American Car - November 2015

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ACM 13

Black Sun Racing

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Find Alex at http://www.blacksunracing.co.uk or on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/BlackSunRacing

I have never entered a sprint

more confident that I would win

my class than at the Aintree

Sprint in June. The course is

made up of part of the old F

track upon which Stirling Moss

achieved his first Grand Prix

win when he narrowly beat

Fangio in 1955; the part of the

track we used runs inside the

Grand National horse racing

track, with the final long

sweeping corner running inside

Becher’s Brook jump.

I had been practising the

full 1955 track layout on

my computer simulator in

preparation, in order to work

out the best racing lines, and it

showed that the long straight

following Becher’s corner would

favour the Mustang’s power.

I was up against two Porsche

Boxsters, one Porsche 944 and

a TVR Chimera in my class, all

much lighter than the Mustang

and able to corner faster;

however, none could match the

Mustang’s 573bhp and 480lb.ft.

This event offered an

unusually large amount of

track time - two practice laps

and four timed laps - so I took

first practice very easy. From

the start there’s a long straight

into Country Corner, a fairly

tight 90-degree bend requiring

heavy braking. A shorter

straight then leads into Village

Corner, a wider curve, then you

pick up speed along Valentine

Alex Peters suffers shifting woes in Merseyside.

Stars At Night

This year’s British Drag Racing

Hall of Fame Gala Awards Dinner

will be held at the Savill Court

Hotel, Windsor Great Park, on

November 21st, and promises

to be a star-studded event

with quarter-mile heroes from

all over. Legends who will be

appearing include ‘Waterbed

Fred’ Miller, crew chief for

Raymond Miller and the Blue

Max team; Bob Muravez, driver

of the twin-engined Freight

Train; Ron Hope, owner and

driver of the Rat Trap and Pure

Hell Altereds that wowed the

2014 Dragstalgia event; Bruce

Larson, former NHRA Funny Car

champ and Nostalgia Funny Car

driver; and Larry ‘Spiderman’

McBride, 14-time Top Fuel Bike

champion. This year’s Lucas Oil

Global Achievement award will

be awarded to Chrysler to mark

65 years since the first Hemi

engine, with Mopar’s toppest

top brass on hand to receive it

from no lesser a superstar than

Don Garlits himself. That’s a

room full of US and European

superstars, with more being

added all the time, so see http://www.

britishdragracinghof.co.uk for

more details.

Straight with the horse racing

jumps flashing past right next

to the track! As you come into

Becher’s corner, careful braking

is required to get the car to

turn in to exactly the right line,

feathering the throttle to hold

the car in a slight drift through

this never-ending double-

apex curve. The best bit then

is opening the throttle along

the railway straight where

the speed trap showed that

the Mustang reached 125mph

across the finish line.

On both practice laps I

couldn’t get from third to

fourth gear approaching

Becher’s and rolled most of

the straight before finding

fifth, then second! The Tremec

3650 gearbox curse came back

to haunt me again! After first

practice, I was last in class by

20 seconds, 40 seconds behind

the leader. Everyone improved

massively in second practice,

just six seconds covering the

whole class. I was careful with

the gear changes, only missing

once coming out of Becher’s,

and so moved up to third place.

With four timed runs, I knew

that if I could get all of the

shifts right just once, I should

still win easily without having

to push corner speeds too

hard, but on every timed run I

still had gear change failures

and could feel victory slipping

from my grasp. I tried short

shifting at lower revs, or just

holding it on the limiter for a

short distance into the corner,

but none of this made me any

quicker. The irony was that I

was 10mph faster across the

finish line than the leader Scott

Hughes in his Boxster - if I could

only get a decent start on the

last straight I would win for

sure. However, the best I could

manage was second place, half

a second behind Scott. I felt

disappointed with the result,

facing a six hour drive home

from an event I should have

won easily. I just hope I can find

some more generous sponsors

in the near future to help obtain

a replacement gearbox.

track news.indd 13 21/09/2015 14:02: