The Easter Thunderball 14th-17nd April '06. Team Twisted

Saturday started out a bit cooler and it was going to take a while for the misty start to burn away. Twisted crew Christine took the opportunity to get some Tai chi practise in. The Wild Bunch qualifying round came up at just gone midday and we headed down the fire up road. Chief spanner monkey Dean, had bumped up the ignition timing a couple more degrees to see if we could get a bit more out of the girls.

The timing changes had worked and we ran a 9.78 against our 9.75 dial in giving us a good qualifying position.

The next instalment of the afternoon was to be the chance of a lifetime; Stu Bradbury, the original chief starter from Santa Pods early years, was on hand to flag start a couple of races as part of the 40th Anniversary celebrations. Those two races were to be one pair of altereds and one pair of slingshots. So, Helen went heads up against Roy Wilding, and Phil Sweeney lined up against Crazy Chris for a pair of flag starts that had everybody itching with excitement. When Stu pointed those sacred flags at the drivers and then leapt into the air, there must have been a hundred cameras go off at once..... a really magical moment!

After the afternoons excitement we still had time for a further two qualifying rounds. The first one showed us moving back to a 9.97, again with a looser 60ft, showing that the launch had moved around a bit. As with yesterday, the racing carried on into the evening and the final round came at quarter to eight. We moved our dial-in down to 9.70 and ran a 9.81 @134mph keeping us on the pace.

The evening rounded of with two special events, 1) a balloon "glow" in the neighbouring field and 2) a party in the pits to celebrate Mrs. Closet (a.k.a. Jan Mortimer)'s special birthday.