Autosport International 2003
Friday (Press/Trade Day)

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Drag racing was again well-represented at Autosport International 2003 with a Top Fuel Dragster, Top Methanol Dragster, Custom Car Street Eliminator, Pro Mod, Top Fuel Bike and Funny Bike already on display on two Press and Trade days, to be joined by a wide range of machinery on Santa Pod Raceway's stand on the two public days. The first of our two visits in association with American Car Imports took place on the second of the two Press and Trade days.

The American Car Imports display is spactacular to say the least. The stand features a method of towing which the AA never thought of, with the ACI Top Methanol Dragster's nose resting in the pickup bed of a Ford Lightning, alongside a Hummer H2. On the back of the display is a huge picture of the dragster in action at Santa Pod. The surrounding framework is the work of driver Dave Wilson. "Dave, David and the team are very good engineers", said ACI Joint Managing Director Anthony Cohen. "They've worked very hard on this display and it looks great! We're also very grateful to Bill Sly of Bad Boys Imaging for the excellent picture". Bill's picture is also available on mouse mats being given away on the ACI stand.

Anthony and the race team recently went to Pomona where it would appear that the cheque book saw some more action. "We've bought a few new bits", he said. "You go to Pomona, you see what all the new bits are, and if you see anything you like the look of you buy it! Hopefully 2003 will hold good things".

The ACI stand also features an example of the Hummer H2, which is destined for a week in one of Harrods' windows. "I sold a Harley Davidson F150 pickup to Mohammed Fayed and we negotiated a deal to put the Hummer in the window, in the week commencing 16th February", said Anthony. "We've got Ford represented with the Lightning, a Chrysler Hemi in the dragster, and the Hummer so we have the main manufacturers covered!". The ACI team of Anthony, joint MD Jon, Caroline and Wolfgang were doing a brisk trade on the stand, with vouchers available giving a £1000 discount on any vehicle purchased before the end of February.

On the Custom Car Magazine stand, Richard Homewood's new Custom Car Street Eliminator Willys was turning heads. The car has nice lines and is very clean. The car was built by Dale Reardon at West Coast Racing, with parts including the body supplied by Lee Child of LA Racing Parts, who is also CCSE Championship Co-ordinator and of course a Eurodragster sponsor. Richard Homewood's car is powered by a 383 small block with a single carb and Top Gun nitrous nozzle system. Andy Robinson's Studebaker Pro Mod, Steve Neimatas' Aston Martin, and Andy Frost's eight-second Vauxhall make up an imposing display with a central desk flanked with racks of issues of CC including the very latest issue which came out on Thursday and which features Andy Frost's Vauxhall.

We asked Lee about the races which he will be promoting at Shakespeare County Raceway this year under the banner of LA Performance Services. "The Championship will be called the Ultimate Power Drag Racing Championship", he said. "There will be three races in the series: May Bank Holiday, mid-June and August Bank Holiday. They will also be UK National Championship dates. We also have the Doorslammer Nationals in September which will be in the same format as 2002 so the drivers have to defend their crowns! The Big Shootout in October will be in the same format as the Doorslammers except that everyone is invited, dragsters and altereds too. We're working on the structure of the Halloween Showdown in October and we'll have some more news about that soon."

Over at the Titanium International Limited stand, Nigel Hoskison of TIL was having a busy time talking with potential sponsors of Dave Holland's Funny Bike of which TIL are primary sponsor. "We had several visitors yesterday and my diary for January is filling up with meetings!", he said. "You get real people at Autosport, no time wasters". The Funny Bike was on display on the stand before going into the paint shop for its 2003 livery. Rider Dave Holland told us about Team Titanium International Limited's plans for 2003.

"We are going to improve our facilities at the track", he said. "We will be doing on-site sales of braided hoses for race and road, as well as trackside distribution of Rock Oil. We're turning into Open All Hours! As far as the bike is concerned, we won't spend this season chasing the magic six-second pass, now that we realise how hard it is. We found reliability towards the end of last season, that is until we blew it to bits at the last race! We're going to consolidate, do what we've done in the past, only do it a little better. It's easy to forget how to enjoy yourself."

Dave also told us about his trip to the AMA/Prostar World Finals in Gainesville, where he competed on Jay Regan's Pro Mod Bike. "We didn't qualify because of a chip in the Schnitz progressive box", said Dave. "The bike would launch but then nosedive, it wasn't on full power for 0.7 seconds. But I recorded my quickest ever back half, and I trashed a wheelie bar wheel in the traps at 187 miles per hour! I ran a 7.11 on the bike the following weekend at Bradenton, and then John Sachs won an event and ran a 6.96 on it". The MRE bike is now on its way to the UK where it will be sold. Jay Regan himself will be visiting the UK with the bike in the middle of the year and, we understand, may find time for some debauchery.

A nice coup for drag racing was the appearance of the Wildside Inc Top Fuel Dragster on the Goodyear tyres stand. Owner John Wright told us that this is the first time that the car has been out of the trailer since the end of last season. "We just had a break", he said. "We've got a new rear end ready to fit, and we're going to bring the chassis up to spec although we did half of the work last year". John told us that the Wildside team would probably not be running at the Easter Thunderball this year. "It's too cold", he said. "We will run the Main Event and the European Finals, anything else will be a bonus - we will just run until we run out of parts. The hard part is finding someone to put money in the car - I have committed a certain amount but you have to be sensible."

We found Super Comp and Pro ET racer Colin Aldred at his Scorpion Racing stand where he was selling a range of performance products including a new range of shock absorbers by Oram. He is another racer who hasn't given his car a look since its last race in 2002. "Hopefully it's still in the trailer!", he said of his silver slingshot. "I've been very busy with Scorpion Racing. This year, though, we have a new crew member named Sam Lotz, and Roz will be driving the car in the Wild Bunch at Shakespeare County Raceway". Colin's backing of drag racing with Scorpion Racing continues as he is sponsoring Super Pro ET racer Chris Johnson with a set of Oram shocks, and he has also pledged to continue the Eurodragster.com/Scorpion Racing Award scheme into 2003. More details about that when the racing starts, but thanks Colin!

We met Swedish Top Methanol Funny Car racer Ulf Leanders at the Show this afternoon. He expressed himself taken aback with the size of the Show and had spent quite some time looking around. You may remember that Ulf, brother Jorgen and the team didn't have the best of luck in 2002, with a collision with a timing system battery at Gardermoen damaging the chassis, followed by a top end tyre blowout at the European Finals at Santa Pod Raceway which took out an entire rear quarter of an ex-John Force Mustang body acquired at some expense. "We have a new Pleuger chassis and a new rear end", said Ulf. "We're starting to get things together again. There is a lot going on at the moment, the body has been repaired and should be ready in about a week's time. We can race it if we have to but we have been promised that we can have a new body if we want one - and if we can find the money! We would like to put the old car back together as a show car because I don't like to have the car out of the workshop when we could be working on it".

Also visiting from Sweden was Top Fuel Dragster racer Susanne Callin. "I don't have any news yet, but I won't be staying away!", she said. We mentioned to Susanne a rumour we had heard that she was contesting three races in Top Fuel this season. "Well, that must be it then!", she joked.

You can find a large number of photographs in our Gallery, which you can reach from the event index. Tune back tomorrow for our report on the first Public days, including the unveiling of Andy Carter's First National Telecom Top Fuel Dragster.

For help and facilities at the NEC today we would like to thank Anthony and Jon Cohen, Nigel Hoskison, Keith Bartlett and Kjell Pettersson. Sharkman would like to thank AWS for a good deal on a firesuit and Pat and Stephen Talbot for their help.