Santa Pod Presents THE FIA European Drag Racing Championships ‘The Main Event’ 2012 June 1st-4th

Posted by dijitul on April 27th, 2012

Wondering how to enjoy your Jubilee bank holiday weekend before the street parties kick off on the Tuesday? Why not spend an enjoyable day or four at Europe’s fastest motorsport venue? – Santa Pod Raceway..

John BradshawSanta Pod Raceway, the home of European drag racing, is already gearing up for one of Europe’s most prestigious Drag Racing meetings; The FIA/UEM ‘Main Event! This hugely popular, televised event is the first round of the prestigious European Drag Racing Championship and features the largest race entry and most packed Motorsport content anywhere in Europe! Over 200 teams and 17 bike and car race classes make this event unrivalled for both the quality and quantity of racing. Make it a date in your diary now! Friday the 1st to Monday the 4th June, 2012.

Exemplifying the very greatest, fastest, loudest and craziest spectacles in drag racing, the entire weekend gathers the most brutal machines in Europe and pits them head to head in an epic display of rubber burning, nitro-snorting insanity! Both cars and bikes are represented, with some of the entrants able to hit an incredible 300 mph in well under 5 seconds!! If this wasn’t impressive enough, on the track in between racing will be the awesome Fireforce 3 Jet Funny Car and ridiculously brave Frenchman Eric Teboul, who thinks that strapping himself to the World’s fastest Jet-bike is a sane way to make a living! While the jury’s still out on that one, watching him cover the 440 yards in the blink of an eye, whilst literally hanging on for his life, is a spectacle that will stay with you forever!

This years Top Fuel contingent will also be getting dewy eyed about the very same event, exactly 10 years ago, where British racer Barry Sheavills re-wrote the record books by becoming the first driver outside of America to shatter the all-important 300mph barrier.. followed a couple of hundredths of a second later by team mate Andy Carter! Barry will be attending the event, chatting to fans and signing autographs, so come and meet a real living legend!

Those who like their vehicles loud, imposing and likely to cause carnage will also appreciate the ample charms of resident Monster Trucks, ‘Podzilla’ and ‘Swamp Thing’. Watching these two giants battle for supremacy in the Live Action Arena usually involves the painful and graphic death of several once-cherished family saloons, so have your cameras and phones at the ready! – this ain’t going to be pretty! Also in the mix is former Stunt Riding World Champion Zoltan Angyal, who will be bringing his superbly entertaining style and edgy show content back to the UK, and drifters Team Maximum Lock from Malta, who will also be performing their tightly co-ordinated, sideways driving, rubber-burning antics to the live action arena. Each driver executing millimetrically perfect manoeuvres with a ton-or-so of high-horsepower drift car!

Off track action is equally as exciting with loads of entertainment and attractions aimed squarely at families looking for a great weekend away. Full camping facilities are available and under 16s even go for free! There’s fun for the whole clan with Kids entertainment, side shows, traders, Fun Fair and full catering & bar facilities all weekend with evening entertainment in Fuelers Bar, including a live performance from rock band ‘Empire’ on the Saturday night and regular rockers ‘Slim 47’ on the Sunday.

Don’t forget to look up from time to time though as The Battle of Britain Memorial Flight will also be making fly past with a Spitfire on Saturday, while Sunday’s sky will be full of the ‘Starduster Too’ aerobatic display. Monday completes the abundance of aeronautic excellence with a full team parachute drop to round things off. If you want to get up close and personal with an avionic icon, a static Battle of Britain display – featuring a replica Messerschmitt ME109 – will also doubtless be on your list.

Fancy seeing the whole spectacle from the air? Then jump on a helicopter experience flight and film it all from above. Better yet, fancy driving in the tyre tracks of the professionals? With 1,000 horsepower just inches from your ear? Then buckle up and sample the incredible sensation of a two-seater dragster ride. Covering the world-famous quarter mile in a shade over 7 seconds, you’ll experience the blistering-quick acceleration that only a top-level drag car can deliver.

Advance ticket prices start from just £12 for the Friday, or £30 for each of the action packed main days (Saturday, Sunday or Monday) The entire 4 day event costing just £70 in advance or £80 on the gate. With the kids getting on for FREE, it could be the best family weekend that you’ve ever enjoyed!

For more details please visit www.santapod.com or call the team on 01234 782828

Easter Thunderball – The First Event for Elsom Motorsport

Posted by dijitul on April 17th, 2012

Just quick update  to let you know how our weekend was down at Easter Thunderball.

Elsom Motorsport Car in CoachAfter the usual mad thrash the week before easter weekend, we eventually got the car loaded in the coach for the first time ever about an hour before leaving… and it fits like a glove.

We got to the track at about 7pm and got our pit set out, car on its stands and chilled in the coach ready for the next day.

Friday was mostly spent getting properly acquainted with the car and making final preperation for our first run which was a planned 330ft no gas run.

The burn out was OK enough but after that things went away and the car died leaving the line……fortunately enough this was down to a switch being in the wrong position so we made prep for the following day.
Elsom Car on the track

Saturday, thanks to the glorious easter, weather we spent time in the day waiting for another chance to try again, unfortunately once I tried to put the car onto the burnout I drove through the clutch in a shower of sparks and so was pushed back again.

Elsom Motorsport PitsBack in the pits it was decided to fit the spare clutch , and thanks to all the help and advise from Fred, Tim and the other guys in super modified, this was done …. can’t thank the other teams enough for all their help and advise this weekend and I’ve got to say how great our class is for that……all so willing to help.

Come Sunday , after all the work being done the night before we spent time waiting for a weather window to get what we thought would definately getting us up the track but again due to the weather this didn’t happen so we packed up and came home.

Me and Sharon would like to thank the lads for all their hard work at the track, Tony Gillam at Abbey Motorsport for all his help and support, Dave at Delta Pixels for his sponsorship at the event and to Andy Kirk for all his help leading up to and at the track… without all your individual inputs we probably wouldn’t have made it.

Credits also go to DogCam for providing us with two helmet cameras which are now fitted to the car and will be put into use at the next event.

Thanks Guys.

Easter Thunderball

Posted by dijitul on April 5th, 2012

We are currently down at Santa Pod setting up for the Autotrader Easter Thunderball…..

The car is ready, the team are ready, bring on the racing :-)

More news to come soon :-)

 

The first time we started the car…

Posted by dijitul on February 28th, 2012

We finally got round to that all important stage – starting the car!

Rob noticed it wasn’t running well, so we adjusted and then ran it again…

Much better!!!

Where it all started…

Posted by dijitul on February 28th, 2012

As outlined on our about page – our drag racing spark was ignited by the one and only Tiff Needhall back in 1997 when he appeared on TV taking a top fuel drag car out for a spin…

The rest as they say, is history….