Yanks Weekend / Gasser Circus 2011

The opening round of the Gasser Circus Showdown, has been and gone and what a weekend it turned out to be. We had burnouts, break outs, blowouts and breakages. Even with these everyone repaired and fixed their cars between rounds and came out just as strong for the next round of competition at Shakespeare County Raceway’s Yanks Weekend.

Nine Gassers showed up to run on Saturday and 10 on Sunday. The crowd in the stands were treated to some really close racing and an even closer final contested by Brian Gibson driving 'Identitiy Crisis' ‘64 Dodge Dart and Ray Turner in his ’55 Chevy 'Green Onions'; a Yank which Ray has owned for 27 years. As the two Gassers crossed the finish line there was just 4 yes 4 tenths of a second between them, with Brian winning with a 12.045 to 12.470.

This was a fantastic finish to a great weekend for the Gasser Circus, which was so well supported by the NSRA, with their hands on approach especially in the fire up road!

So a big thank you goes out to the NSRA and to all the guys and girls that turned up to race, we literally couldn't have done it without you. For further Gasser talk and photos look no further than http://www.nsra.org.uk/newforum/forumdisplay.php?f=32.

Quickest and fastest door slammer was for the second year running Mick Gould. Running a fresh mountain motor 632ci Chevy with Brodix heads with 2 stages of nitrous, Mick took multi-coloured ‘68 Camaro to a new PB of 7.671 seconds at 178 mph. Also from the same staple Mick’s wife Xanthe took her recently imported 615ci Camaro to a single 9.599/153 mph pass. Although performing test laps for the moment with 615 cubes on tap, Dart heads, twin Dominators and a 2 speed Powerglide, this thing’s gonna fly and with Mick by her side this pair of ‘68’s are surely going to make for quite an impressive show!

Topping the Wild Bunch nostalgia dragsters series was ‘chairman of the board’ Crazy Chris Hartnell running consistent 8.9s times in his wheel standing methanol injected Backdraft slingshot rail. Another old timer on consistent numbers was the Ratcatcher Resurrection dragster of Terry Clifford, while making there Wild Bunch debut with the Boadicea 350ci SBC Topolino altered were the Preston sisters from Taz Racing, Harriet and Rebecca. Also from Taz Racing taking to the track for the very first time was Lucy Skinner driving dad’s 400 ci Fiat 126 to a top time of 10.005 seconds.

The SVT Euro Meet for the mighty Ford Lightening Trucks was well supported by visitors from Germany and Switzerland. Although there was no competition to speak of there were many personal bests set including 11.8’s for former racer George Greaves and 12.9s for Andre Wagenknecht who was sharing his truck with American enthusiast Eric Gray. Mark Cameron upheld Rebel V8’s honours on the show field while Andy MacKechine won the NASC’s Street EfI category of Gary’s Picnic.

High spot of the weekend was the appearance of the Supercharged Outlaws. After the groups display at Drayton Manor and at Mallory park leading up to the weekend, no less than 11 teams showed up to do battle over the quarter mile.

With the track in superb condition straight off the trailer Ian Hanson set a new Outlaws ET record with a stout 7.243/187.95 in his ’53 Corvette Pro Mod; this was also a Personal Best for Ian for both ET and speed.

The star of round 2 was Brian Gandy in the Skullduggery 23 T altered by taking Ian's Outlaw ET record off him after only two hours. Brian ran 7.238/191 to reset the Outlaw ET record by 0.01 seconds, this was also a Personal Best for Brian for both ET and speed.

On Sunday some of the classes big hitters were back in the seven second zone again. Lee Gallimore with Red Mist ran a quicker 7.385/185 and Neil Townson in the Northern Spirit a 7.57/196. This was also a new class speed record for Neil as well. Well done Neil!

By the end of the day Richard Davis was consistently running the times in his immaculate red Willys running 9.9, 9.7, 9.7 on a 9.9 dial to give him a 0.198 and the first place award from Fester Race Cars. Second place went to Paul Watts and a great result for third, in his first full event with the Outlaws, was Chris Pattison. Well done to all the Outlaws for a cracking weekend. A big thank you must go to the track crew at Shakespeare County Raceway - this track just gets better and better, thanks to all the hard work they put in which is greatly appreciated by all the racers. Roll on next years Yanks Weekend

Yanks Weekend/Gary’s Picnic Round 1 results:
1st Brian Gibson - Identity Crisis - ‘64 Dodge Dart
2nd Ray Turner - Green Onions - ‘55 Chevy
3rd Ken Brookes - Roarin Rat - ‘57 Chevy Bel Air
4th Ken Britton - Possessed - Morris Z van

The standings in the Gassser Circus Showdown after Round 1:
1st -  Brian Gibson - Identity Crisis 11 points
2nd - Ray Turner - Green Onions 10 points
4th - Ken Brookes - Roarin Rat 8 points
4th - Ken Britton -Pozzessed 8 points
5th - Nick Brooke-Langham - Nogbad the Bad 7 points
6th - Martyn Hallam - Whiplash 6 points
7th - Mike Noble - Honky Tonkin 5 points
8th - Russ Price - Falfas Revenge 3 points
9th - Neil Harris - Manual Punishment 1 point

Photos courtesy of Rob Cox

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