MPH#3 is back at Deenthorpe Airfield, Corby NN17  3AN which takes place 4th-6th July 2025.  Listening to the feedback from MPH#2. Changes to the format slightly to include racing on both Saturday and Sunday. It's still a weekend event with limited tickets due to onsite camping restrictions, and to keep the race numbers low enough to allow maximum runs for fun.

MPH#3 there will be Sunday day tickets for spectators to watch Sunday's racing but no day tickets for Saturday.

Tickets will go on sale on January 31st, with weekend tickets at £65* per person.

To race, it's an additional race entry fee of £20 per racer for Saturday and Sunday (for both days not each).

Sunday spectator tickets are £15* per person.
*subject to booking fee.

You can read more on the MPH Vintage Sprint website by clicking here.

The first run saw us against Colin Millar in the Flying Fifer pop, Colin broke out with a 7.54 to our 7.68 both cars running 175mph through the traps. This was good enough to put us into the No.1 spot. We managed in the melee to make another 2 qualifying runs a 7.69 and a 7.70 and held the No.1 qualifier pretty much all day until Colin pipped us to the post with a 7.65 run as qualifying started to wrap up for the day. Unlike any of the other meetings of the year the pairings at the Doorslammers come down a chip draw.

We gathered round with the other teams at the side of the pod shop to see who we would get, when the chips had been drawn, we had one of the Polish visitors, Mariusz Lejman in his wicked turbo Corvette.

Sunday, the weather started a little dull but soon warmed up. First round against Mariusz ended up being a bye due to issues with the Corvette so we were able to use the run to dial-in the car, which we did running a 7.61 at 177mph. So through to the chip draw for the next round. This saw us draw Rob Smallworth who had knocked out No1 qualifier Colin Millar in round 1, when Colin broke out by 2/1000 of a second, running 7.598 to Rob’s 7.62.

This race was to be the end of the day for us as Mark had an issue and double stepped the throttle pulling a -0.2 red, running a 7.64 to Rob’s out shape 8.75. This put Rob into the final against Belinda Bull who took the event win and prize money, this being the Doorslammers.

Sunday started quite cold but dry, we pulled round to make our last qualifier having just been knocked off out of the No.1 spot by Belinda who ran an incredible 7.6001 et. Running in the right lane with Billy in the left both cars shook the tyres hard, something we have never experienced with the supra. No.2 spot meant that we would be facing the No.5 qualifier Billy Gane, in his ford powered Victor.

Both cars pulled round not knowing if they had figured out what had caused their tyre shake issue in the last qualifying session. Billy had the advantage at the hit his 0.03 just putting him in front of Mark who had cut a 0.04 light.

Both cars left hard and were both drawn towards the centre line, at the stripe it was Mark who got the win light by just 0.0187 of a second. Billy running 7.64 to our 7.606. Our semi-final place was booked to face John Sleath in his super quick chevy S10. All looked good, we fired the car in the pairing lanes and after a few seconds Mark spotted the oil pressure on the motor dropping. He quickly shut the car off and we gifted the race win to the eventual event winner John. Back in the pit we stripped the pan off the motor and found that the oil pump pickup pipe had fallen off, despite it previously having been tack welded on to the oil pump. This really showed how violent the tyre shake had been during Q4.

We were just thankful that after reviewing the GoPro footage from inside the car that the oil pressure had been good on the race with Billy.

After seeing Brian knock out Jack we pulled round for our race with Rob. Mark took a visible lead at the hit with 0.06 light to Rob’s somewhat sleepy 0.2, despite Rob’s better 7.63 he couldn’t catch Mark who ran a 7.66, using the hole-shot to book our place in the final to race Brian. Both cars pulled round for the final with Mark going into stage second he pulled another great light, taking 0.04 advantage over Brian which he extended at the finish, taking the win 7.71 to Brian’s 7.86. Our first event win and Mark finally got the gantry trophy he has coveted for so long.

Onto the Greenlight Nationals and the final round of the 7.60 Heads Up championship. with 3 teams capable of taking the 2024 championship. M&M at the top of the table, closely followed by Rob Smallworth in the Dirty Dawg 55; and Belinda Bull. This event saw the return of Kev Perkins in the Soul man Cutlass and John Sleath in his turbocharged Chevy S10. It also saw Scott Collin having a go 7.60 for the first time in his turbo LS powered 100E ford pop.

Sunday was a little cooler to start but warmed up nicely as the day went, with a relatively early start for Q.4. We readied the supra and cemented our claim on No.2 with a 7.61 against Scott Collin who ran his second 7.6 et of the weekend. At the end of qualifying Rob had leapt both Belinda and Scott to go into the No.3, which meant that we would be racing Scott in round 1. 

Now we had our eyes on the championship and knew that we had to go as many rounds as possible; the race with Scott was a crucial one for us, and of course Mark pulled his worst light of the year! Luckily for us, the car was on it, and we ran a 7.62 to see off Scott’s 7.79. On to round 2. Belinda had beaten Brian in her first-round race and was our next challenge. Belinda is always a tough cookie and boy did she push, cutting an 0.01 light to Mark’s not too shabby 0.05. Belinda ran a 7.66 to our 7.67, taking the win by 0.02.

This meant that our championship was in the hands of our new best mate John Sleath. John saw off Rob Smallworth, who had made it to the Semi’s via Kev Perkins. The margin of victory in this Semi was just 0.013, the win coming courtesy of John’s better reaction time, both cars having run 7.64 et. So, the championship would come down to the outcome of the final if Belinda won, she would be champion.

As the 2 S10’s pulled round for the final the whole M&M Racing team were sitting in the grandstands watching the outcome of the race. The race was lost on the start as Belinda pulled a red, thus handing the race to John, his second event win of the season. This meant that we were 2024 7.60 Heads Up championship.

To Summarize the year, we made 34 full passes with an average ET of 7.679 and Mark’s average reaction time was 0.061, we won 1 event (finally) and 1 championship and had a great time with the best people.

Some of the highlights of the racing have been firstly; getting my first race win for the season at the 23^rd European Dragster Clastres event in May, what a weekend that was; perfect weather, perfect track and coming away with a trophy. Headed straight to Santa Pod for Doorslammers, managed to reach the semi-finals on the Sunday so another great weekend.

We have seen a few events rained off at Santa Pod unfortunately but Summer Nationals ran through to the end and into the finals we went with Amy Watkins. Second event win for me this season as I came away with first place trophy.

Final race at Zerbst was one we had not really planned for, but late in the day it was announced it would be a 2 round event. We had led the DRU ProET championship all year so off we went. First event we won the first two rounds and had a buy into the semi-finals but in came the rain, so the event was cancelled. Second event started on the Saturday, we were still leading the championship but needed to stay in for at least a couple of rounds.

We qualified 4^th so felt strong going into eliminations on the Sunday, and it all came together, we just kept going right through to the finals. However sat in the pairing lanes ready to run the final and there was a huge oil down which eventually led to the event being called. Not the ending we wanted for this race. I was awarded the first prize trophy as I had accumulated the most points over the weekend.

All of the tracks we have raced at this year; Santa Pod, Clastres, Mantorp Park, Gardermoen, Tierp, Hockenheim and Zerbst have made us feel extremely welcome and we would like to thank them and all the track crew for their hard work and for making these events happen. 

We would like to send an extra special thank you to all to those who have crewed for us this year we really appreciate all you have done for us. Also to everyone who has supported us, come along on some of the tour, purchased T-shirts and sent messages. 

So as we knuckle down to some jobs, both on the car and at work, it will give us some time to plan 2025. Not too sure how we will beat such a fantastic year but we do have a few things up our sleeve.

    .   

The arrangements are as follows :

The bars will open at 17.30, please be seated by 6.15pm in the ballroom, presentations will begin at 6.30pm prompt with Dinner to be served at 7.15pm

Tickets are £55/adult and £25/child (12 and under), which includes a three-course set meal plus tea/coffee and mints.  The children’s menu will be chicken nuggets and chips followed by ice cream.  If you have any special dietary requirements please contact Yvonne at this link, so that we can accommodate your needs.  Please do not approach the hotel with requests.  Seating will be 10 per table, therefore if you require more than one table please complete a second online form.  The form can be accessed by clicking here.

The drag demos are headlined by the jet cars with Martin Hill in FireForce 3 and 5, Julian Webb in Spiderman, Roger Goring in Firestorm, Perry Watkins in Oklahoma Willy and Graham Sykes with Force of Nature Steam Bike. The 100+ drag demo cars and bikes are divided into categories:

• Quick & Quirky - Drag Karts, Nascar Truck, Kevin Nicks' fastest shed and Mike Wallhead's motorised wheelie bin.
• Drag Cars - from every sportsman class including junior dragsters and RWYB regulars.
• Drag Bikes - again sportsman classes including junior drag bikes.

You can see the full entry list at this link on the Santa Pod website. you can also see the timetable by clicking here. We look forward to highlighting after the event.

Julian will be present supplying a gallery of the event which we will post with the support of John Woolfe Racing.

Dave McKenzie son Will has been in touch with Eurodragster.com to announce Dave's funeral arrangements, Will says:

The funeral is on Monday 11th November at 2:15pm, the service will be held at Grimsby Crematorium. We would kindly ask for family flowers only, but if anyone wants to make a donation to Alzheimer's Society in his memory that would be perfect.

It will be on live stream so if anybody wants to see it to just email me at this link and I will forward the log in details. Also if anyone is attending we are asking them to wear a little something purple in honour of the colour of his race cars.

Thanks to Robin Jackson for sending this story, Robin wrote: The search for ‘UK Pete’ is over, Many Thanks to Clay Millican himself, the mystery British man captured on the NHRA Top Fuel star’s personal YouTube channel attending his first drag race has been identified. He is Pete Berry and he has written a memoir of his visit to NHRA’s recent Texas Fall Nationals as a public thank-you to Clay and NHRA for the welcoming attitude they showed him.

His modest admission of “an interest in Motorsport, mainly circuit racing” masks a 40-year career as a senior marshal at Silverstone, covering everything from clubman events to F1 Grands Prix, a background which must surely colour his perspective.

You read Pete's memior by clicking here.

Thanks to Remco Scheelings from Drag Racing Europe for this report on Jere Rantaniemi:

Although being one of the frontrunners all season long, there was not a single moment during the season that Jere Rantaniemi was leading the 2024 FIA European Pro Modified Championship. But at the most decisive and most important moment of the season, the semifinals of the European Finals, Rantaniemi was there. The Finn won his elimination round, took over the number one position in the points standings and claimed his first FIA European Pro Modified title. Timing is everything.

You can view the full article by clicking here.

Thanks to Remco Scheelings from Drag Racing Europe for this report on the FIM-E Champions Review – Marcus Christiansen – FIM-E Super Twin Bike:

Coming into 2024 the FIM-E Super Twin field was once again trying to knock the dominant father and son pairing of Claus (Speedy) and Marcus Christiansen off their perch, but the season proved to be one of their very best, taking all five event wins. We caught up with Marcus to ask him on his reflections on the year.

You can view the full article by clicking here.

Lots going on with my racing and going back to televised NHRA event in Pennsylvania to raise funds to do the 4 wide in Charlotte and Carolina, we went to New Hampshire with Gary Leverich car freshly wrapped Ant Hill Mob. Set up to run 280 mph to half-track and 315 mph to 1000 feet, total expectation was doable, however in the 1st qualifier we did burnout against Scott Farley. But he couldn't get reverse and therefore, so I had to continue down the track, he didn't turn off the ignition and the track auto system which triggered his chutes. So, we were at the start line burning up nitro waiting for him to clear the track, we almost decided to just switch off, but we didn't and continued to stage and rocketed away at 300 feet. We dropped a cylinder, and they stopped me to save the engine.

Going from having not enough power to too much power, the team and I figured that our sweet spot would be to run a 3.83. I gave everything against Torrence with 066 to his 086 making us ahead, but then the tyres shook causing them to spin so I had to lift. Turns out we had a bad batch of spark plugs causing them to shoot the porcelain out. Torrence only ran 3.88 which is fantastic. Showing 4 runs with no damage, best 60ft and to beat 2 World Champions off the line!

The team and I went next to our local track for Nitro Nationals, we were so organised we thought, everything was serviced and ready to rebuild or swap motors. On Thursday we set up in pits, then Friday the team decided to put rods/pistons in and measured the piston height, to speed up our head gasket selection for Saturday night. Then we pulled them back out and put second set in to measure. We planned to get everything built on Friday and fired up so we could set the timing from the crank triggers!

We went to Torq second head, but discovered a damaged thread deep in block that turns out it got missed when we blew it up at the Grand Bend 2 years ago and had to weld and machine the block etc. Also, we had ripped a stud out on explosion and flat out got missed lol! Well although had 9/16-12 Heli-coil kit that wouldn't be a-strong enough to hold 185 ft/lb B- wouldn't be able to drill and tap accurately without drill plates etc so decided to pull motor and put spare in and do the rack measurements all over again lol. Saturday we fired it up and apart from idle issues w injector all seemed great with good oil pressure.

Being out solo was Amazing! I shot off to our best 60ft again. 853 went to 330 and it quit! I was gutted as it was charging to the top end. I had asked Gary if he shut me off, but he said ‘No, let's check the data’. When we got back it turns out Gary's chief mechanic Dan shut me off as he saw flames come out when we dropped 2 cylinders. It was good call but gutted I never pedaled it. It turns out that I'm still moving around in the car with the G-Force and don't have a proper fitted seat! We had spent time in the shop a week before using an old, poured seat and we all agreed it would be okay but turned out not to be.

I got the old Amazon box and cut out a template and then got 4 pieces of 1-inch foam and stuffed it underneath my body and readjusted the belts so that it felt tighter when launching offline. Thankfully Aidan made it back to the track in time for the next session on time. Therefore,  I suited up put my helmet on and jumped in the car, but my helmet was hitting roll cage.

Finally, we both did our burnouts and in pre-stage one track person started to wave his arms. Aidan continued to pre-staged and did I. Then Aidan and I staged but nothing happened, I decided to launch in total confusion making me look down to see if I red lite or left at the third amber. Seconds later I could hear Aidan launch making me think that I am a total idiot leaving before tree activated, so I decided to lift at 620 feet as felt motor getting ugly and my head was not in it. I managed to run a 240 in 3.2 secs, before half-track the stout header shot flames to make it a good show. In the other lane Aidan kicked a rod at 70 feet causing carnage and fire.

Everyone said it was an amazing show, it transpired that the timing system went down after our burnouts, so track guy took it on himself to try orchestrating the world’s first arm drop top fuel race without telling anyone. A mad weekend and got paid enough to pay for the damage.

I was living in Hampstead at the time working as a commercial artist and the year must have been soon after the worlds first Hard Rock Cafe opened in Piccadilly in 1971. This is one distinct time stamp I have because although the design group I worked with mainly produced record covers we also produced the graphics for numerous new London restaurants. One of them was the Hard Rock Cafe which was founded by the same two young American guys who had previously founded the very first real American hamburger restaurant in London being ‘The Great American Disaster’ restaurant in the Fulham Road which we produced the now rare and collectable launch poster for. For the opening night of the Hard Rock they wanted American cars and Hot Rods parked nearby and little did we know that this particular restaurant would become a world wide phenomenon. My regular pub at the time was the Olde Bull & Bush in Hampstead, and it was there that I met my future wife to be Ann-Kathrin who was visiting from Sweden.

The car got a lot of interest in the city and particularly by a tramp I found asleep in the passenger seat when exiting a bar one evening - a real tramp with flies buzzing round his head. We managed a few trips to Sweden using the then operating Harwich, Amsterdam, Gothenburg ferry (‘Triangle’ in the then TV Series) and on one of these trips I met up for the last time with my drag racing friend Alan Herridge who was sadly killed some years later while driving a jet powered car at Santa Pod. The original black and white photograph accompanying this piece was a takeout from a series I shot in Amsterdam while producing a set of zip cards for Ann-Kathrin’s potential modelling career. It was also around this time I was unfortunately becoming aware that the Corvette’s suspension was not at all happy with the cobbled streets of Amsterdam, and the time had come to find a new owner.

Thanks to Robin Jackson for sending this article into Eurodragster.com last week on "Who is UK Pete?", Robin writes: Viewers of Clay Millican's YouTube video channel may already have seen the NHRA Top Fuel star's Friday and Saturday presentations from the Texas Fallnationals this past weekends. If not, Clay featured a British gentleman who had travelled all the way to Dallas to attend his first-ever drag race inspired by watching the Millican videos. And the gentleman let's call him 'UK Pete'  was mightily impressed by what he found.

So who is 'UK Pete'? Does he follow other motorsports? Has he chanced upon Clay's videos purely by luck? And has he heard of Santa Pod, or even Melbourne? It would be interesting to find out more. If his face rings a bell with anyone. Do you know him or know is full name, email Robin at this link.

Watch Clay's YouTube video: scroll to 6.58 minutes to see "UK Pete".

Rob Kneeshaw is first winner of the NORA British Sprint Championship after making it to the final against Nic Deighton in the final round at Santa Pod.  Eric Cope takes second place and Kerry Phillips ended up third after a big breakout in the first round of eliminations.

All 8 rounds counted for the NORA championships.

Best 8 out of 9 rounds counted for the Straightliners championships 2024.

Double points were awarded to NORA and Straightliners competitors at the final round at Santa Pod.

You can view the final championship results which are available by clicking here.

• NORA Eliminations: Nic Deighton (10.09/137mph) def. Rob Kneeshaw (12.80/106mph).
• NORA Junior Eliminations: Jack Taylor (17.32/68mph) def. Alfie Barraclough (19.03/59mph) Breakout.
• Straightliners No Mercy Shootout: Nic Deighton (9.97/138mph) def. Leigh Williams (10.92/135mph).
• Scooters No Mercy Shootout: Amy Wolstenholme (15.07/76mph) def. Eric Cope (12.64/95mph) Breakout.
• Juniors: Maisie Thornton (22.26/49mph) def. Alfie Barraclough (18.87/58mph) Breakout.
• Junior Sprint Car: Dexter Wilson (9.51/60mph) def. Bradley Brook (13.60/40mph) Breakout.
• Race Legends: Colin Fallows takes the win.
• Class 9.10: Simon Havercroft (9.10/155mph) def. Jamie Brooks (9.35/150mph).
• Oldschool USB Stock: Amy Wolstenholme (11.79/119mph) def. Rob Kneeshaw (12.33/114mph).
• Oldschool USB Modified: Mark Taylor (9.94/135mph) def. Alan Seeley (10.96/126mph).
• Nostalgic Pro Stock: Richard Peachey (8.88/145mph) solo run due to Alan Ward no show.
• Euro RWYB: Trevis Merite (8.58/156mph) def. Rupatrick de Lange (9.26/149mph).

Juniors

t was tight at the top of the points table so the pressure was on. First to succumb was Jack Taylor who red lit against Alfie Barraclough. Meeting Jorja Cleall in the next round he was lucky to breakout by the least amount to make another final. Maisie Thornton beat Toby Jackson then taking a bye to the final. Maisie had her best race head on and crossing the stripe ahead of Alfie who broke out anyway trying to catch her. So three final wins in the season for Maisie and a worthy champion for 2024.

Scooter No Mercy

Amy Wolstenholme used her head, literally watching a catching Adie Horrocks who broke out, though Amy had crossed the line first. Eric Cope took a bye to the final. Amy once again made a lightening start and again kept her eye on the other lane, Eric doing the breaking out on this one.

9.10sec

After beating Chris Jacobs Simon Havercroft took a bye to the final. Maxine Taylor red lit so Ashley Hodgson lined up against Jamie Brooks, Jamie making his way to the final. Simon got the final sussed with a perfect 9.10sec run to take the win over Jamie.

Ida Zetterström post on her Facebook page yesterday at Svensk Bilsport announced that she will have the honor to serve as Team Captain for Sweden in the FIA Motorsport Games 2024, starting next week in Valencia.

Ida mentions she feels very proud and honored to take on this roll and looking forward to seeing the Swedish Team shine.

Drag racing is not one of the disciplines represented in this Motorsport Olympics but Ida is happy to be there as a representative for both the sport of drag racing and as a part of the Swedish National team and this years “Olympic troupe” where we work together across the disciplines 

We have tried to convince, blackmail, and finagle him to give up his idea of stepping down all year, however after 9 years of being wholly dedicated to this awesome class, Don feels it is the right time, given he also has a lot going on away from the track too. 

When Don first stepped into his committee role almost a decade ago, UK Nostalgia Superstock was in its developing stages, having only began in 2011. At this time, there would be a few handfuls of cars, growing steadily in numbers as time went on. However, Don has seen this class go from strength to strength, and spearheaded it as we became THE largest nostalgia drag racing class in Europe. Now, it is regular to have around 60 cars entered into our lifestyle events.

I hope you’ll all agree that Don has always taken a fair, considerate, and good humoured approach to everything he does, from being a sportsman himself when competing, to even some of the tricky moments we have had in the class and big decisions that have needed to be made, and I can tell you there has been a few. But - and here’s a bit of an insider perspective - Don has always acted in good conscience and remained true to himself. He’s done an excellent job of communicating with racers and the Pod, always trying his best to do what’s right by the racers, all without getting a single penny in return.)

In his years in the class, he has also taken a number of lifestyle and SPRC championship and round titles, but always managed to balance both this and his duties to the class.

We would like to thank Don for being so committed and such a great spokesperson for NSS all these years, and you know you won’t have seen the last of him yet!

• Geoff Redgrave. Top Bike Hayabusa
• Allard Chrysler Dragster. 1964 Dragfests
• ‘Rat Trap’ and ‘Havoc’ AA/FA
• ‘Ain’t no Saint’ Volvo Gasser
• Billy Jackson ‘Controlled Chaos’ nitro Harley
• Jon Antonsson ‘Glacier Shaker’ and ‘Sundance’
• Team PBM ‘Satan’s Lady’
• Don Garlits and Tommy Ivo 1964 Dragfests
• Brian Johnson ‘Imperial Wizard II’
• Joe Schubeck Carlsbad Raceway 1964
• Ronald Balderama. Valiant Outlaw Pro-Mod
• Martin Maxwell ‘Color ‘o’ Money’ vega bodied N/FC

It is with very deep regret that we have to inform the drag racing family of the passing of my father Gerald Cookson after a short illness. Thankfully he passed away peacefully in his sleep and without pain in the early hours of Monday 14^th October. He was 94 years of age.

After visiting the International Drag Festivals at Blackbushe Gerald started his drag racing career at the third meeting of the newly opened Santa Pod Raceway in a self-built and designed BMC powered slingshot dragster called ‘Minor Leaguer’.

In between his day job as a factory planner and engineer working for Birmingham based Lucas Electrical, he began designing his next dragster with a much more traditional American slingshot look about it called ‘Trouble Shooter’ and still using the dependable BMC engine from a 998cc Mini Cooper.

Dad never wanted anything bigger in cubic capacity or expensive to race. He wanted good old dependable British ingenuity that he could pull off the shelf, modify and develop from race to race.

From this point onwards, race wins started to come in the lower ranks of the dragster classes, but an untimely incident in the Santa Pod fire up lane ended Trouble Shooter’s days when the push bar broke. A year later his most successful dragster appeared in the early seventies called ‘The Joker’. Again, BMC powered but this one had a blower attached that carried him to numerous wins at Santa Pod as well as on tour National Drag Racing Club meets at Blackbushe and of course his home quarter mile at Long Marston.

After the success of the dragster he turned his attention to the Modified class where after acquiring a 1958 Berkeley Sports Car he began constructing his own chassis to take the Berkeley’s framework and a blown Lotus Twin Cam.

This picture on the left was taken by Mike Collins.

Above all, amongst all his racing endeavours he was a devoted husband for 68 years to wife Joan and father to me – his son. Joan never missed a meeting, providing all the food, fetching and carrying, back up lady, you name it she did it.

His biggest accolade was having the family name etched into the annals as inducted members of the British Drag Racing Hall of Fame in 2018. He also received two Lifetime Achievement awards: one presented by the Wild Bunch and the other by Jeremy at the 2017 APIRA Championship Awards as well as being presented with the Don Garlits Spirit of Drag Racing Shield in 2000.

God speed dad. You’re at peace now. Now go join your other racing buddies who left before you.

Santa Pod Raceway have announced today on Facebook 2025 National event dates:

Springspeed Nationals - 29th-30th March 2025

Sportsman Nationals - 7th-8th June 2025

Summer Nationals - 5th-6th July 2025

Greenlight Nationals - 16th-17th August 2025

National FInals - 19th-21st September 2025

More events to be added soon, you can see the full calender for Santa Pod Raceway by clicking here:

Even though the weather did not always cooperate, we consider ourselves lucky regarding how it has been this year in the rest of Europe, as we managed to complete eliminations every round. We are glad that the investments made over the winter allowed for the most track time possible, cleaning and drying the track as fast as any professional racetrack! We are delighted that there was no track-incident this year; we are working closely with the FFSA (Fédération Française du Sport Automobile) to always push for more safety for the racers. 

We also want to congratulate our 2024 Championship winners: 

• M TECH Junior Dragster — Marie Camilleri 
• NITRO Street Run — Nicolas Chevassus 
• Super Gas — Oscar Scapocin 
• Super Comp — Clément Dubois 
• SPEED FLEX Pro ET — Gerd Habermann 
• DULAMON RACING Super Pro ET — Michael Mikuscheit

Well done to them all! 

We will be happy to welcome racers and fans back in 2025 at Clastres Dragway: 

• 17th-18th May
• 21st-22nd June
• 26th-27th July

Well, I’m back home and what can I say. I’m on top of the world, 2 years ago I sent my bike over to Dan Wagner as he had the most horrendous fire wiping out his whole business. Losing nearly everything he lived for. Terry Schweigert lost his bike in that fire along with others and I was busy building my business and needed to take time out. I wanted to send the bike over there to help the man that had helped me so much in the past. Never did I think it would lead me on this journey.

The original plan was that Terry would ride the bike, but Terry wanted time out. Then Rob Garcia was going to ride the bike and that fell through. So, with 2 days’ notice Dan made me pack my leathers and head out to Maryland International Raceway and throw my leg over my bike for the first time in the USA. 

I turned up to the track before Dan to be greeted by Joe Procopio who had just got back into racing after many years out and had accommodated me in his trailer and taken my bike with his to the race meeting.  

This year we went out there with a different plan my rookie year was over it was time to race. Dan has pushed me to become undefeated throughout the first half of the season bagging a load of number 1 qualifiers and winning 2 meetings back-to-back. But the big milestone was to join the 3 second club I had skimmed so close for a while but finally my first 3 second pass was deep in the 3’s with a 3.930 at Virginia motorsports park. It was great to be joined by Terry Schweigert with me and him being the heavy hitters at the meeting. And Terry going on to take the win, my teammate John Collins was back in the 3’s it was the dream meeting for me.  

To be number 1 qualifier on a list of names of heroes from. Over the years was emotional for me to read. I had the likes Of Paul Gast, Jeremy Teasley, Richard Gadson, Tommy Saxon, George Whitaker, John Collins, Terry Sweigart, Chris Cutsinger, Terry Wynn, Chris Theodoris, and Rob Garcia. And my name was at the top. 

We went into the final round with a points lead and there was a mathematical chance for Rob Garcia to beat me, but I had to be disposed of first round.  I went out Friday night and Dan had the tune up on point and we went number 1 qualifier for the weekend with a 3.95 pass Friday night no other bike came near me. 

So, I didn’t become champion we became champions everybody mentioned above but finally the man that is always standing by my side the man I drag around the earth to live out my dream. He turns the bike around between every round and he’s always standing there watching me go. My Dad I’m lucky to be able to do this with my dad and in many years to come I’m sure I will look back and smile on the adventures we have had together. Some people don’t get to do that, and I am grateful for his help and his confidence in me. Oh, I’ve frustrated him many times mashing trans on late night runs and having to swap motors through the night because of my bad riding. But he’s always there until the end thanks Dad. 

I will never forget the help in motor swaps from the likes of Lowry Callahan, Chris Garner-Jones and Costello these guys where a given, but one man who would always turn up and helped when we needed it was Wes Hawkins.  Well, there’s so many people to thank every single person in the XDA has made us so welcome and I’ve loved every second of it. Thank you for making it so great. 

Santa Pod Raceway announces major 2025 Dates "Save to Date" with more events to be added.

• The Fast Show - 6th April
• Festival of Power - 18th-20th April
• Doorslammers - 16th-18th May
• VW Breakout - 16th-18th May
• FIA/FIM-E Main Event - 23rd-26th May
• Dragstalgia - 27th-29th June
• Bug Jam - 25th-27th July
• USC - 1st-3rd August
• VW Action - 29th-31st August
• FIA/FIM-E Euro Finals - 4th-7th September

You can view the racing calender at www.santapod.co.uk.

Bob Molden, Mr Consistent, in the White Noise Peugeot, ran a 5.88sec and backed that up with a 5.95sec. Bob usually dials in 6.00sec dead in Pro ET so his 5.88sec was a big breakout but no doubt him and the team were suitable elated.

Jamie Brookes was another running his first 5 on his turbo GSX1400 running a 5.98sec.

Another to get his first 5sec was Allen McSweeney in the wayward Volvo who’d run a couple of 6.00sec deads eventually got a 5.99sec.

Mark Todd improved to a 5.20sec in the Aston Martin.

6 Second

Chris Hodgson beat Peter Slater, Peter being a little too cautious knowing how easy his bike runs 5’s and Chris getting the jump on the green.

Scooters No Mercy

It was good to see Stuart Donald along on his stock TV 175 Lambretta and making it through to the final against Amy Wolstenholme. With a 2.83sec handicap Amy knew she’d have her work cut out, Stuart has done a lot of winning over the years, but she was too keen and got a red light which was lucky for Stuart who went under his dial in!!!

Juniors

In the eliminations there were a few breakouts along the way so it was that for the 3rd time Maisie Thornton lined up in the final against William Mountford. Maisie cut a good green with William having a stumble away from the line so Maisie was across the stripe for her 3rd Junior win.

Junior Sprint Car

Jake Little got a bye in the semi’s making it his first final lining up against Toby Jackson, the ever improving Jake taking the win.

The British Drag Racing Historians are proud to present the secord part in our Pioneers of UK drag racing series, told in the original words of the racers, and accompanied by photos and images from their collections, covers the period 1964 to 1967 for Surrey dragster racer Derek Metcalf.

The story covers the 1964 Drag Fest event at Blackbushe on 4th October, when Derek's Wombat dragster made its debut, and goes to the car's final year of competition in 1967. You can see the second part of Derek's story by going to this link, or via the new index page for the pioneers' stories, which shows links to the UK drag racing history web sites that provide the wider story and context for the story of the sport.

Brought up in a RAF family, Chris Pattison lived in Hornchurch and was introduced to motor racing by his father who, after retiring from the RAF, ran a country garage. Chris attended the 1964 International Drag Festival at Blackbushe. A major event for him was winning an Allard Dragon dragster in a competition in the British Drag Racing magazine. The car was initially driven by its designer John Hume and Allard works driver Rob Mackie, however Chris first had the opportunity to drive it in Spring 1966. In the first year of Santa Pod, Chris shared the driving with his father, gaining 13 awards from 11 meetings. His entrance to college resulted in the Allard Dragon being exchanged for Alan Ing's roadgoing Turner Climax.

Part one is at this link. You can see our list of pioneer stories at this link or by clicking on the link under News in the main menu.

Eurodragster.com would like to thank John Hunt, Nick Pettitt and Mick Gleadow for recording, transcribing, editing and providing illustrations for our stories.

National Finals 2024 Recap: A tough test from the weather...

After our final round finish at the Euro Finals, spirits were high leading up to the National Finals. Despite only 2 weeks between events, our usual schedule of maintenance was followed, this means blower, intake, cylinder heads removed, pistons and rods removed for measuring, transmission out, clutch out for flywheel and pressure plate resurfacing, gear ratios changed (more on that later), the list goes on. We were glad to see that we had no signs of detonation when measuring the rod bearings after the 4 runs we made on the Sunday, so our tuneup was relatively safe.

To combat this we installed a shorter 1st gear ratio, just like we did at the Euro Finals. A side note from Q1, we had increased our port nozzle sizes significantly to change the balance between fuel going through the blower and injector hat and the ports themselves in an effort to give us a bigger window on the tuneup (smaller nozzle sizes mean a small step in size is a larger % change in fuel flow when compared to larger nozzles, as the nozzles are measured in orifice size). Usual conduct would be to do a short run but with the constant threat of the weather we didn’t have that luxury, so some calculations were made and the tuneup was deemed to be ‘safe’ for a ¼ mile pull.

With that being said, some small cylinder to cylinder changes were made to even up the cylinders based on spark plug readings and to a lesser extent EGT values. We also made a minor change to the timing curve, and headed to the pairing lanes.

On Saturday morning a riders and drivers meeting was held, the SPRC, aware of the weather front that was due to hit us on Sunday elected to hold eliminations on the Saturday instead. This was absolutely the right decision, championships were yet to be decided and packing away in the rain sucks. E1 we kept the same tuneup in the car, running against an ever improving Mick Payne in the Plymouth Duster. Mick unfortunately left before the tree was activated, Andy streaked on to the win, but again only a 5.96. We had again underestimated the track, the grip levels causing a huge amount of clutch slippage. Despite no increase in performance we at least knew the short 1st gear worked okay, we had a bye run in the 2nd round so it was time to swing some counterweight at the clutch.

Well done guys! We were due to be called but we could see we were very close to dew point, this is not always an issue if the track has some heat in it, but unfortunately the temperature dropped and it was no longer viable to run cars down the track as the dew was coming in very fast. Again, thank you to the Santa Pod team for their hard work, and also for knowing exactly when to call it a day. These decisions are not easily made.

Sunday was a complete washout sadly, so with that was the conclusion to the 2024 season. We amassed enough points to win the MSUK Drag Racing Championship for the 9th time which we are ecstatic about! We also were greeted with the news that Wayne Nicholson and the Lucky Devil Drag Racing team are retiring from competition. A great shame, we will miss them at the track, not many teams have the tenacity those guys have, they proved themselves to be top

Kenzie has been bought up around drag racing and hot rods  ever since being born and it staid in his blood , at the age of 16n and he obtained an MSA License and was driving his dads 100e up the famous Santa Pod Drag strip.  As soon as he was 17, he purchased his rare 1959 Hillman Minx Wagon (that he wanted from the age of 13) and 3 months later he passed his test and the Hillman went absolutely everywhere. 

You may of seen Kenzie at the track taking photos with good friend Callum Pudge (when these 2 are together beware of the banta and mis-behavior ) 

Kenzie has been lucky to do photos trackside For the NSRA, Feature & Drive. 

Colin woods amazing Husky,  as well as the Nostalgia Super Stock class, Willys Wars, Goodales private track days and the recent Street Weekend for Drag Seen Magazine along with thousands of more great photos. 

The fourth round of Santa Pod Raceway’s Sports Compact Shootouts for 2024 took place last Sunday 29^th September. Congratulations to Lewis Simpson for winning the hard fought event.

The win came on a frenetic day with three rounds of qualifying taking place in the morning and then four rounds of racing in the afternoon.

Results, thanks to etslips.co.uk, were as follows: 

Qualifying:

• Dave Henderson (Audi RS3 saloon) 8.9499/154.16
• Lewis Simpson (Civic EG 2000cc) 9.5738/159.68
• Dannie Highman (Golf 2000cc) 9.8592/118.27
• Ian Pepper (Nova 2000cc) 10.0170/148.12
• Ant Mincher (Mk1 Golf 2000cc) 10.0684/137.75

• Paul Jordan (Polo 1800cc) 10.1648/138.26
• Grant Moore (Corsa 2000cc) 10.3383/136.04
• Brian Askew (Corsa 2000cc) 10.5447/147.60
• Simon Fogg (Corsa 2300cc) 10.6960/133.62
• George Baker (Civic 2400cc) 10.7390/129.14
• Andrew Crank (Corsa 2300cc) 10.8172/137.38
• Darren Dewhurst (Corsa 2000cc) 10.9813/136.57
• Billy Bamber (Nissan Micra 1800cc) 11.2018/123.07
• Scott Linacre (Chevette 1809cc) 13.2148/81.38
• Peter Cole (Renault 5 2000cc) 16.6521/88.73
• Alan Kenyon (Focus 2000cc) 17.2146/73.21

Eliminations

Round 1

• Andrew Crank 11.5054 /137.37 def. Paul Jordan 13.1433/103.37
• Brian Askew 10.9525/112.1 def. Simon Fogg 10.5345/135.32
• Ian Pepper 10.5238/144.31def. Billy Bamber 11.2446/119.63
• Alan Kenyon 11.2952/129.91 def. Dave Henderson, broke

• Dannie Highman 10.8034/118.37 def. Scott Linacre , broke
• Ant Mincher 10.410/137.70 def. Darren Dewhurst, broke
• Lewis Simpson 11.8109/120.15 def. Peter Cole 14.7877/94.25
• Grant Moore 10.4149   137.41 def. George Baker 10.7147/137.28

Round 2

• Ian Pepper 9.9163/145.31 def. Ant Mincher 9.8427/141.58
• Alan Kenyon 15.474/107.31 def. Brian Askew broke
• Andrew Crank 10.0431/142.11 def. Dannie Highman broke
• Lewis Simpson 9.8118/151.57 def. Grant Moore 10.4048/138.21

Semi Finals
Ian Pepper 10.5259/126.66 def. Alan Kenyon 11.1428/130.16
Lewis Simpson 9.7309/153.64 def. Andrew Crank 10.1794/134.9

Final
Lewis Simpson 9.274/157.99 def. Ian Pepper 9.7413/148.09

David Vegter finished the 2024 season with a more than excellent second position in the FIA ​​European Pro Modified Championship. With around twenty participants per race, participants from ten different countries and 36 drivers who scored points this year, Pro Modified is the most competitive and most international class of the FIA ​​European Drag Racing Championship. But still, there were mixed feelings for Vegter and his team Vegter Pro Mod Racing. In almost all races, the Dutchman was the quickest driver on the track, led the championship for a long time, but missed the title by a minimal margin because bad luck struck at the most decisive moment of the season.

You can read the full article by visiting this link.

Streaming details for the service of Julie Willcox at 12:00 noon on Wednesday 9th October, at South Oxfordshire - Chapel, run by Edward Carter Funeral Directors are as below.

Watching Live & On Demand -  https://watch.obitus.com
Username - dixi3803
Password - 875248

Family flowers only please, mum would rather you made a donation to one of the animal charities she supported (details will be on the service card)  If people would like  to raise a quick glass to mum after the service please feel free to join us at the Boundry House pub in Abingdon.
 

Melbourne Raceway's E.T bracket classes this year will be racing, Sportsman ET (up to 7.90), (Pro ET (6.90-7.89) and Pro Extreme (5.90-6.89) with dial-ins used on the Sportsman tree. There's also the NSCC final round will take place. And for quicker cars that want to run a heads up pro tree, we have Pro Comp running a Cannonball style format with the two quickest running a shootout in the final.

Julian Webb with the Spiderman and Split Second Jet Dragsters and Lee Dennick with the Reign of Fire Jet Funny Car will both be there. Graham Sykes with The Force of Nature Rocket Bike too! Don’t forget the end of season fireworks display!

To celebrate Trevor’s 80th birthday we will be having his late son Andy Duckworth’s old band, Blood Sweat and Beers playing in the clubhouse to close the evening off.

If racers don't have a Motorsport UK or ACU licence for bike racers, a Nora licence is needed but can be purchased easily and cheaply at this link.