualifying day and there were scheduled to be 3 qualifiers. The day turned out to be sunny and warm, which was a great start! Our first qualifier was around 11:15am and 8 of the cars took part. We had a further two rounds at about 1:30pm and 5pm, and 8 cars qualified at that point. Saturday Three more qualifiers were scheduled on Saturday and, once again, glorious sunshine met the racers on waking up! This turned out to be the warmest day of the event, with temperatures getting up towards 80 degrees! Again, the track opened on time around 9am. We had our 4th qualifier about 12:15pm, after one of the Pro sessions, and our 5th around 5:30pm. We queued up for the next qualifier, but an oildown ended the day before 8pm. All 10 cars were safely qualified. Sunday There were 3 more qualifiers on the Sunday schedule, with the possibility of the extra missing one if the running order was ahead. As it turned out, the schedule ran behind, and we only got 2 more qualifiers, at about 12:45pm and 4:30pm, but we were still pleased with 7 altogether!
WB 2	Dave Rowlands was now in his 4th season of MSA racing with the “Destiny's Angel” altered. He started off with a Dial-in of 9.85, and ran a 9.971 at 136.15mph for his first qualifier, to go straight into #1 spot after this round. A real good start! He raised the Dial for the next run, and recorded a strong 9.572 at 142.08mph in the second qualifier, which really pleased the team! They changed the Dial-in to 9.60 for the third qualifier, and Dave ran a 9.956 at 139.83mph On Saturday, he got closer, recording a 9.961 on a 9.90 Dial and, becoming consistent, he posted 9.939 on a 9.95 at 137mph and 9.982 on a 9.85 at 136mph for his next two runs. He was off the pace in the 7th round, with a 10.183 on a 9.95 Dial at 132.98 mph, but the team soon traced this to one cylinder not firing, and sorted the problem quickly that evening. Dave qualified in 7th place overall, and was happy to be back out racing.
WB 3	new Dad Adam Price was running in his 3rd season with the Wild Bunch and his 2nd in MSA competition with the “Go Hard or Go Home!!!” altered, which now had a new engine. And he and Lorraine have a lovely new baby daughter Hollie, just 3 months old, their newest team member! Many congratulations to them! And welcome Hollie! Adz had run his first ever 9-second pass in testing a few weeks before the event, and got down to a 9.49 (some big improvement from last year's PB of 10.68!). Adz dialled in at 9.40 for the first qualifier, and, you guessed it, his first run in competition of the season was another new PB, with a breakout 9.344 at 133.63mph, a new best speed! The team lowered the Dial for the next round, to 9.30, and Adam ran another PB of 9.315 at 132.10mph! This put him straight into the #1 Qualifier Spot. He then had a 9.380 at 131mph on his 9.30 Dial in. His first round Saturday saw a slight problem, and he didn’t make the run. But he bounced back with another consistent 9.345 on a 9.31 Dial at a new best speed of 134.91mph. His sixth qualifier also produced both ends of a PB, with a 9.309 at 135.70mph on a 9.34 Dial. And just for good measure, his 7th qualifier would have been good enough for #2 spot too, with a 9.316 at 134mph on a 9.30 Dial. Adz had kept the #1 spot from the 2nd qualifier onwards. Fair play!
WB 4	saw Ed Yates taking the first turn of the year in the “RamRaider” slingshot for Team Dog's B's. He began the event with the team's familiar 9.33 Dial-in for starters, and promptly went quicker, with a strong 9.296 at 142.57mph, a promising start. But with quite a bounce on at the top end and a real hairy ride. Glad all was a-ok after that one! The team lowered the Dial to 9.28 for the next run, and Ed recorded a 9.384 at 141.24mph, getting a good number in on the right side. The team kept the Dial for the third run, and Ed posted a 9.455 at 141.59mph. On Saturday morning, the team went back to the 9.33 Dial, and, the car liked the morning air, with Ed recording an even better 9.282 at 143.85mph, his best run of the weekend. They lowered the Dial to 9.23 for the next round, but unfortunately, just after launching, the car broke a half shaft, and Ed pulled off the racing line and coasted safely down the track, clearing the top end okay. The team inspected the damage back in the pits, and after some consultation, realised that they could not repair it during the weekend, so sadly Ed was out of the race. He had qualified 8th, which would most likely have been better had he had some more runs. Hope the team can get the car fixed real quick and be back out for the “Springspeed Nationals” in a few weeks! Best of luck guys!
WB 6	In the off-season ‘Crazy’ Chris Hartnell bought a new ally block to replace the worn one in the “Backdraft” slingshot. Chris had it machined and rebuilt it with all the internals from the old engine, which were still in good condition. Chris and the team hoped that the new engine would get the car back into the 8's again. They optimistically dialled in at 8.98 for the first qualifier. Chris ran a checkout pass of 9.212 at 143.47mph in this round. The team raised the Dial to 9.10 for the second qualifier, and Chris posted a 9.130 at 143.92mph, which at the time was good enough for 2nd spot, in the same pairing that Adz took the #1 spot. The team lowered the Dial for the next run, to 9.03, but Chris had a real hairy launch, getting onto the right hand centre line, and backing off to a 9.504 at 142.16mph, and earning “Wildest Ride” in the process. The next morning the team kept the Dial and Chris ran an improved 9.005 at 144.40mph, which was promising. With the Dial lowered to 8.98 again, Chris ran a 9.068 at 142mph in the warmest conditions of the day. On Sunday morning, the air was reported better, and the team stuck with the 8.98 Dial. Chris and the whole team were over the moon when he ran an 8.954 at 146.29mph! They didn’t mind the breakout on that one! The last qualifier backed this up with an 8.988 at 145mph on an 8.92 Dial. Chris finished in 4th place overall in qualifying, and the team were well chuffed to be back in the 8's!
WB 8	saw Mark Coulsell in the Limited Funz Racing Team's first event of the year with the “Ballbreaker” slingshot. The team had to spend Friday in the pits, checking the bearings, as they had found a problem on a recent fire-up. They got everything back together late Friday afternoon. Their previous best with the car was a 10.18 at last year's Hot Rod Drags, so they started Saturday with a Dial-in of 10.00 even. The whole team were chuffed to bits, when Mark went straight out and ran his first ever 9-second pass, a 9.790 at 136.60mph! Congratulations to Mark and the whole team on that one! For the next round, they lowered the Dial to 9.70, hoping for a repeat, but there was a slight problem on the run, and Mark posted a 10.312 at 126mph. The next morning, they kept the 9.70 Dial, and Mark broke out once again, with another PB, an excellent 9.530 at 136.87mph! Fair play! In the 7th qualifier, Mark left the line a bit too early, on a 9.50 Dial, and did not record a time. He qualified in 9th place overall and the team were thrilled to be running in the 9's!
WB 11	saw Dave Williams in his second season of MSA racing, with his “Green with Envy” altered. Dave and Linda were really pleased to be back out again after the long winter break. They dialled in at 11.50 for starters, and ran a solid 11.644 at 116.87mph in the first qualifier. They stuck with the same Dial-in for the next two qualifiers, and Dave posted a good 11.548 at 116.86mph in the second round, and an 11.791 at 115mph in the third qualifier. On Saturday morning, with the same Dial, Dave broke out, running a better 11.476 at 117.46mph. Linda changed the Dial to 11.45, but in the heat of the day, Dave ran an 11.682 at 116mph. Sticking with this Dial the next morning, he ran a similar 11.628 at 117.76mph. The Dial was raised to 11.59 for the last qualifier, and this proved to be Dave's closest run in qualifying, with an 11.630 at 118.67mph, to finish in 5th place overall.
WB 25	Terry Clifford was back out in the “Ratcatcher Resurrection” slingshot. The team arrived early Friday morning, and got the car scrutineered and all sorted, but just missed out on the first qualifier. They joined in the second round where Terry posted a strong 10.279 at 127.94mph on a 10.18 Dial for starters. The Dial was lowered to 10.10 for the next run, where Terry recorded a 10.329 at 126.96mph. The next 4 runs proved to be incredibly consistent to that one, with a 10.341 at 127.95mph on a 10.18, a 10.344 at 127.59mph on a 10.25, a 10.322 at 128.34mph on the 10.25, and saving the closest for last, a 10.327 at 128.67mph on a raised 10.30 Dial. The last 5 runs all being within .022 of each other! So close! Terry finished in 3rd place in qualifying, and the consistency showed really good promise for Race Day.
WB 40	Darren Law and the “Wicked Lady” team were again out early in the season with their rear-engined dragster, which had run consistently in the high 8's last season. The team towed down for the first qualifier Friday, but when they fired the car, there was no drive! They went back to the pits and spent the whole day checking out the gearbox and associated parts. They finally found that there was some wear on some oil seals on the input shaft, and were able to get some new ones, and put it all back together ready for Saturday's qualifiers. In the 4th qualifier, Darren had a problem and rolled through stage, so did not record a time. But he was right back on form for the next qualifier, when he ran a strong 9.057 at 145.28mph on a 9.01 Dial-in. Fair play! The team kept the Dial for the next run, where Darren recorded a consistent 9.063 at 145.27mph. And qualified in a good 4th place overall. But before the last qualifier, the team discovered some water coming out from a spark plug, and on further investigation, noticed a crack in the water jacket. Unfortunately, they were not able to repair this for the eliminations on Monday, so were out for the weekend. We really hope they can fix the problem, and be back out for the next event. Best of luck to the whole team for that!
WB 78	Keith Crampton was back out in his “Soultown Shaker” slingshot, for his second season in MSA racing. Keith dialled in at a conservative 12.10 for his first qualifier, and had a problem on the run, posting a 13.086 at 107.04mph. He kept the Dial for the next two runs, posting a slightly better 12.925 at 107.68mph, and a breakout of 12.025 at 115.51mph. On Saturday morning, he lowered the Dial to 11.97, but again experienced a problem, running a 13.031 at 111.65mph. This turned out to be a problem with the clutch, and the team made some adjustments before the next qualifier. Hopeful of improvement, they dialled in at 11.97 again, and were pretty pleased when Keith ran a much improved 11.928 at 115.93mph, a new Personal Best Speed. Well done! They then lowered the Dial to 11.75 for the sixth qualifier, but a problem recurred, and Keith recorded a 12.763 at 111mph. The Dial went back up to 11.90 for the last round, and the car really struggled on this one, to a 14.5 at 100mph. Keith qualified in 10th place, and the team worked on the clutch again.
WB 91	was last year's ‘Best Newcomer’ Bob Hawkins running with his “Time Traveller” slingshot, which he had just installed nitrous on. Bob had recently done some test and tune events and had improved from last year's best of 10.76 at 126mph, to a 9.27 at 143mph. Another team with a huge off-season improvement! Bob and son Tom optimistically dialled in at 8.99 for the first qualifier. And Bob went straight out and ran another PB, with a 9.153 at 147.13mph, a best speed. They kept the Dial for the next round, and went even quicker, with a strong 9.019 at 146.64mph. Seeing that they were getting closer, the team lowered the Dial to 8.95 for the third round, and Bob ran his first ever 8-second pass, an 8.971 at 146.21mph! Congratulations Bob!! The next morning saw more improvement, when he ran another one, an 8.918 at 146.17mph on the 8.95 Dial. Later, in the warmest temperature of the weekend, Bob ran an 8.959 at 147.11mph on a lowered 8.91 Dial. Tom decided to keep that Dial for Sunday morning, and Bob ran even quicker, recording an 8.843 at 149.14mph, for both ends of the PB again! They lowered the Dial to 8.86, and Bob ran a 9.045 at 147.11mph. He qualified in a strong 2nd place overall. And he and Tom were chuffed to be in the 8's!
Race Day Monday Monday dawned sunny again - what a brilliant weekend for weather!! Since we had a bigger field, we had 4 rounds of racing, so were on the running order quite early. All 10 Wild Bunch cars had qualified for eliminations, but sadly we were missing Ed and Darren, with the damage to “RamRaider” and “Wicked Lady”. Such a shame as they were running well and would have had some great races in the round. Round 1 The first round took place at about 10:15am. Adam Price had been due to face Darren Law, but ended up with a single due to the breakage of the “Wicked Lady”. Adam dialled in at his lowest ever, a 9.10, and ran another new PB of 9.294 at 132.89mph! And the team achieved their weekend's aim of getting through the first round. Well done all! The first pairing of the round saw Dave Williams matched with Keith Crampton. Dave and Linda dialled in at 11.62 and Keith at 11.90. Well, it was the battle of the breakouts, as both broke out by a long way, with Dave breaking out more with his best run since last year, an 11.316 at 119.60, very near a PB, to Keith's best run of the weekend, an 11.633 at 104.55mph! Keith and the team's perseverance had really paid off on this run, as they took the win to advance to the next round. The next pairing saw old friendly rivals Chris Hartnell and Mark Coulsell in their first MSA race for some years. Chris dialled in at 8.92 and Mark at 9.50. Unfortunately, Mark lost fire after the burnout, and he and the team quickly pushed the car back as far as they could, leaving Chris to solo. This turned out to be Chris’ best run for 6 years, when he recorded an 8.860 at 147.71mph! Congrats to him and the team on this! And commiserations to Mark and the team, who have since found some damage to one of the heads. Hope they can fix this quickly and be back out for “Springspeed”! There was a reward for all the Limited Funz team's hard work when “Ballbreaker” was chosen by the commentators as the “Best Appearing Car” this weekend. Well done to them all on a very nicely turned out car and a great early performance deep into the 9's! The next race should have seen another great matchup with Terry taking on Ed, but Terry had a solo due to the breakage of “RamRaider”. He dialled in at 10.25 and posted a 10.362 at 128.97mph to move on to the next round. The last pairing was a great race between Dave Rowlands and Bob Hawkins. Dave dialled in at 9.85 and Bob and Tom opted for an 8.84. Dave had a slight reaction time advantage and recorded a 9.924 at 139.40mph, but Bob posted “Closest to Dial-in” of the day, running an 8.857 at 132.97mph, just .017 off Dial, and beating Dave to the top end by only .012 of a second. An excellent race!! Quarter-Finals It was then quite a wait til the next round, about 4 hours in fact, and the Quarter-finals took place at about quarter to 3. The first run saw Adam taking his Bye run, earnt by being #1 Qualfier and having progressed to this round. The team dialled in at 9.30 and Adam posted a 9.375 at 133.93mph, to move forward to the Semis, another round achieved. The first pairing of the round, saw an all-slingshot race with Terry facing Keith, a great matchup. Terry and the team chose a 10.30 Dial, with Keith and team going for their lowest of the weekend with an 11.51. Terry took the win with a 10.393 at 121.12mph to Keith's valiant 11.673 at a new Personal Best speed of 117.15mph. The other race of the round was also an all-slingshot pairing, with Chris and Bob matched up. They were both looking forward to this having run 8.86 and 8.85 respectively in the previous round. There was not much to choose from in Dial-ins, with Chris going for an 8.86 and Bob an 8.83. At the start it looked like they had both deep-staged, but neither went red, and Bob got a holeshot of over a tenth of a second and took the win with an 8.945 at 138.11 to Chris’ 8.920 at 146.76mph. The actual E.T.s were so close, within 2 hundredths for most of the run, and at the 1000ft mark they were within one ten thousandths of each other on time! Great racing! Chris finished in 4th place overall by virtue of being closest to dial without breaking out of the quarter-finals runners-up. Semi-finals The next round was only an hour and a quarter later and began with the race between Adz and Terry. Team Gridlock dialled in at 9.30 again, and Terry refined his Dial to a 10.32. Well, Terry recorded his best time of the weekend, with a breakout 10.227 at 127.26mph, leaving the door open for Adam to take the win with a 9.442 at 134.12mph. Terry finished in a good 3rd place overall for the weekend, a great start to the season. The next run of the round was Bob's Bye run, and he dialled in at 8.83, and once again he recorded a new Personal Best E.T. and speed, posting an excellent 8.774 at 149.45mph! This was also the “Quickest E.T. of the event”! Congratulations Bob! He also had the “Best Reaction” of the weekend, posting an .038! So a really great run altogether! Final The final took place around 5:15pm, so really early this year! Both competitors had never been in an MSA Final before, so both were already pleased to get this far. Adam dialled in at 9.30 again, and Bob lowered his to an 8.75. This time, Adam had the better reaction, but broke out with another new PB of 9.242 at 134.56mph! Bob stayed the right side of Dial and took his first ever win, with an 8.847 at 141.64mph! Congratulations to him and Tom on an excellent win and great weekend! Well done to Adz and Team Gridlock as well who also put in a great performance and had one of their best weekends ever! Well done to all the teams on a great show to start the year off! Great performances and very well-turned out cars and crews! A pleasure to race with you all! A fantastic event, where the weather was amazing! What a great start to the season! And a brilliant event to be a part of! Huge thanks to all the marshals and officials and track crew for all their hard work! And thanks to Colin and Darryl for some great commentary! And thanks to everyone at Santa Pod for another warm welcome! We are now looking forward to the second Real Steel Series and MSA Challenge rounds of 2011, and the first APIRA Series round, at the “Springspeed Nationals” at Shakey on May 14th & 15th. It should be another great event! We’re hoping for another big field of Bunchers!