Friday morning
-woke up at around six o clock. Finished packing the car, woke up the neighbours getting it out of the garage & left quickly before hard pointy objects came into contact with me or the car.
Got to Shakespeare County Raceway around 8.30am. Did the usual- unpacked, put the slicks on & took the exhaust off & interior out, then it started to rain. At first it wasn’t too bad, but much later on it poured down. Thank God Andy Myres, (“El Nino” green pickup dragster), was there with his Winnebago. Around 7.30 ish kiwi turned up with our caravan so we put everything in there then set out for a night of hard drinking and partying

Saturday
-Much better. Warm, clear skies and a small hangover but nothing too unmanageable. I signed on & lined up for racing. That’s where it started going wrong. I went in for a burnout and as far as I could make out, nothing but clutch smoke, (with a new clutch fitted), so I abandoned that and just got onto the line. As the lights turned green the car next to me went into a 45 degree slide, which really startled me and I missed my launch. I eventually went from first to second then second to neutral. The box jammed so I shut off and coasted the rest of the quarter. Got a 17.6 and 58 mph. Stopped for a fag while kicking the car then lined up again. 4 & a half hours later I got another run. Much better. The wheels span out of the soap box then got a 0.4 reaction & a 14.2 at 98mph. That was still a warm up run so I wasn’t at full throttle. Unfortunately I didn’t get another run, but I did knock 0.4 seconds off my 60 foot time, which I was well happy with.

That night saw lots more drinking and partying with a nice hangover the next morning, but when the sun came out & actually stayed out for the rest of the day I didn’t worry about that.
Looking back, the weekend was fantastic -my car behaved itself beautifully and no-one could believe how strong it was sounding and running spot on all weekend.
On a mixed, sad but happy note, I watched the last ever run of “Honky Tonkin”, Jerry & Lee’s legendary ’57 Chevy gasser. It’s going up North where it will be retired from racing & put back on the road. I was very glad to be there to witness it’s last ever run. He ragged that thing like it’s never been ragged before, producing a huge wheelstand that brought the watching crowd to their feet. I’ve never seen so much air under that car!
A great weekend.

-Stroker Blue

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Brock & I have had a fabulous 5 years of racing the Black Pig. Lots of money, lots of hard work, but most of all huge amounts of fun. Just going as a spectator is O.K, but actually crewing and being involved is a whole different ball game, as I'm sure PD and Lunatic will agree. Brock's first ever run in the Pig was a 16.43 seconds at 79.77 miles an hour, (I think he forgot he had an accelerator). His best run was 9.14 at 141 miles an hour, (huge improvement but not on the same weekend).
The Hotrod Drags was one of the best weekend’s racing we've ever had, not for runs but for the sheer fun of it all. The car’s previous owner, (& still technically the current owner as we’ve never actually paid him for it), Neil, came up on the Friday night & we managed to set the pit tent up before the rain, before nipping into Stratford for supplies. Supplies sorted, I then cooked our dinner. Our guest said a nice bottle of red would go down well with it. 2 bottles of wine and lots of beer later at about 2.00am it was off to bed for us. At that point Neil said “How will I know when it's time to get up?” A chorus of voices shouted “You'll know!” For those of you that have never camped at a race meet before, it's a toss up as to what will wake you up first –someone’s generator or a car being fired up at about 7.00am. Saturday morning dawned and it was all stations go with one very big difference for us. Instead of getting the van out ready to tow the car down to the start line, the Pig's official owner, Neil, had brought his 1957 Chevy Belair with him to tow us with. It was absolutely brilliant. PD and I thought we’d gone to heaven! Well I did anyway & we arrived at the start line in style. When the racing finished for the day we went for a cruise in it into Stratford for some food. A memorable experience.
A big thank you to Neil for making my weekend and to PD and Lunatic for all their hard work crewing for us, (they’re brilliant at crewing and always stay and help us pack up when the racing has finished on Sunday. It makes a huge difference). Hoping you'll both come and help us play with the new car. Perhaps between us we can talk Brock into buying a Chevy to tow it with!
We had a fantastic weekend. Thanks to all that helped to make it happen.
 
-Mrs Brock.