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Nostalgia Fuel Altereds at Shakespeare County
By Alan Currans
The British, and indeed European, drag racing calendar has been badly affected this year by the weather. Excessive rainfall has claimed several meetings and curtailed others. Fortunately the sun shone brightly for the Open Sports Nationals meeting held at Shakespeare County Raceway between 25 and 27 August and I was there to record the action. The star of the show in many people's eyes was the Nostalgia Fuel Altered Association. The NFAA is the brainchild of long-time drag racing fanatic Lawrie Gatehouse who created the class to bring together blown alcohol and nitro-burning altereds with their unique mixture of crowd-pleasing burn outs and highly unpredictable handling. The NFAA was an instant success and, now in its third season, continues to grow in stature and popularity.
Tony Betts is seen here reversing his AA/FA Venom back to the line before blasting out a 6.473 second 215.70 mph lap which was the quickest and fastest pass recorded in the NFAA class.
Lawrie Gatehouse is not a man who does things by halves. He not only promotes and organises the NFAA, he also puts his money where his mouth is because he owns this beauty which he runs on the hard stuff and is driven for him by drag racing veteran John Wright. Chaos is seen here charging off the line to clock a 6.743/218.31 pass which promptly took the terminal speed honours from the Venom team. Unfortunately damage to one of the heads sidelined the team for the rest of the meeting. Lawrie tells me that spare heads are now on order!
Ollie Burns' has been running The Mob AA/FA for many years and it is certainly enjoying a new lease of life in the NFAA. Jim Usher, although something of a rookie, shoes the car to regular 6 second times. This may have something to do with the fact that Lawrie Gatehouse invited US fuel altered guru Dave 'Nasty' Benjamin over to the UK earlier in the year to provide tuning and set up advice for both Chaos and The Mob and this is certainly paying dividends.
The Bennett family's eye-catching Topolino Relentless went on to win the event having carded two 7.0 second passes at over 190 mph. It may only be a methanol burner but this does not stop driver Frank Bennett dipping into the six second zone.
Clayton Round's Rebel T is another of the methanol burners and was runner up to Relentless.
By the time you read this Bob Glassup's beautiful Xtreme Racing Topo will have left the UK and will be en route to the California Hot Rod Reunion.
This is Pete Radcliffe driving Burning Desire. Pete was beset with problems at this meeting culminating in mechanical failure which finally put him out of competition.
Topolino bodies are quite popular in the UK as you can see from this page. This is Joe Bond's very tidy Nuthin' Fancy BB/FA entry.
Neil Townson's Northern Spirit has not been out of late but the NFAA has obviously re-ignited his interest. Neil was very pleased with his weekend having clocked 7.736/158.09 which is only about a tenth off his best time and a great effort considering he lifted at about 1,000 feet. The car has lots of new stuff and will doubtless soon be going every bit as good as it looks.
If you would like to see more pictures from Shakespeare County Raceway visit my site and click on the What's New page.
Alan Currans
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