Dom's Rambles

This weekend, and with my two eldest nieces in tow, I paid my first visit to Santa Pod Raceway in over twenty years. It was something of a misty eyes nostalgia trip for me as I used to go all the time in the mid Eighties and before I fell out with the people I used to go with. I actually witnessed the fastest standing quarter mile ever run, which was a 3.58 second, 370 mph pass by a certain Mr Sammy Miller (now sadly deceased) in a hydrogen peroxide rocket propelled car called Vanishing Point.
It didn’t take too long to reacclimatise myself though. As soon as we got within twenty miles of the place out came ZZ Top’s classic Eliminator CD which we had cranked up to the max (you have to listen to this album at some point during a visit to Santa Pod, it’s the law) and once the smell of burning rubber and the fruity tang of nitro methanol hit me it was like I’d never been away.
Mind you, the cars have certainly got faster, the Pro Mod classes were running in the six second/250mph bracket which was something only the most powerful Top Fuellers could manage back in 1986 – and we had one of those do a four second, 308 mph pass during which I actually felt the ground shake.
Click the picture to go to the photobucket gallery from the day. The well smart chopper in the third frame was up for sale, but seeing as the asking price was £22,000 it worked out at around £18,000 more than I’m budgeting for.
To get some shots taken with far better equipment and from a far better vantage point check these out on the Santa Pod main website.
At the end of the day we got involved in a serious dog eat dog brawl to get out of the car park during which we discovered how a certain 1980s glam metal band earn a living these days. I have to say that Steven Pearcy is looking a little rough.
The only real downer - apart from the Tom Tom being adamant that we should go via Northampton and throwing a full on quadraspazz fit when we hit a section of the A6003 that it didn’t know about - was that I flashed a fucking speed camera on the way home which made me swear in front of my nieces for the first time ever!

posted by Dom  # 6:52 AM