Hi everybody,
Here is the news from our ‘Fall Nationals’ at the National Finals at Santa Pod, last weekend, 20th - 22nd September, a 3-day event with the first two days scheduled for qualifying. This was Wild Bunch Series Round 5 (Final), Spirit of Nostalgia Challenge Round 7 (Final), Springbridge MSUK Series Round 3 (Final) and the SPRC Championship for Wild Bunch Round 3 (Final). With the amount of entries and the points available, it was confirmed before the start of the event that Team “Rebel” have WON the Springbridge MSUK Challenge for this season! They have also WON the Santa Pod Racers Club Championship for Wild Bunch! Team Rebel have also WON the Spirit of Nostalgia Challenge Series for 2024, their 3rd win of this Series! Many Congratulations to them on all of these achievements!! Well done to the whole team!!
The Wild Bunch had a field of 3 great teams competing at the event:
- Rob Brown in ‘Rebel’
- Phil James in ‘Rampage’
- Bob Hawkins in ‘Time Traveller II’
The weather forecast was reasonable for the Friday afternoon and half of Saturday, but looked awful for the Sunday!! There was quite a bit of downtime on the Friday morning with damp and some track incidents, and they were running 3 hours behind schedule, so Rob opted to miss that first qualifier to help with track time. Bob and Phil arrived during the day Friday, but unfortunately due to lots of work commitments their crews could not all arrive until early on Saturday. Rob went out for the 2nd qualifier and ran a close 8.4954 on an 8.50 Dial-in! So he was safely qualified. Due to the delays, there was no time for the 3rd qualifier, and in fact only 2 full cycles were completed.
Early on Saturday morning, Santa Pod officials called a drivers and riders meeting for 9am. They had come up with a new and brilliant plan, to forego the rest of qualifying and skip straight to eliminations for Saturday, as the forecast still looked like a washout on Sunday. The very helpful part of the plan was that anyone who had already qualified would keep that qualifying position and everyone else would be drawn out of a hat to be put in the ladders! So Rob qualified #1 and would get the Bye and Phil and Bob would then get the chance to race each other in the Semi-finals! Many thanks to Santa Pod for coming up with the best solution possible in the circumstances! So it was run from Sunday’s schedule.
The Wild Bunch had been due to have their last qualifier in the Sunday running order but the officials said that this would then be used as our first round, the Semi-finals. This was another great idea! The classes went through their eliminations in the morning with a few stoppages, including one of the main spotlights on the Tower being blown out by a Fuel Funny Car! We finally got called to the pairings lanes at about 1pm. Bob was first down and the others joined him, although there was still a fair queue! There were about 3 very short stoppages for spots of rain, sometimes at the top end! It had been a fairly sunny and warm morning with a lot of cloud around, and these became a bit more threatening! The class before us completed their elimination at about 2:40pm, and there was instantly a hold for some spots of rain! So near yet so far! The Bunch covered their cars, and I retreated to the old viewing area behind the signing on office next to the track. Well, within 10 minutes the heavens opened and there was soon torrential rain!! This was so heavy it soon flooded the startline and the viewing area and was then accompanied by thunder, lightning and hail!! This lasted for at least 15 minutes before easing off. By this time Ian and Dave were already on the tractor starting to disperse the water on the track! The 3 Wild Bunch teams left the cars at the front of the pairings lanes and retreated! The rain subsided around half an hour later and the rest of the day looked more promising on the forecast, although the clouds remained! There was then a herculean effort by the track crews to disperse the water and dry and prep the track, in the hopes that more eliminations could be run!! A massive well done to them all!!
Some 3 ½ hours later the teams returned to the cars and fired them up in anticipation of the weather window continuing. As the top end was still being dried, the officials decided to bring forward the Junior dragsters and Junior dragbikes for their elimination runs. This worked well, though some water was being brought onto the track by wet vehicles. Because the Wild Bunch has stayed in place, we were next on the running order and our round started at about 5 minutes to 7!!! Phil and Bob paired up first. Phil ran a 9.518 at 139.98mph on a 9.37 Dial-in. Bob had nearly deep staged, and then had a great .015 light, running a strong 6.933 at 182.88mph on a 6.66 Dial-in to take the win by just .015 on the holeshot! Great race!! Then Rob dialled in at 8.48 and ran a fantastic 8.492 at 158.88mph on his Bye run to advance to the Final. Great round for the Bunch, and so glad we got our Semis in! Only 3 pairs later in Pro ET it proved too wet to continue, with a combination of water coming of the cars, water seeping up through the track and the dew point arriving! We were so lucky to get our runs
The next morning had started wet, and although it stopped raining, the officials were forced to call the racing off for the day at around 10:30am, as there was just too much water to dry before the next rain was predicted! What a shame for everyone! Including the exceptionally hard working track crew who must have by then been exhausted!!
Our results were declared for the Top 2 by which driver was closest to Dial-in without breaking out of the Semi-final winners. So the Top 3 winners this weekend were:-
1st Place: Rob Brown in ‘Rebel’ (Rob had a great Bye run in the Semis, with just .012 off Dial)
2nd Place: Bob Hawkins in ‘Time Traveller II’ (a fantastic effort with a great reaction and Semi final win!)
3rd Place: Phil James in ‘Rampage’ (a great effort, after sorting gearbox issues this season!)
Here are the Spot Prizes that were awarded:-
#1 Qualifier: Rob Brown in ‘Rebel’ -.0046 off
Best Appearing Car & Team: Bob Hawkins & Team ‘Time Traveller II’ (brilliant efforts & great Semi win)
Highlights of the weekend were getting to run, despite there not being time for everyone to qualify, and to get to complete that great Semi-final round, as well as the small but excellent field of Wild Bunch! A good finale to the season!
Absolutely massive thanks to all the Santa Pod marshals and officials, track and safety crews and organisers for all their hard work as always!! They are all stars! Huge thanks and very Best Wishes to Ian Marshall, who is retiring from his role as Chief Starter after 3 decades of incredible service! We all thank him so much for his dedication, professionalism, keeping everyone safe, and all of his help and support over the years!! Thankfully we will still see Ian as head of track prep at Santa Pod and his role in SPRC! So we will all still benefit from his vast experience and support for years to come! Many thanks again also to our Springbridge MSUK and SPRC Title sponsor Bob Hawkins of Springbridge Direct! His support is very much appreciated in those Series!!
Well done to all 3 of the Wild Bunch teams on another fantastic show!! And thanks for their support of the MSUK rounds! We strongly encourage anyone who is able to join into the MSUK racing next year to do so! It is a fantastic way to race, exciting close racing, plus a lot of fun, and gives you more options of events to run at! Please do ask myself and the committee for more information if you are considering this. We will be happy to help advise!!
All the best,
Claire
PS. Full final points and Series results will be updated as soon as I can!