Page 1 of 1

TBricks at Santa Pod (pic heavy!)

Posted: 20 May 2010 12:24 pm
by Chris_C
Realised that I'd posted the one picture from the weekend and then not said what we'd been up to!

On Sat a few of us headed up to Chesh740R's house for some car fixing/mickey taking and Santa Pod racing. The V3M contingent consisted of me, Steve P, Foggy as well as V6Man and Chesh and the car content was a bit more random than normal, my housemate came along with his 3rd gen Camaro as well as Rupert bringing his newish Merc. I'm going to steal some of Steve's pics to put in along with mine but I'm sure he won't mind!

At Chesh', Max's car in the garage having an M90 swap
Image
Chesh' project 750R
Image

Once Max had finished swapping his gearbox, I put Fake into the garage for some routine fiddling and then we proceeded to the 'Pod. I've never done Nancy American Straight Line Racing (NASLR) before so was less than convinced but luckily Chesh gave us a quick crash course in how to use the traffic lights and what to do in general.

Me and my housemate lining up for our first ever run
Image
And there're off!
Image

Right... ok, that wasn't particularly hard and was pretty good fun... lets go again! There was no queue at this point, so we both went straight back round to the front and I found myself next to a Clio Valver. Hmmm, not intended by certainly could work out interesting. I should be clearly ahead with my engine but I still havn't got a proper exhaust nor sorted out a proper airintake, plus I weigh more.
Image
Phew... just... but the thinnest of hairs!
Image

Rupert chilling against some Vtak y0
Image
Nicely done Sir
Image

At this point I'd got no idea what times Fake was running, I was hoping she'd be in the 16's before I went as I knew the weaknesses my exhaust, intake and nothing near perfect WOT tuning would give me. So, we went and picked up our till receipts and I was hugely happy to see a 16.4 and a 16.1 for my first 2 runs (I didn't realise at this point it was the other way round, but hey). Steve P and another friend of mine from Soton were on camera duty so instead of doing what I normally do and going and grabbing pictures, I set myself the target of getting into the 15's before the day was out. I figured if I could get a 16.1 in my first couple of goes, this had to be possible and things went downhill from there as competitive Chris came out. I did try to hide it, but I'm not convinced I managed a great job and Steve was bounding about trying to get proof as ever. A few more runs and I was somehow getting stuck in the low 16's.

This really isn't me dropping tyre pressures for more grip, I was, erm, checking the wheel nuts were still tight :oops:
Image

At this point, dinner break was called and there was no queue, so we took the opportunity to line ourselves up in some kind of organisation.
Fake next to Foggies V70R in the queue.
Image
Max had put his 740T at the very front of the queue and lots of TBricks style bodging now occured to try and improve times.
Image
Cooling the intercooler and intake senders
Image
Which resulted in :o
Image

At this point, me and Foggy are now lining up and the lights have gone green. Clutch up, 7grand, snatch 2nd gear and take a sneaky look over the passenger front wing to see how much Foggy has on me. He's not there... hang on, twist head, look out of passenger window, nope, still can't see him. Keep twisting head, he must have run out of fuel or something. Ah, there he is, sat on my rear three quarter. Super! I can deal with this and it's time for third. All of a sudden Foggy hit's Boostu and that super car length I had seems to be shrinking. Bugger. Ah well, come on Fake, just a little bit longer!

Which results in the now infamous photo and the first time I managed a sub 16
Image
Normally I'd feel really bad posting this quite as much as I have been, but I remember about 4 years ago Foggy had a similar photo that he'd tease Steve with mercilessly, so I reckon it's justified!

And so the day progressed, with much fun had by all! Some final pictures

Rupert getting all a bit excitable
Image
R: "Did you just get pwned by a 340?"
FJ: "Please kindly go away"
Image
Image
First time I'd ever seen a jet car. Wow. When we watched the videos of this after you can see the windows of all the buildings distort!
Image
Beating a scoob to 60ft (and then watching it hit boostu and run away in the distance... but the photo kindly neglects that :D)
Image
Panzerwagon at pace
Image
Rupert trying to sneak a drive of Fake, to which I've just put a stop too (shame you can't see his expression in the tiny photo... click this one for a higher res version ;))
Image
Launching against what was badges as an "M5". We went over the finish side by side. The following conversation went something like "That Volvo isn't the 1.7 that's on the boot is it?" "About as much as your car is the M5 thats on your boot bud ;)" Really nice chap though (actually, this was a theme all day. EVERYONE was always up for a chat and seemed genuinely interested in everything there, no matter what it was or what times it was running. Great atmosphere)
Image
And finally, as the sun was setting
Image

I've been more than a little bit Fake heavy in this I realise, all the pics are at

http://www.flickr.com/photos/spainter/s ... 949091913/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/c_cardwell ... 073387862/

All in all, we all managed to get into the 15's and retired to Chesh's for BBQ and a few beers. Great time and I'll likely not take the mickey out of NASLR as much as I always have :lol:

Re: TBricks at Santa Pod (pic heavy!)

Posted: 20 May 2010 12:56 pm
by volvosneverdie
I have mega drag envy. :mrgreen:
awesome pics chris.

sm4 4 sharingz

Re: TBricks at Santa Pod (pic heavy!)

Posted: 20 May 2010 01:02 pm
by RobT_75
Brilliant day out by the sounds of it, and great pics too :)

Re: TBricks at Santa Pod (pic heavy!)

Posted: 20 May 2010 05:40 pm
by magnumpi
Looks like a wicked day had by all, sadly i'm a bit of a pussy and have never had the bottle to take anything up the strip yet although have been to the Pod every year for the last 12yrs or so.

It's a shame they had to shut "The Barn" behind the start line due to H+S rubbish, gone are the days of standing behind the Jetcar and getting lungs full of diesel smoke! Oh and it has blown out the windows in the tower on quite a few occasions :lol:

Re: TBricks at Santa Pod (pic heavy!)

Posted: 20 May 2010 07:16 pm
by nvdw
This man certainly knows no fear. I could think of a better place to be rather than within a one foot radius of a big engined car farting HUGE amounts of fire :lol:

Image

Re: TBricks at Santa Pod (pic heavy!)

Posted: 20 May 2010 08:18 pm
by jtbo
Sound like proper way to spend a day, great writeup too :D

Re: TBricks at Santa Pod (pic heavy!)

Posted: 20 May 2010 09:46 pm
by SteveP
Was a great meet... most impressed with the almost stock 740 turbo running a 14.9, that thing was perfect for hard launches due to its soft suspension! Also the valver 340 proved it's worth!

Re: TBricks at Santa Pod (pic heavy!)

Posted: 20 May 2010 10:41 pm
by griffo20022
Awsome pics! Would have loved to have gone to that! Loving that Merc!

Re: TBricks at Santa Pod (pic heavy!)

Posted: 10 Aug 2010 02:50 pm
by SteveP

Re: TBricks at Santa Pod (pic heavy!)

Posted: 10 Aug 2010 11:56 pm
by trabitom99
Great stuff, can't believe I missed this thread earlier ...

Tom