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October 2005
Tuesday 25^th October 2005
I had a lot of fun on Sunday at Santa Pod drag strip. Arrived there around 9AM and unloaded the car off of the trailer. Signed on, showed my driving license, paid my £15 and that was it. Made a few adjustments to tyre pressures, and went to have a play. My fastest time in the five runs I made, was a 14.4s 1/4 mile, with a terminal of 96MPH, and 2.34s 60foot time. I lost to a 2002 Subaru Impreza by just 3/10ths of a second, but I beat a Toyota Celica GT4, a pair of Vauxhall Nova's and a Renault Clio Turbo. By 2pm I loaded the car back on the trailer and came home, as it looked like rain was about to set in. The scrap with the Impreza was so satisfying. I was clinging to his shirt tails, and with just a bit more BHP I'm sure I could have reeled him in. Very satisfying, and a good time for a N/A 2.0 16V engine.

Tuesday 18^th October 2005
Sorry its been a little quiet on here lately. My new job now eats a lot of my spare time, travelling mostly, covering over 700 miles a week some weeks. But fear not, the good work is still being maintained in the background.

I aim to go to Santa Pod on Sunday (23rd) for a RWYB. I've not run the Fiesta at the Pod for a very long time, and with the new cylinder head coming soon, I'd like some before/after timings. So if its a nice day next Sunday, I'll be there tearing up the strip with the XR2.

Hot Rod Racing book cover

I bought an excellent book on Hot Rod Racing: The Golden Years, from 1970 to 1979. There are some great photos in there, with loads of shots of Barry Lee #351, and there's even a shot of Jim Mensley's Toyota Starlet #18. He won the 1979 National Championships, so I hoped he'd get a few more shots in there. Still, its well worth adding to your Christmas list (if its not too early).

Tuesday 4^th October 2005
Well, who'd have thought that the garage (Hendy Ford) who were supplying my new Mondeo company car would have made such a fundemental mistake as to order the four door model, when I specified the five door. Yep, they ordered the car in July from Ford, and it was built and shipped to the UK at the end of September, and they've just realised that its the four door model that they ordered. So it looks like I'll have to wait another 3 months whilst the order is sent through the system again, this time for a five door. Of course, you could think the worse and assume that the garage had already sold the car, and hadn't made any mistakes with the order at all. Sure mistakes are made with trim but something as fundemental as getting the wrong body type is inexcusable. I'm not impressed with Hendy Ford or PHH Arval, the leasing company. Useless.

Theres a discussion on the Midland Speed forum about venues for 2006. It looks like Three Sisters has been dropped, and there will be visits to Cadwell Park, Snetterton and Anglesey. We're also discussing Millbrook, Castle Hill in Cornwall, and Olivers Mount.

I'm having the cylinder head modified on my 2.0 Zetec, at the same time that we make a new inlet manifold to angle the throttle bodies up at 40 degrees. I'll be going for bigger valves, and some decent gas flowing. Should make a great difference to the BHP, inching ever closer to the 200BHP marque.