Drag Racing Online: The Magazine

As has already been mentioned within DRO's early European season coverage, the NFAA, under the guidance of Lawrie Gatehouse, is coming on leaps and bounds with every meeting topping the last. The Summernationals were no exception, with the first six second altered passes run under the NFAA banner, and two new cars making their debut.

Tony Betts produced a 6.702/204 from his nitro altered to top the time sheets, and a huge cheer went up when the Havoc car of ICE Automotive's Nick Davies ran a picture perfect 6.91 at 205 mph from his BB/FA.

Backed up by consistent low seven second passes from the BB/FAs of Bob Glassup, Frank Bennett and Clayton Round and the gathering performances of Dave Grabham (Freddie's Revenge BB/FA), Dennis Wratten (BB/FA) and the licensing John Wright (in Gatehouse's own Chaos AA/FA), James Usher (The Mob AA/FA), second generation racer Joe Bond (Nuthin' Fancy BB/FA), the deliberate strategy of putting on a show and building the entries before going for an eliminator is certainly paying dividends.
The only cloud to the Summernationals show was the spectacular explosion of the bottom end in Wendy Baker's Time Warp Bantam on a first session burnout, but knowing the camaraderie that exists among the NFAA teams, it won't be too long before they are back out again.

The Real Steel backed
Street Eliminator action
was as spectacular
as usual, with Steve
"Splinter" Nash trying
his hardest to get his
Wild Cat Cougar into
the sevens before the
current chassis runs
out of date and is
replaced by miles of
chrome moly. A best
of 8.084 at 176 was
good enough to cover Ian Hook in the final round of elminations but was a whisker away from the real goal with the turbo'ed monster.

Perennial Super Pro racer Steve Johnson took yet another trophy with his spotless Motor Mouse dragster to add to the collection at home after over 20 years as one of the toughest competitors in UK sportsman racing.Low seven second performances (and the occasional dip into the
sixes) are the norm for the injected big block rail.

The Wild Bunch nostalgia eliminator boiled down to yet another all female final round when Sarah Howells in the Destiny's Angel altered defeated Helen Smythe in her Hells Belles T. Howells is clearly getting to grips with the car and is moving up rapidly in the Wild Bunch points chase.