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Click on any image to get the bigger picture |
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Vince
Shaw and John Gibbons' rear engined Alkymist seen in the pits at Blackbushe.
This shot was taken in 1979 as that was the only year that they ran this car.
It was still fitted with the 5016cc Chevrolet which had been used in the earlier
slingshot car (click here to see a picture). |
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Unfortunately I know absolutely nothing about Stinger except that the venue is Santa Pod and it looks to be queuing behind the Ragnarok funny car for scrutineering. |
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This is the fantastic 7 second Glacier Grenade mini-fueller built, owned and driven by Russ Carpenter. It is seen here resplendent in body panels made by Dennis Priddle at Long Marston. |
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Incredibly this is the only picture of Glacier Grenade that I have which even comes close to being an action shot. This was also taken at Long Marston. |
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Russ Carpenter's amazing ability to coax power from a supercharged nitro-burning 2.5 litre Daimler V8 inspired a number of other drivers to have a go. Probably the best known of them was John Whitmore who is seen here staging his Drag'n'Fly rear engined car against the Glacier Grenade at Santa Pod. |
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DD2 was Bob Holt's V8 powered slingshot rail which is pictured here in the staging lane at Long Marston. In those days the pits were on the left side of the track as opposed to the right as it is at Shakespeare County Raceway today. This meant that Gear Jammer had to do a 180 to the left before reaching the bottom of the strip. |
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Richard Dawson lifts the front wheels of his Enforcer dragster at Santa Pod. Richard, who was the RAC Champion in 1985, tells me that he ran a best of 9.82 seconds at 133mph which was the quickest time for a non-nitrous sniffing Jaguar. When I originally wrote this caption I said that Richard still had the car in his garage, since then it has been sold and it competed in the Wild Bunch for two or three years. |
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Dave Wilson has kindly given me some information on this car which was originally named Orpheus and driven by the late Alan Ritmeisters. His team had borrowed the chassis and ran it as Krypton II to keep alive their championship hopes after Dave had inconsiderately totalled their original car. Hyperformance was owned by Nick Lewin and Duncan Harris, Duncan now crews on a fuel car for Rune Fjeld. This picture was taken at Long Marston. |
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Time for a few pictures of another of the stalwarts of British powered dragsters. Steve Johnson's cars were always (and still are) called Motor Mouse. This is his beautiful V6 Cosworth powered front engined car which appeared in 1982 and was capable of low eights at over 160mph. All three of these pictures were taken at Santa Pod Raceway. |
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By 1985 Steve had gone the rear engined route and was out with this tidy looking car still with the V6 Cosworth lump. |
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And finally a not terribly well exposed shot of Steve in the rear engined car being towed in the pits. |
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I believe that this is the ex-Ratcatcher car of Cuss and Ashley. This car passed to Shellie Billington who ran it as Stinker, then to the Draper brothers, then to Rob Loaring and Kevin Perkins and became The Trip and finally to Dave and Steph Milam as She Devil. I still cannot tell you who was running it on 25 August 1985 when this picture was taken at Long Marston. My thanks to Dave Grabham for all the info. |
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Gear Jammer belonged to Mark Forrester and no - this picture was not taken in a breaker's yard - the venue was Long Marston. |
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Nick Pettitt tells me that Headhunter was driven by Stephen Hamoniaux and was Lotus-powered. In the background is Doug Bond's Shoestring Top Fuel dragster. This picture was taken at Santa Pod. |
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This picture of Fusion was taken at Blackbushe on 2 October 1983. The car, which was built and owned by Malcolm Beken, was powered by a very rare Chrysler/BRM of which only 24 were ever made. |
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It's not often you see a dragster with an airliner in the background. Freebird must have been named with just this sort of picture in mind, it was taken at Blackbushe Aerodrome (of course!) on 2 October 1983. |
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This picture of Gold Digger was taken at Blackbushe on 20 May 1984. My thanks to Ian Jupp for telling me that the driver was John Hunt. |
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Bad Habit was another 2.5 litre blown Daimler engined car no doubt inspired by Russ Carpenter. Robin Read of the famous ReadSpeed team was the driver, I have a suspicion that this picture was taken at North Weald, it was taken on 12 August 1984 anyway wherever it was. |
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The very smart Wilkinson & Framsham rear engined dragster with its equally smart trailer seen in the pits at Santa Pod on 26 August 1984. |
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Pages 2 and 3 contain pictures of Rick Fielding's rear engined dragsters (click here and here if you want to see them again). When almost everyone was abandoning slingshots to go the rear engined route, Rick bucked the trend with this fine car powered by a blown Triumph (car) engine. As with all of Rick's competition altereds and dragsters, the name was Imagination. This picture was also taken at the Pod on 26 August 1984. |
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