UK Super Pro racer Nick Good has been in touch to say “Thank you!” to the NGMotorsport team after reaching the Super Pro final at the FIA European Finals.

“Having freshened the motor up over the Summer break, we really needed to get some track time at the previous weekend’s RWYB & Peak Performance Day”, said Nick.

“We all seem to live busy lives these days, & for my crew to give up so much of their time means a lot! After the final Sunday evening we were all exhausted, having got to the Pod on the previous Saturday with just Monday & Tuesday away from the track. The Beovax dragster was fast & consistent all weekend thanks to the efforts of the team.”

“For European Finals weekend, we welcomed Gary Malin & his son Dave to the team. Having 3 racers in Gary, Bob Walker & Simon Rowland with you on the line is really reassuring - the only thing i have to think about is the driving. Every other member of the team - William, Michael, Dave, Andy, Steve &, of course, Hester - contributed to the slick servicing of the car between rounds on Sunday. I think that we had only 20 minutes between the semis!”

“Thanks to the Santa Pod staff, not only for putting on a great weekend’s racing, but also, the excellent VIP corporate hospitality. I had spoken to John Livesey, (MD of Beovax), a few weeks before the event. Last year he had invited 25 guests & it rained all day! Not a single car or bike had made it down the track; so i tentatively asked him if many of his guests were interested in coming back this year. “Oh YES!”, he replied, full of enthusiasm, “I’ve got 60 guests booked this year!”
What a relief when we saw the weather forecast for the weekend!
A special thanks to the hospitality staff in the marquee, & to Steve Warner who gave John Livesey the 7 second ride of his life, & thanks also to Colin in the tower for making this a very special day for John’s Beovax employees, clients & friends. John has received nothing but positive feedback from his guests. They all want to come back for more, justifying his decision to move his hospitality budget away from F1 to FIA Drag Racing! This proves that when all the right ingredients are there - Santa Pod is THE place to be!”

“Jolly well done to Bob Doyle on his second win of the year. Thats the fourth time that we have been up against Bob in competition in a year. We are currently at 2 wins each - so, maybe we can have a decider at the National Finals.”

Good and Rowland’s Summernationals

9th July 2009
Crew Chief Simon Rowland took over the driving duties of the NGMotorsport Super Pro ET dragster at the SPRC Summernationals & the usual driver, Nick Good, took on Crew Chief duties.

“As Simon was booked in for the Peak Performance Day on the Friday to put some shakedown runs on the new motor on his Comp Bike, we decided to get the dragster to the track for an extra couple of passes prior to Saturday’s qualifying”, said Nick.

“This proved a big advantage, as a 7.23 on a 7.20 dial-in & a 7.20 on a 7.18 dial-in on our last 2 qualifying runs put us into 4th spot on the ladder for Sunday’s eliminations with some consistency.”

“Vince Gibbs had motor problems during qualifying so a 1st round solo & a tight win against Rod Harrison in round 2, meant that in the quarter-finals, we were up against the man that everyone is trying to catch this season - John “Leadfoot” Everitt. Unfortunately, Simon copied MY performance against John in the quarters at the FIA Main Event, & redlit. Not Simon’s fault, as the car rolled on the transbrake which left him deep-staged. Needlesstosay, John went on to win another event &, along with taking top spot in qualifying, he has left the rest of Super Pro ET chasing for 2nd place in the Championship this year. Well done John!”

“Another great weekend’s racing, fabulous weather & superb organisation from the SPRC crew to keep racing ahead of schedule.”

FIA Main Event 2009

“Super Pro racer, Nick Good, reckons that the 2009 Main Event was one of the most enjoyable weekends team NG Motorsport have had in their 3 & a half years in the sport!”
“It certainly was our longest weekend at the Pod!”
Nick & Darren arrived at the track mid-afternoon on Wednesday & got the car together along with erecting the awning, ready for an early start on Peak Performance Day.”
“The rest of the crew arrived early on Thursday & we were ready to go.
The main objective of the day was to put crew-chief, Simon Rowland, through his familiarisation runs in the car, in readiness for his entry at The Summer Nationals, & also, to see how we would get on with the larger 34.5″ Hoosiers, that we didnt really get a handle on at the Easter meeting.
I took the first run of the day with the 33″ Goodyears on, & dialled in a 6.96.
We are really on the limit with these tyres, but, an expected 6.98 ET, showed how good & predictable our tune-up had been. Next into the hot seat was Simon, to complete his 2 familiarisation passes under the watchful eye of Darren Prentice. Before the run, i was more nervous about performing my start-line duties correctly than on how Simon would get on in the dragster!
Although more powerful than Simon’s last ride, the layout of the cockpit & the design of the chassis, are nearly identical to The Formula Tanker Rental dragster that he campaigned last year. His first, early shut-off pass, was a 7.63 at 124.39 mph - a new personal best for Simon!
After a short break for rain, Simon came round again for his full-pass - another PB - a 7.02 at 185.08 mph. Not QUITE a 6, but, im sure we can get that at The Summer Nationals! It was great to see the car run from the outside, &, im sure the experience will help both Simon & me in the future.”

“Next, it was on with the Double Beadlock SpinWerkes’ wheels & 34.5″ Hoosiers. These are a very different tyres from what we were used to before. Not only do they launch differently, but also, the gearing was increased by nearly 10%. We set the motor a little richer & were pleased with a 7.10 at 184.44 mph, giving us a good base-line to work from for the rest of the weekend.”

“At the end of the day we bought one of Ian Blackett’s super slow-motion DVD’s. I would recommend any racer to get one! It gives one the opportunity to see exactly whats going on when launching & with that new knowledge, we unearthed a couple of issues that would otherwise have gone unnoticed.”

“We also had a meeting with all the fire crew & the paramedics to demonstrate the new Sfi Leatt Moto R Head & Neck Restraint. Its essential that the safety crews know the ins & outs of ANY new device, & we were very pleased with the feedback from them regarding its protection & accessibility compared to other products available.”

“On Friday we only made 2 qualifiers of the 7 available, as a cylinder leakdown after the first run of the day revealed a leaking head gasket.
The hot weather for our other 5 qualifiers of the weekend, along with the tyres were also something new for us.”

“Although, we only qualified 24th, we were happy to be going into the 1st round of eliminations on Monday, & after getting past Vince Gibbs & Bob Doyle, a red light against John Everitt put us out of the competition.”

“A big THANK YOU to our crew of Simon, Darren, William, Michael, Bob & Hester. Thanks again to our sponsors - Beovax Computer Services, Focal Point Digital, HRG Ltd., Chris Brown Body Repairs, BGC Motorsport Components & Morris Armitage. Fininally, a special thank you to all the staff at Santa Pod for staging a stunning event!”

Easter Thunderball 2009

Nick Good & the NGMotorsport team were pleased with their start to the 2009 season.
“We had missed The Easter Thunderball last year & the 200 point bonus for attending all rounds of the Championship, along with any points we may have gained, really hurt us in the final championship standings. So, we were determined to get off to a good start this year.”
“The rain over the first couple of days, did give us a chance to get the ATI trans casing recertified by Andy Robinson. Well, carrying the box 50 yards to Andy’s pit was better than a 220 mile round trip later in the year!. With the trans out, we discovered that the flex plate had been moving on the crank. Many thanks to Jeff Bull, Geoff Hauser & Jon Webster for getting the necessary parts together to have the car ready for the anticipated sunshine on Sunday. Well, the sun never did appear on Sunday, &, after 2 unsuccessful attempts to get the power down onto a marginal track - we were left qualified in 19th position.”

“Not knowing whether this was down to the track or the changes we had made to the car over the Winter, we decided to revert back to our 2008 tune-up, &, to keep our fingers crossed for a warm(ish?) track.
By the time the 1st round of eliminations came round, the track was behaving itself, &, we had a good idea of how the car would perform. Tight wins against Jack Brewster, Barry Giles & Rod Harrison, took us to a semi-final match against Bob Doyle. Unfortunately, a red light in the dark handed the win to Bob who went on to win the event. Well done to Bob for the win & also to Steve Taylor for reaching the final in his first event!
“There was no time to rest after our return from The Easter Thunderball, as we were honoured to have been asked to display our car, as the prime exhibit, at the opening of the stunning new “Frederick Bremer School” in Walthamstow, London. The Beovax Computer Services dragster had to look its very best! The 25 million pound school, is the first of the Government’s “Building Schools For The Future” program, (BSF), & it is a specialist engineering college. Frederick Bremer built the first petrol powered car in the UK in 1894, &, we were chosen to illustrate the advances made in engineering & performance over the last 115 years!”

“The opening was on the 29th April, so we headed off to London to arrive after the pupils had left for the day & the car was assembled in the main entrance hall of the school. The 150 invited guests, were a whos who of local & Government education departments - architects, suppliers & local dignitaries, along with the press & TV.”

“It was a busy evening. All the guests took a great deal of interest in the car, & the NGMotorsport team amswered,(what seemed like), thousands of questions about the car & the sport of drag racing. After the speeches, the school plaque was unveiled by the BBC Education Correspondent - James Whitehead.”

“We are also pleased to annouce, following discussions with Nigel Bell - (the school’s Director of Specialism), a partnership between “The Frederick Bremer School” & NG Motorsport. A close involvement with the team, race day visits to Santa Pod &, the manufacture of components for our race car, using their specialist facilities, will bring benefits to both parties. I dont think they can wait to see some serious engineering in action!”

NGMotorsport Season Review

Super Pro ET racer Nick Good & the NGMotorsport Race Team’s 2008 season was a mix of highs & lows - the lows being the appalling weather suffered by everyone at all the big events this year, &, the highs being some decent results when the sun DID put in an appearance.

We missed The Easter Thunderball due to parts not arriving in time, although event coverage on Eurodragster.com helped to convince us that this may have been a blessing in disguise!
The FIA Main Event in May was our first chance to try the dragster with its new Steve Schmidt Donovan short motor. After a practise launch on Friday & a careful checkover of everything, the car was ready on Saturday for its first full pass - maybe we could break into the sixes??
We were blown away with the 6.75 timing ticket. This made all the hard work & investment over the Winter worthwhile.
Unfortunately, eliminations were a wash-out, but, we left knowing that we had the speed we wanted.

The SPRC SuperNationals proved to be a landmark event for the NGMotorsport team.
After two & a half seasons of trying, we achieved what we had set out to do - we got our first event win!
The weather was kind to us all weekend, although we nearly missed our opportunity to make the most of the dry conditions & warm track.
Before the first qualifying session, we discovered a rocker had lost a number of needle bearings. We managed to find the last of the needles & to get the motor together just in time to make the last session.
On Sunday, the crew did a great job again, servicing the car between rounds & making sure we were right on our dial-in all day.
A few people had told us that 6 second cars dont win in Super Pro, so it was nice to prove the doubters wrong!

After the long Summer break, we were really looking forward to getting back to the Pod for the European Finals.
Our sponsors were bringing over 30 guests on the Saturday - (some, for their first ever drag racing experience ), & we were feeling pretty confident that we could give them something to cheer about.
BUT, this was a weekend to forget!
Thankfully, Santa Pod’s VIP & Corporate Hospitality really helped, plus, us, firing up the car in the pits along with the fact that they could get close to all the cars & their crews in the pits, left all the invited guests wanting to see more!
They all wanted to come again next year when, hopefully, the weather will be better for them - because, it certainly couldnt have been worse!!

That just left The UK National Finals. We came into this meeting with only 6 full passes on the car, &, we were hoping to carry on where we had left off at The SummerNationals.
Qualifying went well with a 6.85 on a 6.83 dial-in, putting us in 4th place.
We got around Dave Hughes in the first round. Against Steve Green in the 2nd round, luck really was on our side.
There was no way i was going to catch Steve, after out chute cable shook out on the line. Unfortunately for Steve, &, luckily for US, he broke out by 3 thouandths.
In the quarters, we were up against Chris Issacs in Spencer Tramm’s Corrado. Although i had a better reaction time than Chris, we couldnt compete with the super-consistency of the Corrado - losing by less than a metre at the line. It was, however, good to finish the season with such a close race AND the sun was shining!
Well done to Rick Cooke for winning such a tight Super Pro Championship this year, which went down to the last race of the season.

Another Good weekend.

Nick Good and the UK’s NG Motorsport Super Pro ET team have had time to reflect on their most successful weekend of racing yet, after the team recorded their first event win at the SPRC Summernationals. Nick writes that it was a weekend of lows, highs and a fair sprinkling of luck:

Shaun and I arrived at the track lunchtime friday, got the awning up, the car bolted together and through scrutineering. When Bob arrived in the evening we fired up the motor and set the timing and checked over the motor and trans, deciding to check the valve lash in the morning with the motor cold. Next morning, what should have been a routine check of the valve lash turned into a panic when it was discovered that #3 exhaust rocker had decided to spit out half a dozen needle rollers! It must have failed just as we had shut down the evening before as five of them were within a couple of inches of the valve spring. We popped the needle bearings back in the rocker hoping that they had all been recovered. No such luck, one was still missing! Although these bearings are only a quarter of an inch long and less than a sixteenth of an inch in diameter they are incredibly hard, so there was no way we could risk hurting the new motor. It had to be found.

First off we fished around with a magnet in the valley as best we could, then the oil came out along with the filter. No sign of it. Then the pan came off whilst the nearest valve springs were removed and checked, still nothing. Next, off with the blower and manifold and all the rockers to carefully remove and check the lifters. Bingo! The little so-and-so was sitting tight behind #1 exhaust lifter. It was popped back into the rocker to make sure it was the last one missing. Karl Harrison lent us a spare rocker, and with his assistance we started to reassemble the motor. We had obviously missed the first qualifying session but were really surprised when ten minutes into the rebuild the call for the second and only remaining session came. Doesn’t time fly when you’re enjoying yourselves! This was going to be tight. Periodic silences coming from the track gave us some hope of making it to the line.

The team of Andy, Bob, Shaun, along with invaluable help from Karl, had the motor together and fired up as the rest of the class were putting in their last runs of the day. We towed down with seconds to spare. John Everitt was last in the Super Pro queue and about to fire up. I was quickly strapped in and after a short burn out managed to stage without holding up John for too long. We had planned the first run of the day to be a half pass as we had taken some blower and timing out of the motor to concentrate on setting up the chassis, and a new rear wing with more downforce had been fitted since the last meeting. I was expecting a straight steady run to half track, no chance! Off the line then left, right and back left again to half track before coasting through the finish line. At least we were in Sunday’s race. It was only after the run that the crew told me that there just had not been time to get both rear tyres down to their correct pressures. This didn’t matter, it was a brilliant effort by all the crew to get the car to the line under real pressure.

Mechanically, Sunday was a breeze, with just between-rounds servicing and checks going as planned. Going into eliminations we had no idea what times the car would run as we only had a less than perfect half pass to work with. We guessed it would run mid 6.9s so we dialled in 7.0 so as not to leave ourselves short at the top end. It was a case of having to pull a decent light and being careful to just nose ahead at the line. This worked fine against John Everitt in round one running a 7.03. In the second round against Nigel Turner we really had some luck. The chute shook itself out at a thousand feet. There was no way I was going to catch Nigel, but fortunately for us he broke out by seven thousandths. In the third round against Bob Doyle we dropped the dial in to 6.92 and lifted to a 6.93/170.79. In the semi-final we were up against Ian Tubb who had just knocked out Simon Rowland with as close to a perfect run as you’re ever likely to see, perfect Reaction Time and four ten thousandths off his dial-in. We dropped our dial-in to 6.89. Again lifting just before the line, we ran 6.894/187.22.

The final was an anti-climax after the excitement of the previous rounds: a mix-up with Crunch’s dial in of 7.00 took away his chance in the final, which was a real shame. An easy 7.15/145 was enough to take us to our first event win.

After thinking on the Saturday that this would be a wasted weekend, we couldn’t really believe the turnaround in our fortunes on Sunday. This was a brilliant team effort, with Shaun at his first meeting as a crew member really being thrown in at the deep end. Thanks also to Karl, Rod and Kim of Team Stardust for their generous help throughout the weekend. Without the backing of our sponsors we wouldn’t be at the track, so a big Thank You to Formula Tanker Rentals, Beovax Computer Services, Focal Point Digital, Hardwick Road Garage, Chris Brown Body Repairs, BGC Motorsport Components, Glasweld Systems, D&R Engineering and Morris Armitage.

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