UKDRN

A very bleak day at the Pod but can someone help ID the car on the left next to the 'Age Machine' please

Yes that’s the old ‘Age Machine’ Top Dragster ukdrn but the picture was taken when it was renamed ‘Rainmaker’ after Roz Prior had it and raced by John Sutton and John Wright from today’s ‘Wildside’ and ‘Chaos’ fame. As to an ID on the Junior Dragster, well that’s a tough one. Or is it…! You can also see John Ledster and his Pro Stock Mustang in the background as well.

Age Machine is easily recognizable with those zoomies that taper out towards the rear, reason being the Rat came out of the Hillbillies Topolino and the zoomies were originally made to fit the Topolino's bonnet. As for the black digger it's possibly either Mike Royston's Side Winder or could be Dave Miller's Spirit which was later run by Mike Tomlin and raced recently with the Wild Bunch.

I have a picture, probably taken at Snetterton, of a very similar [if not the same] car called Quicksilver. On a programme dated 15 August 1976, JD13, Richard Steadman, Quicksilver, BMC78.87

John, you could be right mate. The ‘Rainmaker’ in the hands of John Sutton and John Wright apparently made its debut at the back end of 1974 (shortly after Liz and Ollie Burn had sold it to them), and that damp dismal day could be the November Fireworks meeting. The only other BLMC powered Junior Dragster’s taking part were A. Lane’s 'Mintrepid' (JD15), J. Trinder’s 'Gipsey' (JD24), and of course, my father’s ‘Joker’ dragster (JD14).

Hi, The black dragster (it was purple) is Quicksilver, I started with 950cc B M C A series with homemade fuel injection running on methanol .Later progressed to 1275 A series Supercharged still running methanol. Did not realise there was so much interest in the early days of drag racing, came across this website whilst looking for old photos am happy to have found this one. the collection I did have was in a car which was stolen later found (2 years later )burnt out. So it anyone does have any photos of Quicksilver Please post on this site. Yours R M Steadman.

hi Richard welcome to the forum, here it is again in the middle of this trio of diggers from '73 taken by Tony Whitehouse. I remember ID'ing it incorectly when I first put it on my site and you later contacted me to put me right

Hi There,
You mentioned Mike Royston's Side Winder, if it helps it ran a very heavily modified 1220 a series engine and was painted Rootes electric blue with pearl exhaust headers out to the near side and a front wedge shaped fuel tank and I'd be forever great full if anyone out there has a picture of it that I could have a copy of please.

Hi, Supercharger from Quicksilver, at the time (early 1970s) we were finding it hard to find small supercharger to suit 1275 a series BMC. so we built our own, the body was machined from casting as with end caps. the rotors were shortened commer ts3 diesel.