Finished fitting the newly rebuilt rearend, new shocks, new pinion snubber and Nitrous purge valve at about 8ish on Thursday night. A mishap with filling mine and Paul Worrow's Nitrous bottles saw Paul and Philth at CustomVille at 9am Friday. Got away from Cranham at about 11.30. Got 10 miles around the M25 and cough, splutter, grind to a halt on the hard shoulder. Holley BlueTop pump is not working
Under the car with juggernauts thundering past whacking it with a hammer didn't work so get relayed to Tesco in Goodmayes (No, they don't stock Holley products, but are close to CustomVille
) Incidentally, this is the first time on a trailer for the 8 yrs I've had the 'Cab, so not bad. Buy and fit a new pump whilst eating egg/tomato/petrol sandwiches. Cane the car up the M11/M25/M40, all's going well 'til the 4000rpm+ cruising empties me fuel cell
Refill on the hard shoulder, stop at services for more gas, then stop at the Shakey Shell for the Optimax. Get to Shakey for 7.30PM. Not bad! 8) Friday night's party was good and severely dented the Stella rations. Saturday saw a lot of tuning before I hit the track. Got rid of the above port vacuum and tuned the shooter, backed off the timing, checked the purge and put the 100hp jets in, wound up the pinion snubber to 1inch below the plate and dropped the slicks to 12psi with my newfandangled Percy's tire equalisation gauge. First run and it's appalling, coughing and banging up the track to a black smoke belching 14.8
Back to the pits and check the whole of the nitrous system, it's all okay. Go for a baseline run on stock timing, no gas. No misfires or problems get a 14.1. Something is amiss. I also lost lots of rubber as a certain photog who frequents this board was kneeling in front of the car during the burnout and wouldn't budge! I didn't want to run him over as I hadn't got me calendar yet
After a bit of hooning in the pits it appeared that the secondaries weren't opening. (Ripped diaphragm confirming this) Quick scrounge round the pits didn't turn anything up until TwoLanes saves the day with a complete vacuum canister that was the result of some bartering he was up to. THANKS MATE! 8) Track is now shut so the timing is pulled out again and all set for a blistering 12 on the Sunday. Things then got a bit messy. The VodkaSkittles were liberated from their canister and a brush with Surrey Muscle's MadDog and friends saw me heading helplessly into oblivion. Hung out in the bar with 74DartSport and friends and Joe and others. Big Thanks to Philth CrewChief for getting me back to my tent. 2.30 the next afternoon I surfaced, even TerryR was checking I was alright
Got my head together with a life-saving cup of tea from Guy's Mary 8) Joined the queue which wasn't too long. 2hrs(!) later get my only run in. 13.8
I am still not convinced those secondaries are opening fully, didn't have time to change to a lighter spring and didn't want to risk ripping the diaphragm anyway. So begins the least favourite part of the weekend, clearing up
Paul Worrow left the track about an hour before me and Philth. 40mins into the journey and Paul rings saying he's just pushed his Charger off the dark M40 at the Silverstone turn off. We pull up and he's alternator has gone down
After much fiddling and reading meters he amazes us all by pulling a spare one out of his trunk
It's on a standard pulley so the belts a bit floppy 'til we force the tensioner into another mounting hole. I precariously reverse the 'Cab along the side of the Charger on the edge of a steep bank and jump the Charger into life. Paul's Charger has a few cooling issues and needs the fan on all the time and what with the 'leccy fuel AND waterpump AND lights the standard Alternator was gonna have problems. The rest of the journey was spend with Paul's co-pilot, Paul Hughes checking the voltmeter and switching the fan, lights etc. in and out depending on gradient. I followed Paul home and we both made it @ about midnight. Excellent to meet even more new MessageBoard dudes, hope you are now getting a handle on your GTX, BudgieBird, love your car 8) Hope your head is better, 74DartSport. Great to see Joe driving BR&L and Jeff's awesome run. Now that is a proper car; drive to the track, uncork the headers, go 10.9 on street treads, then pop the caps back on and drive home....Jealous? Moi?
So to sum up, my worse weekend's racing, ever
Still, I live by this adage; "The worse weekend's racing is still better than the best week at work." Roll on next year 8) PS Nick Wood; don't be so paranoid
BIG THANKS to all you guy's (and gal's) for putting up with all my questions, borrowing of tools, etc etc, learnt hell of a lot that weekend! It really was a refreshing change, just like the old days, as i only joined the mma 6 weeks ago at the nats, it feels more like 6 years!! anyway thanks lads for the captions on the burn out's 
cheers ya'll