Doorslammers at Santa Pod Raceway

Santa Pod, it’s been a while but even after all these years you still deliver the goods. Around five or six years I think since I last graced the hallowed ground with my presence. A place which has had a profound effect on my existence with regular visits through my teens up to my late thirties. Improving year on year this facility is now the premier venue for drag racing in the UK and they’ve pulled out all the stops to get it to where it is now. A full resurface of the track is the most recent addition with a full quarter mile and run off laid in fresh concrete the place just looks amazing. It’s not just the buzz of the racing I realised I missed but the people too. It was so cool to hang out with old friends in the glorious sunshine watching cars run 5 second passes! An awesome day watching Ian from Wolfsburg Performance Services finally out in his white chopped bug, a car which he originally bought twenty something years ago before selling it, then buying it back last year after Dean Weaver successfully campaigned it in the Outlaw Flat Four. The car went to a striking white all over scheme, perhaps the ideal canvas for some form of livery in the future. The engine borrowed from his 1952 streetcar to run some shakedown passes before the proper race motor is installed to really bring those numbers down. Still, a sub 12 second pass on it’s first outing is a strong start to say the least. The Doorslammers event itself is a showdown of cars in various classes from all over Europe with online streaming and gambling, the first of its kind at Santa Pod I believe, and some heads up grudge racing thrown in for good measure. A proper big balls event with £75,000 prize money which did not disappoint.