Friday night we arrived at Santa Pod after a few traffic problems on the M25 (as usual).

The sequence of events was:

Arrive, sign on, get scrutineered, back to the van, bottle of wine, chat with other bunchers, laugh, banter, another bottle of wine, chat some more, sleep.

Twisted Dean in the Saturday morning sunshine. (it was not to last.....)

So, we had to make the most of a bad deal and spent most of Saturday night in the bar chatting to Joe and Mark from the Back in Black team.

Sunday.

Despite weather forecasts of gale force winds and torrential rain, Sunday started dry and we were woken by the sound of the jet dryer as the crew prepared the track. The second round of qualifying started and went quite well until an oildown held up the racing.

Saturday morning came and brought with it some fairly sunny weather if a little bit cold. The rain from the previous day had soaked the track and the crew started at 6:30am and worked hard all morning to get the track dry. The first round of qualifying got under way and the Wild Bunch ran at about 1pm. Unfortunately we ran on a Sportsman tree and not the usual Pro tree and at least 5 Bunchers red lit. We ran off pace and were disappointed after our good performance at the last meeting. So, we needed another qualifying round to try and improve our position. But, it was not to be, mid afternoon the rains came again and despite the best efforts of the crew the track wouldn't dry in the cold damp air.

Helen said she was "focussing"... yeah, right!

Woohoo! my money is on the traaaactor in the far lane...

Helen warms the Belle up on Sunday, as we wait for the call up.

Click here for some hot track(tor) action (low quality 0.3Mb)

Helen is grumpy now... no chance of improving on our 5th place if she can't get on the track!

It took us a full year to win the "Best Altered" trophy at a Wild Bunch event. (Better late than never!)

Click here for some hot track(tor) action(medium quality 3.2Mb)

Click here to see the warm up(low quality 0.3Mb)

Click here to see the warm up(medium quality 3Mb)

Just as the oil was cleared, the rain started to spit and continued on and off for quite a while. As it looked a bit brighter, we warmed up the Belle as the Wild Bunch was going to be squeezed in as the last qualifying group. As it turned out, the rain came down harder just as the Wild Bunch came down the fire up road. The rain didn't stop all afternoon and the meeting was eventually rained off at about 3:30pm.

With no eliminations completed, the Wild Bunch spot prizes were awarded on the single qualifying round. We won the "Best Altered" trophy which was warmly received.

Results:

With no eliminations taking place at the Finals, the positions in the remaining 2 series stayed unchanged.

Wild Bunch: 1st Tony Smith, 2nd Joe Stevens, 3rd, Mike Cresswell, 4th, Team B'Sting, 5th Helen Smythe.

Real Steel: 1st Tony Smith, 2nd Joe Stevens, 3rd Chris Hartnell, 4th Team B'Sting, 5th Mike Creswell, 6th Helen Smythe

For the complete list of official results go to the Wild Bunch website.

Congratulations to all of the teams competing in this years racing, it's been a fantastic experience to work, race and play with you all and the weekends away have been a pleasure. Here's looking forward to the last bash at Halloween and then onto next seasons racing!