Santa Pod - Records smashed at AutoTrader Easter Thunderball
Santa Pod Raceway recently hosted one of its busiest ever Easter events, with nearly 20,000 fans not only enjoying seemingly limitless sunshine, but also, non-stop blistering race action, with numerous records and personal bests being shattered along the way.
With ambient conditions close to perfect, and the track prep team and marshals excelling themselves, many racers were reporting that they were able to find superb traction, leading many to find the best form of their careers. In amongst a packed top-fuel field of European superstars, several drivers found that perfect launch and ‘groove’ to record some stunning ETs.
Typifying this form was Sam Young and his team in the ground-breaking electric VW Beetle, Blackcurrent III. After years of track and workshop development, Sam and his crew chief brother, Oliver were find the conditions very much to their liking. Things looked good early on in the weekend, with Sam clicking off an eerily quiet sub 10 second run, to be backed up just a few hours later with a hard wheelstanding and crowd-pleasing 9.513 at 135.65mph. Not only is this an incredible performance for any electric Beetle, making it the WORLD’S fastest electric car, but it also places it firmly amongst it’s petrol-fed brethren, promising great things for this exciting new avenue of drag racing.
More traditionally powered, but no less impressive, was John Bradshaw in his consistently improving Nissan Skyline GTS, running in the Japanese Drag series.. Having racked up numerous 7 second passes over the last few season, John and his team hooked up for one perfect run that saw the car dip in the sixes. Running arrow straight with perfect shifts, the car looked like it had more to give, which John duly delivered with another record run at 6.776 seconds at 204.17 mph.. a class record for the JDS Pro Class and the fastest Japanese car outside of the US.
Speaking after the event, John commented; ‘We’re delighted to be the first European Jap car into the sixes, but I promise you. We’ve only just started this season! We plan to continue in the same manner, with the current Australian record of 6.41 very much in our sights. We’re so pleased to be able to deliver for for our sponsors, Motul, Nissan, Sanyo and AET Turbos plus the many others that have helped us to get to this point.’
Fans of high-octane drag racing won’t have to wait too long for their next fix of ‘proper’ quarter mile action, with the first round of the FIA UEM Championships taking place at the “The Main Event” over the Whitsun Bank Holiday weekend May 27th – 30th.
For more information on this, or any Santa Pod event, visit santapod.com.
