AllStar Nationals from England

Words by Ivan Sansom
Photos by Ivan Sansom and Rose Hughes
9/12/05

ENGLAND -- With sunny skies, full grandstands and numerous Personal Best's lowered on a very good track surface, the exit road out of Shakespeare County Raceway saw both the crowd and racers heading home with big smiles on their faces, a situation which, thanks to previous bad luck and frustrating organizational niggles, hasn't happened too often in the past couple of seasons. The occasion was the Custom Car Magazine AllStar Nationals.

TOP FUEL MATCH RACE

The booked-in fuel car best of three didn't really sent the world alight. Darryl Bradford in the Wright Racing fueler struggled with the repeated failure of the proverbial ten cent part in trying to engage reverse on two shots, and then going straight up in smoke at the hit on the third round.

Thomas Nataas took the match race win with a shaking, pedaling and black tracking mid five second best, but the talking point involving the Norwegian team was the appearance of Nordic TV presenter Haral Rumaberg at the tiller of the Rune Fjeld rail. Rumaberg produced a picture perfect burnout before tentatively bumping into stage. Unfortunately, he also bumped into reverse at the same time and the mash of the throttle chewed the transmission to bits (fortunately) and sent plumes of unburnt nitro high into the skies over Stratford upon Avon. The expense claim will make for interesting reading!

PRO MOD MATCH RACE

Although Danny Cockerill managed to lose the four round match race to Gordon Appleton thanks to two red lights, he reset the Pro Mod track record at 6.56/216mph on his best pass. Look out for a full Euro Pro Mod feature later in the year.