American Car World Nationals - Shakespeare County Raceway, England
Text by Jeremy Cookson ~ Photos by Dave Derry
Although a mix of thunder, lightening, rain and hail tried in vain to dampen the spirits of those attending the third ACW Nationals at Shakespeare County, those in attendance will testify that the weekend’s event for the American car enthusiast will go down in the annuals of time as the best yet.
To start with the Nostalgia Fuel Altered Association fielded nine cars - four nitro and 5 methanol burners, and during the timed runs ‘Chaos’, the car owned by NFAA organizer Larwie Gatehouse and piloted by fuel veteran John Wright, finally made its appearance on track and in full anger on Sunday afternoon. With licensing runs the order of the day for John and his fellow nitro junkie’s Jim Usher and Tony Betts, all three drivers and teams were accountable for some well-drilled and controlled burnouts, dry hops and launches.
Wendy Baker and team should also take a bow with there first full powered run in the ‘Time Warp’ Bantam. If only Wendy hadn’t of rolled the beams though as no incidentals from the run were recorded.
The methanol burners were equally as exciting with Bob Glassup’s ‘Extreme Racing’ Topolino, Clayton Rounds Rebel T and Frank Bennett’s Fiat all putting in some full powered passes as low as 7.6’s. However, the weekend didn’t go without a few breakages, the most notable when Pete Radcliffe’s front suspension gave up during back up after the burnout. A very scary moment indeed, and handled calmly by crew chief Neil Townson.
The house series, the ACW Street Racers also fielded a mouth-watering selection of cars, which, from the many runs recorded, produced a number of personal best. Both 5.0 LX Mustangs of organizer Pete Thornton and magazine editor Rich Nicholls managed high to mid tens, but taking the points as well as surprising others was Kev Preston. Better known as ‘Grumpy Taz’, his 427ci blown SBC 1969 Austin A60 Pick-up flew to a time of 9.473/143.06 mph. Second quickest was Ian Mather’s ‘74 Opel, again using a blown SBC for motivation, at 9.69 followed by Stuart Ramsey’s 502 cubed and tubbed Camaro at 9.87. Still looking to beat all the new kids on the block was current title holder Andy Bond. But towards late Sunday, the ex-‘Horny Rat’ Super Gas ‘69 Camaro dumped its entire oil contents in the shutdown area in spectacular style.
Back in demand again were the Outlaw Anglias complete with there own brand of ‘sit up and take note’ entertainment. Topping the timing charts was ‘The Guv’ Paul Wright who seems now to have a handle on his top end twitch from the previous outing two weeks ago. Running out a best of 8.263/170.82 from the mega cubed ‘Alco Pop’ will, in no uncertain terms, placed him in command of the series. Winner of the Moving Parts Burnout Bonanza was the 489ci Chevy powered ‘Shorty’s Hot Rod' of Ray Guy.
Outlaw entertainment was also provided by the newly formed Flat Four club born of VW origin. With a subtle mix of a Fiat X19, Razor Edge Ghia, a Renault Dauphine, and of course Beetle’s, from the fourteen or so cars making the first event, all the drivers involved ran some very creditable times. Joe Gallagher was back in his normal 12 second territory, so too was Richie Webb and so to was the Cotsweld Beetle of Jim Smith with 10.6s to his credit.
The Gasser Circus, although only sporting four high risers, kept the fans amused especially the Chevy Handyman called the ‘Hooligan’. Chevy powered or course, its new owner wasn’t prepared to hang around as it battled with the likes of ‘Roaring Rat’, Honky Tonkin’ and the ‘Boston Bawler’ ‘33 Willys of Jimmy Hibberd. He laid down a jaw dropping time of 9.28 at 138 mph.
The Wild Bunch also fielded a quality entry of some 20 cars. New personal bests came from Neil Wards’ big block Chevy powered ‘Andromeda’ slingshot (8.99), while consistent numbers came from the altereds of Helen Smythe (Hells Belle) and Sarah Howells (Destiny’s Angel), together with some cracking front wheel air play from ‘Crazy Chris’ Hartnell's injected slingshot dragster, and Tony Smith finally lucked out of the 11.6s with an 11.4 in the ‘Cunning Plan’ Minivan. Amazingly, the Wild Bunch had their first ever joint winners of a round (with the total difference from dial-in being exactly the same to the thousandth!), and they were Sarah Howells and Chris Hartnell!
In the specially arranged ‘Dash For Cash’ for Junior Dragsters sponsored by Peter Kellett’s B & B Motors, five rising stars of the future battled away all Sunday long to stake a claim on the trophy and the £25 cash award that went with it once they had declared their dial-ins. In the end, it was Modified racer Jordan Keenan who scooped the prize being 0.03 close to his 8.97 dial-in. Others in with a shout were Jayne Kay, Joe Kellett, Mille Bond, and Peter Walters. Also testing was Victoria Bishop, this time having acquired Anna Stanley’s stock dragster.
Roger Goring also popped in a couple of runs in the ‘Firestorm’ Pontiac Jet Funny Car. With eye and hand co-ordination now in sync with the rest of the startline procedure, Roger once again rattled the rafters in race control to the tune of 6.288/254.47 and 6.302/252.23. The quickest run-what-ya brunger was Duncan ‘Cannonball’ Watts as he pushed his 70’s Dodge Challenger to the tune of several 8.90s. Roll on Nationals number four!
