Jet Funny Car
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Jet Funny Car
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* Updated 16//03/2008 |
2006 News 31 December 2006
Hi Firestormer's.
Hope everyone has had a fantastic Christmas break and the fat fella in red has brought much stuff.
It will be no surprise to all who follow Firestorm that we have had a fantastic season. Personal bests in 1/8 and 1/4 mile in both ET and MPH. We had a number of test weekends during the 2006 season to continue with a development program that we have been working on. This gave us mixed results, the car went quicker and faster and even though we did not get where we wanted to be we didn't break many parts, we still ran personal bests and had a ball. One of the things that is significant about this last season and the development program that we are pursuing is the amount of knowledge and data that we have collected. We have learnt an awful lot and will put this knowledge to good use in the continuing development of Firestorm into the 2007 season.
We would like to thank both the race fans and the track promoter's for their support during 2006. It has been a great year for Firestorm at Shakespeare County Raceway and at York Dragway and we were delighted to be back at Santa Pod Raceway which we enjoyed immensely. Many race fans at Santa Pod had not seen the Firestorm before and judging by the amount of t-shirts we sold and hero cards we gave away the fans were not disappointed. One of the highlights of this season was the invitation to run at the Gothenburg Drag Racing Festival held at Säve Depå in Sweden, the Swedish drag racing fans thoroughly enjoyed having a jet car back in their beautiful country after a 25 year break and we came away with the track record for both ET and MPH. A good time was had by all! I (Helen) have finally got round to putting some of the photographs onto the Picture Gallery from 2006 - must try harder next year!
Things are starting early for the 2007 season, David Lloyd-Jones from Santa Pod Raceway has already invited us to attend four events at 'The Pod'. Alan Martin has also been in touch and has invited us to the NSRA Nostalgia Nationals and to the NSRA Hot Rod Drags at Shakespeare County Raceway. These dates have now been posted on to the Firestorm Calendar page.
We wish all of our Firestorm friends a great New Year and send our Best Wishes to everyone for 2007.
12 November 2006
We finished the 2006 season at Santa Pod Raceway's famous Flame and Thunder Show. It was a milestone as this is the first Flame & Thunder Show that Firestorm has attended and our third visit to Santa Pod this year and yet again we were not disappointed. It was a cold but very bright day on Saturday and the racing was extraordinary given the cold conditions, everyone had a great time. Our pit space got a lot of attention and we sold many of our 'keep you warm' Hoodies and Hats. We finished the meeting with a storming 6.215 254.30 mph run which was two thousandth's of a second away from our personal best. We were all relieved to find out that Tony Baker has emerged unscathed from a very nasty fire in Fireforce 1. Tony called round to our pit on Sunday morning and we were pleased to see him looking remarkably un-singed, all the safety equipment had done its job admirably.
17 October 2006
So sorry for the lack of updates,
it has been a really busy time for us all, both with Firestorm and
unfortunately having to work for a living! Firestorm and team have had a
busy few weeks! We went to Shakespeare County Raceway for the Open
Sports Nationals over the August Bank Holiday weekend, we should have done 6
runs over the weekend but we were asked to run only twice over the course of
the weekend! This resulted in what can only be described as a disappointing
weekend for both ourselves and for Firestorm fans.
15 August 2006
We have just returned from a very successful trip to Sweden and are really pleased with how everything worked out. We had set off to Sweden on the Monday before the meeting as the ferry crossing was 27 hours and we wanted to be there in plenty of time to help promote the Gothenburg Drag Race Festival. We caught the commercial ferry to Gothenburg from Immingham and had a really smooth crossing another bonus was there was only myself (Helen), Roger and one other passenger on board so we had the ferry more or less to ourselves.
We arrived in a sunny Sweden early on Wednesday morning, promptly got lost for about an hour, then managed to meet Peter from the club who took us to the track, where Kenneth and some of the other guys were all hard at work getting the track prepared for the weekends racing. At this point there was nothing but a race track, over the next couple of days bit by bit a full race venue appeared out of nowhere – well mainly off the back of low loaders! With typical Swedish hospitality Kenneth rang Bostic (www.blackout.nu) who had offered to ‘take the English out to lunch’, Bostic, Agnita and Axel promptly took us to lunch, they were intent on treating us to some genuine Swedish fodder, 'pan beef' (I think it was called) all round which was scrumptious, followed by Ice creams and a visit to ‘The Best Dam Garage in Town’ (TBDGIT) where we sat and had coffee beside the waters edge – what a great welcome to Sweden for the Firestormer’s!
Afternoon tea outside TBDGIT - these Swedes certainly know how to do it in style!
We were asked if we would take Firestorm down to a local car and motorcycle gathering outside the Opera House in Gothenburg to help promote the meeting. These events happen most Wednesday nights during the summer, we did not really know what to expect, but were surprised to find it well attended by all sorts of weird and wonderful bikes and cars and people in attendance, I think there was much scratching of heads and pondering at the sight of Firestorm at such an event.
Firestorm outside the Gothenburg Opera House.
Thursday was another bright and sunny day, today was the press day and Sweden’s National TV had come along to film us and do an interview with Roger. Juggy was flying into Sweden in the afternoon and his flight was landing at the same airport that the drag race was held, so we had the opportunity of seeing his plane land and it wasn’t the smoothest of landings. I think a scary landing probably best describes it after the plane locked up a wheel and nearly ended up on the grass – it was fun for us to watch anyway! So with Juggy now safely on terrafirma, we started Firestorm, did the Flame & Thunder show, including some fearsome afterburner pops, followed by a fairly soft launch to give Roger a chance of seeing what the track was like. Why is it that the one time we’re on the TV, Firestorm took this opportunity to misbehave and lost the burner as it left the line! Firestorm crew sprang into action quickly pushed him back to the line did some quick safety checks and adjusted the pressures, this time we launched it with no problem at all but had an early shut off. Following all the excitement we then retired to the hotel bar for some Swedish priced beers – at £5.00 a drink we were definitely not going to get very drunk!
Roj trying to perfect his TV interview skills!
Surprisingly Friday was the first day of the meeting, mainly a test day, and although it seemed quiet you had to remember that this was still a work day, that said there were still quite a few people there both racing and spectating. After Thursdays hiccup with Firestorm and the subsequent launch that was OK we were not expecting any trouble but Firestorm thought different I’m afraid. First outing was all OK, good strong fireshow and afterburner pops, followed by a nice straight run. One hiccup Roger ended up staging on the rear wheels of the jet car after it had slid right through stage – he just can’t resist doing one more little afterburner pop! I’m sure the Swedes thought this was the Englishman’s way of cheating! Second outing, everything good on the show, then it lost its burner again on the launch, once again we sorted it on the line within a few minutes and followed it up with a near perfect launch. Firestorm obviously had a problem, we had to start looking at all Firestorm’s systems to find the fault, we worked until late on Friday night and eventually traced the fault to a dry seal in a fuel actuator which was causing the actuator to be lazy and subsequently the afterburner would not hold it’s pressure. Having cured the fault with 1p worth of grease we once again retired to the hotel bar for a well earned bevy or two.
Firestorm putting on its now famous Swedish Fireshow.
Saturday was a great day
with a good attendance of race fans who showed a lot of interest in Firestorm.
Both runs went really well, with huge fireshow’s, the Swedish fans had no idea
what to expect and were visibly shocked and delighted, we spent the best part
of the day talking to fans and signing Hero cards. Roger was by now starting
to get a handle on the tracks shortish shutdown area by pulling both chutes,
and brought the times down into the 6 second bracket, although he still had an
early shut off or he would have been grass tracking at the bottom end which
wouldn’t have been good as he would then have had a severe beating off yours
truly! 26 June 2006
Exciting news Firestormer's. The Firestorm team is going to Sweden! We have been invited to attend the Gothenburg Drag Racing Festival by Anders of SDC Drag Racing on 15th/16th July, on this date Firestorm was to appear at York Dragway but Steve Murty has kindly released us from our contract so we can appear at this huge event in Sweden. We are sorry to let down the fans at York Dragway, but we will do our best to make it up to you at the UK Northern Finals, 24th September. I don't know when a jet car last appeared in Sweden but I think it was good friend Colin Fallows a long time ago with his Vampire Jet Dragster. Anyway, the bottom line is we are delighted to have been asked to this prestigious event and we will be giving it our best shot, as ever, for all the Firestorm fans who always cheer us on. So keep in touch Firestormer's and we will fly the flag in Sweden (that reminds me - I gotta buy a flag)!
We are all looking forward to this weekends NSRA Nostalgia Nationals at Shakespeare County Raceway, its one of our favourite events of the year and a credit to all involved in the organisation of the NSRA events. With our new tune up we are hoping to set new personal bests - stay tuned.
13 June 2006
Firestorm has had an additional weekend out, we have been to Shakespeare County Raceway for the 'Run Wot Ya Brung' meeting where we have been testing new parts. It has been a stunning weekend, the weather has been glorious all weekend and we have had two very successful test sessions on Saturday and Sunday which we were really excited about. A lot of the development work on Firestorm's engine is down to experience and has come about after running the General Electric J85 jet turbine in both Northern Flame and Firestorm. We have tried some different parts in the past and have very slowly managed to develop both the ET's and speed, but for some time we had reached a plateau and we have found it difficult to move on from there. The parts fitted on Saturday worked good which was encouraging but on Sunday we fitted different parts which worked really well and we ran personal bests on both the 1/8th (193.95) and 1/4 mile (258.96) straight out the box! The previous personal bests were 192.50 for the 1/8th and 255.51 for the 1/4. Considering the 30 degree temperatures this was a very successful weekend and we can now start to develop the setup which will move us forward from there - so watch this space.
Thank you to everyone at Shakespeare County Raceway for being so accommodating on our successful test weekend!
30 May 2006
We have just got back from the Rotorstock weekend at Shakespeare County Raceway, the weekend has been hampered a bit by the weather but all in all it has been a good weekend for the many Japanese car owners and fans that turned out. Over the weekend Firestorm did three stunning Flame and Thunder shows and on Saturday ran a new personal best speed of 255.96 in 6.28 seconds!
We are also pleased to announce an additional date for the 2006 Firestorm calendar! We will be returning to Santa Pod Raceway for the second time this year for the FIA European Finals in September, which we are all really looking forward to.
We were concerned to hear that good friend Tog of Eurodragster.com was taken ill and hospitalised over the weekend whilst reporting at Santa Pod's Main Event. We all wish Tog a speedy recovery and look forward to seeing him out and about again very soon!
17 May 2006
Hello Firestormer's! Its been a long while since our last update, we've all been very busy with work etc but here we are now. Its just a case of where to start! After the Easter Thunderball we went to Shakespeare County Raceway for the Shakespeare Nationals and the Vauxhall Speed and Show Day, we had a problem with an intermittent Fireshow again, a problem that had been with us at Santa Pod two weeks before. It was also a very windy weekend with strong side winds which meant Firestorm was only able to do short passes on most of the runs over the three days. Roger also struggled with getting the launch right and kept 'pulling a cherry', which didn't go down well - he was on the naughty stool for that one!
After that weekend Roger did quite a lot of work on the fireshow so we went to Shakespeare County Raceway this last weekend with fingers crossed. It all worked really well and the fireshow now seems to be more or less under control (I hope Roger doesn't regret saying that)! The new launch is working fine now and it sounds and feels really strong but the ET's are disappointing. Strange how it can feel so fast and not be, we will have to fine tune it to get the best from the launch modifications. We had a great time at the American Car World Nationals but lost a run on Saturday due to weather and a run on Sunday because there had been an oildown and by the time it was cleared it was after the 5pm noise curfew.
18th April 2006
The Firestorm team was invited to Santa Pod Raceway for the Easter Thunderball to help celebrate the start of their 40th season of drag racing, the 4 day weekend was as promised 'a Motorsport Extravaganza' and we have had a ball. It was a jam packed weekend with different classes of both bikes and cars including quite a few race teams who were testing for the FIA main event which is held at Santa Pod Raceway in May and a fantastic line up of jet powered, rocket powered and stunt vehicles on track and a full programme of off track action as well.
We had a fantastic weekend, Firestorm was well received by the enthusiastic drag race fans, we were very busy all day long talking to the many fans who called by to say hello and welcome to Santa Pod, many of whom had not seen Firestorm in action before.
As this was Firestorm's first visit to Santa Pod for some time, we were cautious initially on our tune up and after some initial alterations to the steering geometry Roger felt more comfortable. All tracks are different and yes you do have to set up a Jet Car just like any other race vehicle. The initial flame and thunder show proved to be just a little too harsh as it had the track on fire which obviously isn't good after all the hard work that goes in to prepping the track so we tried to calm it down but ended up losing the fire show altogether, we finished up with only a compromise but we are working on it right now.
The new launch which we have for 2006 is working really well but Roger is just a little rusty which meant we lost some time on the lights but I'm sure that'll improve!
4th April 2006
We had a great weekend down at Shakespeare County Raceway but unfortunately we were thwarted by the weather. It was a bitterly cold but relatively dry weekend initially but there was quite a strong side wind which meant that we were unable to do full passes with Firestorm. We were disappointed that we could only do 1/8th mile passes because of the side wind but safety has to come first and we will now look forward to the Easter Thunderball at Santa Pod Raceway.
26th March 2006
We are pleased to announce that Firestorm will be appearing at the Power Nationals at Shakespeare County Raceway 1st and 2nd April 2006. We have to thank Derek Langton of Deltech Engineering for stepping in and sponsoring us to be at the event. Without people like Derek many drag racers including ourselves would have a relatively short season. Following the successful test sessions we are really looking forward to 'running it right out the back door' at SCR.
20th March 2006
We have had a busy few weeks getting Firestorm ready for the beginning of the 2006 season which started with initial testing on the 18th/19th March at Shakespeare County Raceway. It was a freezing cold weekend but we were well pleased with how everything went, we were testing over the 1/8th and we are now looking forward to running full quarter mile passes. With the adjustments that have been made, the jet engine sounded absolutely wicked and when Roj did that final afterburner pop it made yours truly (Helen) jump so high I'm sure I nearly left my shoes behind!
This weekend we also welcomed on board Juggy who is our new crew member. Juggy has drag raced bikes successfully for a number of years (has two class championships under his belt) and has a huge interest in Jets - we are all looking forward to working with him over this next year.
16th February 2006
Roger has just put the phone down from his good friend Steve Murty of York Dragway and is pleased to confirm that Firestorm will be appearing at the venue on three weekends during the 2006 season. We are all looking forward to seeing everyone up at PDRC's annual bash on 25th February, where there will be much beer drunk and lies told I'm sure! I think the saying is "the older we get the faster we were".
14th February 2006
We are delighted to say that we have had an e-mail from Lee Childs of LA Racing Parts and promoter of Shakespeare County Raceway to confirm 4 weekends at the famous Stratford upon Avon Drag Strip. This is actually 5 meetings because on the Mayday Bank Holiday there are two separate events. Please look on the Calendar page for details.
6th February 2006
We have had confirmation from Alan Martin who promotes the NSRA Nostalgia Nationals and the NSRA Hot Rod Drags that he would like the Firestorm at both his events at Shakespeare County Raceway in 2006. This is fantastic news, many thanks Alan, we look forward to seeing you 1st/2nd July and the 16th/17th September 2006.
2nd February 2006
Hello Firestormer's! Our first update for 2006 is fantastic news since we are invited to Santa Pod Raceway for the Easter Thunderball and the Flame and Thunder Show in November. We were contacted by David Lloyd-Jones, General Manager of Santa Pod Raceway to run at both the above events and we are hopeful that he can also fit us in for some of the other meetings as well, fingers crossed! Since it was announced by Tog on Eurodragster, we have had countless e-mails from fans and friends looking forward to visiting Santa Pod to cheer us on. This is indeed an occasion since Firestorm has only been to Santa Pod once before, that was for the NABD Rally quite some time ago.
It goes without saying that the team are looking forward to the Easter meeting because its going to be a great meeting which includes National Drag Racing Championships plus Pro-Fuel Shootout - Top Fuel Dragsters, Funny Cars, Street Eliminator Series plus Eric Teboul's Rocket Bike, Martin Hill's 2 Jet Cars, Ronnie Picardo's Jet Beetle, Michael Murty's Monster Truck Big Pete and an extravaganza of moto stunts and displays.
Roger has been busy in the workshop doing all the normal winter things including checking compressor clearances, refurbishing the air bleed doors which always need attention along with a hundred other things. We've ordered a new fire suit and helmet for Roj and 4 new tyres for Firestorm, parachutes and pilot chutes need repairing and 2 new pilot chutes are on order - here's hoping that it all comes together at the right time! We're also looking at some new additions to the Firestorm merchandise - its all go, who said this was a quiet time of the year.
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