Friday and Saturday,

The final round of the Wild Bunch had come and twelve intrepid Wild Bunch teams were making their way to Santa Pod. The Pod is the closest track to Team Twisted and we arrived after about 21/2 hours, just in time to join the queue waiting for the track to open. Once inside, we setup camp and managed to squeeze in the customary beer and bench race with the guys and gals. At this point things started to go downhill as Helen came down with a nasty cold and went early to bed where she would stay for most of the weekend.

The first pass in the crisp cool air.

The weather didn't look too good for Saturday and it turned out to be true with rain overnight and showers through the morning. The qualifying rounds were on and off throughout the day with the hard working track crew getting the track ready. The plan for the weekend was to see what the car would run without the throttle stop and if all was okay to go back to launching with the transbrake.

Twisted Crew Christine showing off the new battery trolley. (no one call her a trolley dolly, ok?)

Twisted Crew Dave and Crewchief Dean looking a little chilly!

Helen waits to chase down Roy Wilding....

Snotty Helen spent most of the weekend like this...

Soon enough the track was dry and the Wild Bunch set off to do battle! We woke up sleeping beauty and strapped her in for the ride.

The first qualifying run was just before midday and we were hoping for a quick time. The pass wasn't quite a quick as we hoped, netting 9.99 @ 133mph, but this was into a strong headwind. We headed back to the pits with the knowledge that we had time for further cleaning and preparations because the weather was going to shower on and off for the next few hours. The track crew kept on top of it and we were back out for the second and final qualifier in the dusky light just before 7pm. This time Helen got back into using the transbrake and launched to a slightly quicker 9.90 @ 134mph.

Wooo hooo! Night racing!

Once again crew man Dave did a sterling job capturing a couple of the passes on video, so follow one of the links below for a taster of the action.

Night Qualifier Low resolution (320Kb)

Night Qualifier Med resolution (2.6Mb)

First Round Low resolution (440Kb)

First Round Medium resolution (4.2Mb)

Sunday morning came and the weather was much better, still crisp but much brighter.. the day was going to be sunny and dry. We had qualified 7th out of 12 and were paired against Roy Wilding in the first round. We dialled in at 9.88, slightly quicker than we had gone in qualifying and headed down to the track. The start looked close with both drivers pulling good lights as Helen chased down the track after Roy, it looked good, but it was not to be as we shot through to record a 9.78 breakout. The terminal speed was down 8mph showing that Helen had lifted at the top end, but the Belle had different ideas and had quickened the e.t.

Helen headed back to bed in the van to try and sleep off her cold whilst the team multi tasked between looking after her, watching the racing and packing up. 

The next few rounds were close run with Tony Wynne-Jones and Mikey Creswell, making the semis, whilst Phil Sweeney survived through to the finals for the second MSA event in a row. After the dust had settled Phil had another victory under his belt, Tony had a new personal best, Mikey had amassed enough points to overtake Tony Smith and win the Wild Bunch series, and Helen had done enough to ensure 3rd place in the Wild Bunch series, a great racing weekend indeed!

Heart felt congratulations to all the winners, champions and competitors throughout this fantastic season, and thank you all for what was in the end a very close run thing.

Next up: we finish the Real Steel Series ...