(photo courtesy of Job Heezen)
After last year’s glorious sunshine, the Easter Thunderball produced weather conditions that were somewhat different and far more suited to spending the whole weekend indoors rather than trying to get a drag racing meeting completed. That the event did see a conclusion after two days were snowed out and a third only partially completed is testimony to the hard work put in by the SPRC marshals when they could have just as easily called the meeting on the Sunday when the track disappeared under four inches of snow. As it happens, the track management will have taken a massive hit at the gate thanks to the UK’s biggest selling national newspaper publishing a photo of the wintry conditions accompanied by a ‘race cancelled’ notice on the morning of Monday’s eliminations. What was that about there being no such thing as bad publicity?
Pro Fuel
These really weren’t the conditions for trying to get a fuel car down track, and it wasn’t that much of a surprise that the annual season opener shootout for dragsters and funny cars to be cut back to an eighth mile race. Finland’s Jari Halinen managed to point, stab, peddle, steer, point, stab, peddle and steer more effectively than the rest of the field and took the event win light over Lex Joon in the final round with a four flat, having previously clicked off early on a 3.52/197 for low ET of the bracket.
One of the big beasts of the European Tour, Lex Joon debuted a new MPM Oil paint scheme and managed to get some pre-FIA series track time and managed to secure a place in the Thunderball final and give himself a chance at a 50th birthday present. Traction loss and a dart towards the centreline placed the Dutchman too far behind Halinen to recover in the final round, but the meeting served to get some new crew members used to the routine, although the data gathered about running on a freezing cold track with snow threatening will (hopefully) be consigned to the garbage bin for the rest of the season.