Well....... it just goes to show that the English weather can be a little bit forgiving to us if it wants to. The forecast for the weekend was showers on both days, but being the ever optimistic fools that we are, we headed of to Shakespeare country once again. We managed to arrive and setup in the afternoon before the heavens opened! Mother nature had decided that Saturday would be okay, as long as it could drench us on Friday night!

Sheesh....

Our second set of runs kicked off at quarter past two and we ran three runs within an hour consisting of a 9.93, 9.89 and finally a 10.53. with this last run proving the limit of the tyre pressures. The Chief Spanner Monkey had slipped a banana skin under the Belle and she responded with a very bouncy, slippy, out of shape pass that had the motor coughing and Helen reaching for the Paracetamol.

Guess who's happy to be in the hot seat again?

Mad dogs and Englishmen...

So who's the cutest, the furry ones or the guy asleep with the teddies in his arms?....

Saturday came and the ground was drying well.

Helen was still suffering from a rather dodgy cold and so in order to minimise her time in the Belle, we decided to try and fit in two sessions, each consisting of a couple of passes with a quick lap back into the staging lanes after the first pass.

Around 12:30 we ran our first pass of the day ran a 9.82 a 135mph followed 16 minutes later by a 10.01 again at 135mph. Crew chief Dean was taking the testing opportunity to try out various tyre pressures and this was resulting in a variation of 60 foot times and therefore the 1/4 mile times.

After this first pair of runs we settled down for lunch and a rest before heading into the afternoon.

This feels familiar.

Read what happened on Sunday......

Having learnt a lot from the day we called it quits and headed back to Pooky, Penny and Drafty for a rest before the evening. Mother nature again showed her strength and the late afternoon and early evening were dominated by a hail storm, very fat rain and a rather snazzy double rainbow.

So, over the last couple of weeks The Wild Bunch had planned to have a big cook out with all the teams having a communal BBQ. Well, Mother Nature had decided that we could race all weekend, but a BBQ as well? that was pushing it. So, after the worst of the weather had cleared by about eight o'clock there were smaller team barbies popping up around the place. We tagged onto the "Dog's Doodahs" team BBQ and lit up our little veggie barbie. We had a great giggle, even if it was a little bit damp. Those Aussies may think they have the best BBQ's but it takes true Brits to have a BBQ, under a gazebo, in the drizzle, with a chef in a hi-viz jacket, in between a Transit and an "ecologicaly sound" caravan......

Congratulations to "Old Git" Alec on his birthday, and well done to Kev and the team for getting "Shy Torquer" out on Sunday after a days thrashing repairing a couple of stripped head bolts.