[dragracerdave]

This is a very interesting topic! Its great to see some history even before PDRC! I have a question though, Can anyone shed some light on a Black Chevy Nova called Midnight Marauder? I've seen a pic of it burning out at Felton & would love to know who owned it & where it went to? Anybody help,
Cheers, Dave.

[Shadowfax]

Hi Dragracerdave, ukdrn, shabby1 and others. I met the guy from timetraveldvd at a custom car show in Farnborough, Surrey last Friday who pointed me to the website.

I was the owner and driver of Shadowfax and ran it extensively at Felton Dragway. We bought it from a chap in London as a chassis and a few bits and re-built it. Although we ran a lot at Felton we rarely got it hot enough to get the best out of of it. We also went to the Edinburgh custom car show and won, which amaized me and Pi**ed off the guys from the Hulk. When I retired from driving, after tipping a friends Jag powered Model T altered over that I was shaking down after it was built and due to my mortgage Ins being invalid, we sold the car to some guys who had a garage and spray biz in Newcastle, under the arches. They swapped the Ford 3 litre (with Raymond Mays head and 3 x 2" SU's) for a twin cam Lotus engine. I never saw it race.

I think I have the distinction of being the only person (along with my wife !) to spend his Honeymoon at Felton, travelling back after the wedding to won the dragster class and my wife won the street legal with the E Type we ran at the time. We also had several friends who built Lotus Europa's (Red and Black JPS #96) who also ran a lot at the strip. One of these guys bought the engine /gearbox from "Vandal" which had run at The Pod and we put it into a Blue TVR, I disconnected the back brakes and fitted a windscreen washer bottle to spray the rear tyres which did spectactualr burnouts.

We went on to run Felton Dragway and built a control vehicle to do all the timing etc with the super guys from the NEHRA, none of them had track cars but they worked their socks off building the strip and running it on the day. I could ramble on about all the funny things that happened but maybe another time !.
Believe it or not we actually got 5,000 people there one weekend after getting a 2 minute slot on "Look North" within the "What's on at the weekend" section. we gave away windscreen stickers each time with the next date on which worked well.
We also built the very shoprt wheelbase Mini to be crowd pleaser to rival (?!) the wheely Stingray of The Pod. It helped to divert attention away from the time spent when the timing lights would not work, a very old system !

Writing this brings back some great memories of terrific days and great people, now 30+ years on I sometimes wonder where all those people went. I must have LOTS of photos of Felton and I did have a great 8mm of a Dragster standing on its end at The Pod. I will have to investigate the loft for more.

Great to hear someone out there remembers Felton, let's hope there are more.

Regards Shadowfax

[ukdrn]

Thanks for the info about you old car Shadowfax, do you remember who it was the chassis come from?
Here's all the pictures I can find taken by Alan Moseley.

[Shadowfax]

Hi UKDRN,

Thanks for the great photos, when you are busy running a car often you do not get a chance to take many pics. Most of mine are with a Polaroid and hence are faded now.

I think the car was an old rail from Colin Weber, it was a chassis with a box of bits. Unfortunately we only got it on song a couple of times at Felton as with only one gear it bogged down continually. The best run was after boiling the car on the line, waiting for the Hulk to stage, we flew away in a rage and it ran superbly well. I am sure with two gears it would have been a lot better

As I talk to my wife about those days, all sorts of memories come back to us of the racing and also the frustrating days spent with the farmer who owner the land, the local council and also the RAC. Ultimately we got very little from the farmer or the council, by way of help or co-operation, and ran, as someone else pointed out without, an RAC strip license. Effectively that meant that if anyone was caught racing at a non RAC event (Felton) they could loose their license. In reality there were many who raced at Felton but still retained their license, some running under a "stage (or strip) name".

Although we knew what we had to do to make a going concern of the strip it was a Catch 22 situation. We could not get and RAC license to run the strip, and make money, without Armco and banking to protect the competitors and spectators, and the council / farmer would not allow us to fit any permanent barriers, temporary ones being too expensive. We were also only allowed to run a max of 12 meets per year which also restricted the money we could collect / invest.

However there we some great guys in the NEHRA who worked spent weekends tirelessly clearing the strip and running it on the day but only had Rods or Road cars and therefore did not benefit from the strip. In the early days before racing began we moved several tons of earth from the tarmac. Although there was a lot of enthusiasm still to have strip up there the overall situation was against us and after a few years the farmer told us he was going to sell the strip for hardcore. Unlike the Pod we had no more room to go for the track. I don’t know if the farmer did sell but the hardcore but I moved South and lost touch after selling the car.

I wonder if there are any of the original guys from the NEHRA who read these posts and have any other memories?

Shadowfax

[ahonda]

hi just joined.did not realize i had took so many pics at felton(ALAN MOSELEY).I was normaly helping out with the start lights which i built.the first worked but looked crap then started going wrong.all ran off 12 car batterys.the next set looked better and ran off a 250v gen.i also added staging light beams later.i wonder what happened to that set up because of work i could not attend mettings so lost out on the later years of the club.i rember felton as being very bumpy.windy and rained a lot but still had fun.we had good club meetings in varius pubs in newcastle,where we had slide and film shows.i had a film in super 8 of santa pod which i has taken,it ran for over an hour,i lent it to somebody in the club and never got it back.lost history.the hulk members are still around,i am still interested in the drags and when to vegas last year for a meet.got to go again.if i upset anybody in the club in the 70s i apologise now because i could be a pratt at times.

[CRR]

Just been meandering through the photo site of Nitromaniac at http://community.webshots.com/user/nitromaniac and there are quite a few photos from Felton. There are also some scans of Shutdown, the magazine of the NEHRA. Reading through these, I was rather surprised to find out that Felton had been in use since September 1971, and prior to that, a RWYB had probably been held at Millfield in August 1971. I certainly hadn't realised that the NEHRA had been running meetings that early.

[MadGeordie]

Great to see my old Artfull Dogem at Felton. Thats Me in the red leathers I bought from Mike Watkin of Newcastle Dimonds Fame. The 1100 engine came from my 'Hell Drivers" Mini I raced at Brough Park. In the picture with out thire heads are Ossie Henderson and Bob Armstrong. Has any one got any p[ictures of My "C" Cab? I think it was Dave Hoy? or something that painted Keep On Trucking on the side, long long time ago but Im still going strong, Have a look on Youtube at my latest creations, V6 Mini. Hayabusa Mini. V4 Honda Mini Trike. V twin honda reverse Trike plane. still messin but down in New Zealand. Ill try and sort out some pictures,,,, check out - user name MadGeordie its all in there. Or Google 'Mouse Rod', my latest on youtubes in there .regards Alan Sutton Sutty.... Don't forget my 'Red Zeppelin'

[MadGeordie]

The Triumph Spitfire with the arse end chopped of was Stu Robson from Wallsend....

[shabby1]

Good God Alan,How the hell are you in NZ last time I heard from you ,you were off
welding in Papau New Guinea...thought you'd been eaten by head hunters!
Got some photos of C-Cab I'll try and scan and post.
If you wonder who I am,I'll the short-arsed bugger that was always hanging around from Hexham,
and bought the Pilot off you...still based in UK but now in the South West for the last 25 years.
Great to see you here!
Chris

[MadGeordie]

Hi Chris, good to hear from you, I think I recognised you in one of the photos on the site, Red jacket long hair.
have a squiz on youtube and see where Im at. The dogem was the first car I built after a few bikes and stock cars, Then Came the Jeep that Bob went to Spain in. Then The yellow transporter and 2 Vw Buggies, then New Zealand. Trials riding in the early years, Buit a V8 jeeep then a series of Bike Powered offroaders, Verry good but got banned because I had no reverse! Made w 4x4 Transit, Put a Mitsi body on a cruiser, built a Monkey Bike replica and 5 mini choppers before the Chineeez invasion. Built the Red Zeppelin then the Plane Then The red Mini v4 Trike Then the 202 HP Hayabuse Mini Pick Up and now working on the V6 Holden Mini retro Mouse Rod. Been semi retired for 10 years obviosly. See Duffy now and then in Perth. Hes got one of the fastest Anglias in Ausie and has a rail too. Bobs in Huston and has a good collection of toys including an E type and a Bently!. what are you up too? regards Alan.... alan.sutton@xtra.co.nz