The mix and match ET Bike field had Phil Pratt and the Satan’s Lady Suzuki taking both the National title and the event win, defeating Gary Hester in the final, Pratt having been something of a nemesis for Hester throughout the year.
The Junior National titles headed to Billy Everitt (left) in the Al-ien Jr Dragster (the National Finals marking Everitt’s last event be-fore moving up into the Super Pro ranks next season) and Blade Dummer (right) on two wheels. Blade also doubled up with the event win
Caitlin Wilson did the honours on four wheels.
Last in our round-up, and by no means least, Bob Hawkins was on fine form with the BBC-equipped Time Traveller 2 slingshot, running deep into the sixes against his 6.65/6 dial in for much of Wild Bunch Nos-talgia competition, preceded by some storming burnouts and taking the event win over a wayward Mick Gleadow to pick up the MSA version of the myriad Wild Bunch championships.
PHOTO EXTRA SLIDESHOW
The index bike classes had Jake Mechaell and Richard Sawatzki picking up the 8:50 and 9:50 National championships, Jay Roe defeating the former on a breakout decision in the final. The winner of the 9:50 trophy came in the form of Super Street Bike standout Garry Bowe, with the Cumbrian deciding not to add to the pile of broken engines that littered his ACU and FIM-E campaign, but instead to run to the index on his son’s Hayabusa and ending up holding the event after Lewis Burgess broke out.
Dial your own
The quickest of the d-y-o classes, Gearhead Garage Super Pro ET event winner Scott Hauser defeated another second-generation driver, Dan Giles, when the latter broke out and, thanks to the way the first round of eliminations played out, Hauser was able to pick up a third National championship to add to his back to back titles in 2013 and 2014.
The Dark Horse father and son duo of Brian and Lee Huxley (although we are pretty sure that Lee has been doing most of the driving this year) picked up their fifth Modurstang Pro ET championship with their nine second first-generation Mustang. Lee also reached the final here, but was bested by Nic Williams in the Williams Bros Racing leaping SS Chevelle on a double breakout final.
Andy Dibley took the Sportsman ET National title for the second sea-son in a row, but the event win went to James Forster in his 4Star Mustang that is more familiar in Pro ET competition.
ACU Funny Bike had Allan Davies winning the event on the Gipp Racing nitrous Suzuki, defeating outgoing champion Phil Crossley and putting an exclamation point on his first ACU championship.
The ACU Comp Bike field had the championship decided early on during eliminations when Eddy Smiley (in his final ACU event) progressed through the semifinals, but he wasn’t among the slew of champions doubling up with the event win as Mark Hope defeated him with a 7.5100/192 to a 7.7490/178 in an all Hayabusa match-up.
ACU Super Street Bike had its usual fun and games, although Rick Stubbins emerged once again as the class of the field, qualifying low with a 7.0765/202.35 from the Protek racer, setting class low ET with a 7.0536/201.52 in the semifinals and then winning the event with a 7.0635/202.46 to defeat Graham Balchin in a battle between the #1 and #2 in qualifying and, as it turns out, the 2017 ACU points. So that is FIM-E Euro Championship, Santa Pod track championship and the ACU championship in one season, which is very impressive going given the quality of the fields across all series this year.
The Index Classes
Stuart Doignie hogged the championship limelight in the Super Comp and Super Gas classes, taking the UK National title in both for an astonishing third year in a row. Doignie also took the event win here in Super Comp over a redlighting Collin Morrice, but the curse of the cherry bit Doignie in the final of Super Gas handing the event win to Tim Adam in the Blitzkrieg Racing roadster.
The event win in Super Street went to Karen Stevens in her LassVega after fellow finalist Paul Marston didn’t make the call, but the championship had earlier been decided in favour of Leigh Morris in his howling straight 6 Jaguar.
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CMSA Drag Racing Championship Ends Season
Words and photos by Ivan Sansom and Rose Hughes
Thanks to SPR timing crew for access to timing data
Marco Maurischat
Conducted under warm and sunny skies (a stark contrast to the Euro Finals at the same venue a couple of weeks before), the battle for domestic honours came to its conclusion over the course of the Na-tional Finals at Santa Pod.
MSA Pro Modified
Andy Robinson
Headlining this event, the destiny of the MSA Pro Modified champion-ship was settled at the start of the meeting with Andy Robinson se-curing his sixth title by passing scrutineering before on track ac-tion commenced. Robinson demonstrated that he wasn’t taking things easy by belting out a trio of 5-second passes from his supercharged ‘Anger Management’ 1969 Camaro during qualifying and lowering his personal best with a 5.9467/236.53 mph to head the eight-car elimina-tions field.
Unfortunately, there were a couple of withdrawals presenting a couple of competition solos in the opening round of eliminations, with Rob-inson (6.047/237.44) and Marco Maurischat (6.149/232.54) being the quickest of the quartet to advance to the semifinals, with Bobby Wal-lace’s nitrous injected Willys Coupe and Wayne Nicholson’s Corvette comprising their opponents.
Robinson overcame Wallace with a consistent 6.007/237.41 to a 6.268/221.35 whilst Maurischat’s 6.277/232.43 to set up the Anglo-German final. Maurischat gained a head start off the line with a per-fect reaction time but Robinson managed to find a little extra to charge past Maurischat’s 6.2957/232.84 with a further personal best elapsed time and terminal speed with a 5.9183/242.43 mph, win the meeting and underline a very good weekend.
“We’re really happy, we’ve found a few things in the setup and are clearly making a lot of horsepower now. Here’s hoping we don’t get lost with the tune-up over the winter,” beamed the NGK-backed Robin-son after the final.
Heads up and Comp
Topspeed Automotive Street Eliminator saw Mark Todd underline what has been a pretty dominant season with the Rusty Pistons-backed GTO with the event win at the National Finals, sending his points haul to well over twice that of event and points runner-up Alan Williamson.
Not yet a National championship, but Comp Eliminator had Andy ‘Fred’ Hone doubling up with the track championship and the National Finals event win over Rob Smallworth running against the Super Modified 7.99 index; although the latter crossed the finish line first in the tro-phy runoff his 7.4807 was chucked out thanks to dipping below the ‘55 Chevy’s 7.50 chassis tag, whilst Hone’s 7.3768 came with a fairly lengthy, but subsequently immaterial snooze at the start line.
The ACU bike classes were headlined by Top Fuel Bike, with Steve Woollatt taking the 2017 championship to add to the eleven previously earnt. Woollatt and The Dealer team were on consistent and quick form with the small capacity PBR Puma motor threatening personal best num-bers throughout the weekend with a 6.2006 at an early shutoff 202.44 mph (the result of the front wheel not coming down thanks to the rap-id acceleration in the first half delivered by a new clutch and fuel system) resetting the ACU TFB ET record in a first round win over Neil Midgley’s 6.6929 on the Cannon Engineering blown V-Twin (Midgley having earlier pulled out a 6.4779 PB at only 177 mph after clicking at 5.2 seconds). Woollatt also took the event win with a 6.2452/185.82 solo when scheduled opponent Rene van den Berg was a no-show after head gasket issues during qualifying which the Dutch rider led with a 6.0955/214.85 personal best.
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