Does It Ever Not Rain On The Main Event?

Written By Camp Stanley
Photo By Ivan Samson

Santa Pod Raceway, UK – Memorial Day weekend saw me once again winging my way across the Atlantic Ocean one more time bound for England to help my Swiss friend Marcus Hilt with his Corvette.

I just knew it wasn’t going to rain n me this time…. But was I mistaken! I have been to Santa Pod Raceway in England FOUR times and I have been rained on FOUR times!

For those of you who may be interested if you follow this link to our video theater: “Camp Stanley reporting from Santa Pod for 1320TV” you will be able to view my first trip to Santa Pod.

And this trip was no different. There was a test day scheduled for Thursday that we were to participate in but of course that was a complete washout! And as Friday was a day for the Sportsman classes only to qualify there was nothing on for me except for visiting with people. And that I do love to do!

Saturday dawned COLD and WINDY and just a little bit of rain intermittently. We got our two qualifiers in all the while having race car 101 schooling. After weighing the car at the end of the run I realized the TMRC Corvette was 150 pounds OVERWEIGHT for the class.

So Saturday evening was spent removing all 327 weight bars Marcus had bolted in the car and replacing them with two pucks. This worked well as we went across the scales on Sunday at 27 pounds over. You haven’t lived till you weigh lead weights at a race track with a kilogram fish scale and a back that up with a borrowed set of kilogram bathroom scales (thanks Urban Johansson) and convert kilograms to pounds with a cell phone calculator!

Sunday was just as COLD and WINDY with same intermittent rain drops but we got both qualifiers in. The second qualifier enabled us to just make the field with a shut off 7.30 pass. But that pass did show the potential of the car by producing a .979 60 foot before Marcus had to lift before he crossed the centerline.

That was the best 60 foot pass out of any car on the grounds with the exception of Micke Gullqvist’s .960’s. And we were going to be able to race on race day! So we thought!.

Monday was to be the day of eliminations and to the staging lanes we went as Pro Mod was to be first out! That was a great plan till about 20 minutes after we were in the lanes it started to sprinkle which eventually became the steady downpour I have become way to familiar with! And that as they say, ended that! The rain never stopped and the event was canceled!

So now it will be on to Hockenheim, Germany for the Trouble Racing Team for their next go at that magic six second pass…