2004 Speedfreaks Ball
Saturday

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21:15

We're done for the day here at Santa Pod. We wondered whether we would ever get going after heavy rain overnight and for the best part of the morning but the track crew did the usual tremendous job of drying the track and we got going at about 3:00 this afternoon, and we finished shortly before 9:00 with a side-by-side run from Martin Hill and Tony Baker in the Fireforce Jet FCs, with your reporter privileged to run the Tree for them (thanks Ian). Let's take you through today's Fuel, Super Street Bike and Exhibition highlights in association with American Car Imports.

The Top Fuel and Supertwin Bikes have had a couple of sessions today. In the first session Roel Koedam led the way with an 8.699/95.57, off the throttle before three hundred feet. Steve Carey was also on the throttle for about three hundred feet, clocking 9.284/95.28. For the Supertwins, Ronny Aasen put in a pass of 7.329/186.95 with a feather of the throttle as the bike headed for the centre line. Bernie Hepworth was next up with a three hundred foot blast, recording 9.857/101.37, and Ton Pels made his first pass on his beautiful new bike with a 7.562/180.20; we were expecting a half pass for the début run but we got a Maltese sixty foot!

In the second session, Ronny Aasen went first, feathering the throttle as the front end came down and briefly unloaded the back end, 7.753/182.41. Steve Carey was next, hitting shake and backing right off to clock 13.264/60.32. Roel Koedam was third, the bike stuck to the track off the line but the tyre shook a little and Roel feathered the throttle a couple of times before getting off it, but still clocking 6.825/162.57. Ton Pels' rear tyre went up in smoke off the line on his second pass, he got off the throttle and freewheeled for s short distance then hit it again, the bike hooking up and clocking 9.409 at a huge (considering) 182.07.

The lady and gentlemen of Super Street Bike had two collective sessions although a number of them have also been hot-lapping during the RWYB. Steve Venables pulled a 0.002 reaction time during one of his RWYB passes, nice one Steve. In the first of the two collective sessions Pete Bellenie went first at 9.038/160.19 followed by Dave Smith 9.057/157.92, Steve Venables 8.830/169.85, Jamie Sneddon 9.001/142.80, Mark Fisher 8.540/172.40, Dave Bailey 9.705/161.85 and Rachel Pattison 9.352/152.11.

Pete Bellenie went first in the second SSB session, too, clocking 9.410/157.79 followed by Richard Stubbins 9.134/171.70, Dave Smith 9.757/150.56, Dave Bailey 10.064/166, Jamie Sneddon 9.75/150 and Steve Venables 8.560/178.38 - a best for his new bike.

On the exhibition front, Eric Teboul has made one pass on his Rocket Bike today, disappearing in a cloud of steam to record 6.819/151.96. Tony Baker made a pass in Fireforce 1 this afternoon, a 7.790/177.85 whilst German Jet FC pilot Roger Kirchner put in a gentle 10.123/155.21 after appearing to run out of fuel on his first pass.

Martin Hill and Tony Baker closed out the day with a race in the Fireforce Jet FCs, Tony Baker got away first but Martin soon caught him up, clocking 6.134/217.29 to Tony's early shut off 8.068/171.61.

Today's pictures are posted, you can view them via the Event Index page.

We'll be back at the end of tomorrow with the outcomes of the Fuel and Super Street Bike shootouts plus the Exhibition highlights, and of course the Webster Race Engineering/MPM Oil webcam will be on-line all day.