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Apologies to any driver/rider or class who is not featured. It’s just down to a lack of time.
Santa Pod Raceway’s Dragstalgia event has easily become the biggest nostalgia type drag racing event outside the USA.
This years event had a record number of entries in nearly every class, which resulted in a total number of entrants of over 250
Off-track there was plenty to do and see as well, and for this year Santa Pod also added a vintage hub that included a vintage fair and beer festival, as well as a live stage with bands playing throughout the weekend which gave it a festival feel
Dragstalgia has many great stories and one of the best was the return to the track of the iconic Al’s Gasser. When Alan crashed the car in 2017 everyone thought that this was the end of the famous Anglia but fellow Outlaw Anglia racer Phil Middleton took it upon himself to rebuild the car. After many months of hard work, the car was finished and has never looked better. Phil decided to keep as much of the original car built by Allan (Bootsie) Herridge as possible, and ended up saving 90% of it. To complete this fantastic story, the man himself, Al O’Connor, then drove the car for the rest of the event
Al proudly stands by the rebuilt Gasser at Dragstalgia
Al gets the car back on track and it never looked better
Ginner deservedly got the biggest cheer of the meeting for his achievements.
Another big announcement of the meeting was the retirement of the Hobbit drag bike. We’ve been so privileged to see the iconic bike at nearly every Dragstlagia meeting. It’s not as though John has been taking it easy on the old girl either and was banging out 8.4’s at 160+ mph runs all weekend. I want to personally thank John for entertaining us for so long on the bike. John did have a bad moment when he lost control of his “Olympus” recreation ride and had a minor spill down the track. Thankfully John and bike were fine..
I’m going to miss this, but couldn’t be more grateful for the effort John had made bringing and riding the bike at these meetings.
I think the bike has more wrinkles than John, who still looks annoyingly goodÂ
Pushing the Olympus replica to the max was never going to be straightforward but I guess John wouldn’t want it any other way
Just having people like Dennis Priddle at the meeting makes it very special. Dennis is helping out on the Harris racing Chi Town Hustler NFC.
The Nostalgia cannonball class had twelve contestants. Made up of nine nitro funny cars including two entries from Sweden, two methanol burners and the nitro dragster of Robin Read. I believe this to be the largest gathering of fuel funnies at Santa Pod since the mid-1980s.
One of the visiting funny cars from Sweden was a recreation of the Tre-Kronor car from the 1980s. The original car was owned by Knut Soderqvist and driven by Harlan Thompson and was very successful in its day. Seeing the recreation on track certainly stirred up some nostalgic and fond memories for many
Many of the other entries were new cars or drivers trying to gain their racing licences so were not going to be competitive at this event. Nonetheless, they were still a welcomed addition and with more cars being built all the time, the nostalgia funny car class in Europe is looking very promising.
Who would ever have thought we would have seen a version of the Chi Town Hustler racing in the UK. Paul Harris with Herb Andrews tuning have done a fantastic job on their first full season, with more to come next year..
Paul Stubbings and Wendy Baker had made a carbon copy of the Jon Buttera built ex Gladiator FC in record time. But didn’t have quite enough time to iron out a few bugs that prevented a good showing at the event.
Tony Betts had problems despite having Roland Leon in his camp
The Cannonball final was between the nitro-burning funny car of Sweden’s Tobba Jansson against the methanol altered of Robbie Graham. Robbie gave it a good go but had handling problems and let off, but would have been hard pushed to beat Tobba anyway who ran a steady 6.43/196mph to take the win.
The happy winning team
Robbie running on the practice day.
Clive and Jake Mechaell and the California Kid AA/FA
Ian Turburville cackles his car in front of a packed stand on Saturday night
Other racers lined-up and made more noise
Dave Nelson was the only volunteer to set light to his car at the meeting
Andy Jackson Econorail goes back many years and was originally built by Ian Fraser.
The Outlaw Anglia class had its biggest ever class entry with 31 cars. Not for the first time this season they provided some of the best racing of the weekend. Simon Barlow was top of the pile in qualifying but was unfortunately out for the weekend with a damaged cylinder head. The final was between two of the Scottish stable mates Colin Millar and Scott Crookston. This time around it was Scott who took the honours in what was probably the best race side by side of the weekend.
Gasser Circus guru Nick Brooke Langham, was looking very smart in his Mooneyes outfit.
The slingshot showdown started with 9 cars but the numbers soon decreased due to breakages and incidents. In round one of eliminations, the numbers unfortunately went down even more, when the fire bottle on Sam Freeman’s ‘Long Time DEAD’ dragster went off mid-run, causing the gasses to get under his rear slicks. This sent him pirouetting several times before crossing lanes and hitting Bob Hawkins dragster, twice. Bob’s car was out in front at the time but had very untimely lost power. Both drivers were thankfully uninjured but sustained damage. This was the first meeting out again for Bob after his Easter incident.
It became a bit of a last car running scenario, so Joe Bond would be awarded slingshot showdown champion.
One of the best things for me at the meetings are the bikes. Not only did we have 29 excellent NSA creations to entertain us but also the Nostalgia Pro Stock Bike class was up to 17.
Final results
Nostalgia Cannonball: Tobba Jansson
Slingshot Showdown: Joe Bond declared the winner
Outlaw Anglia: Scott Crookston
Nostalgia Super Stock: Stuart “Kiwi” Thompson’
Gasser Circus: Nick Barnett
Nostalgia Pro Stock Bike: Len Paget
National Sprint Association: Tim Blakemore
If you would like an image/print/canvas etc then please contact me and don’t just steal it. UKDRN has always been run and funded by myself as an unpaid hobby
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