Sandalford 1/4 Mile Sprint Day

This day was organised by a friend of mine Paul Blank. He's a pretty busy guy and spends most of his time organising automotive events spread over the year. Most of these are rally type events that are mainly geared towards the classic sports car crowd with too much money. Just lately there have been a few Hot Rod and Muscle Car enthusiasts that have also been entering and as well as being quite competitive, they also add some variety to all of the Porsches and Ferrari's etc.

On this day the quickest time went to Mick Johnson in his Cleveland powered Model A roadster. Unfortunately I didn't get any action shots as I had other commitments on the day and couldn't hang around.

Here's a few shots of the cars before they got started.

All I know is that it's some kind of Jag. I have a feeling that it's actually a fibreglass replica running a modern 4.2L engine. Kinda funky lookin' thing, needs a bit of lowering though.

Nice red DeTomaso Pantera. Anything with a Ford V8 mounted right behind your ear is alright by me. Some pretty serious rubber on the back there. Didn't see him run, so I'm not sure if he can actually get them spinning.

Now this is more like it. They're a much nicer looking car without all of the flares and stuff. Next to it is an XW (1969-70) Ford Falcon GT. For all you foreigners out there, this is as legendary a muscle car as you'll find.

I kinda like these hotted up old Vee-Dubs too. This one is a pretty special one I think. I just thought it looked cool.

This is a shot of the engine cover on the Porsche. You probably can't make it out, but the badge at the top of the grille says "356 Outlaws". I'm not sure if these guys are the Porsche version of Hot Rodders or something. Maybe they modify their cars and actually make them go fast!

Here's a nice Mk I Ford Escort. My brother is doing one of these up at the moment, that's why I took a couple of Escort pics. Please don't send hate mail ;)

That little thing hanging between the frame rails of this old MG is a blower. Apparently the engine is only 800 cc's, but a combination of light weight and the extra grunt from the blower makes it a fairly quick little car...for it's day. I don't think it would do the Rambler.

Engine turned dash, banjo steering wheel, big ass tacho...Cool or what!

I tried to talk my brother into a set of forest arches like this, but he went with the slightly flared RS guards instead. This little Eski is a pretty full on race car, actually, I think those plates are just for show.

The number plate says it all. Overheard during the day were a couple of old farts stating..."Gees, this one's really good, they've got the lines just about perfect". This ladies and gentlemen is the real deal. A Gen-U-Whine 427 AC Shelby Cobra. I overheard the owner, Peter Briggs, mention that he had some bags of cement in the boot to weigh the back down to get some extra traction. I think he ended up with 3rd or 4th place. The big block rumbling out of those side pipes was something else though. Now where'd I put that spare $1,000,000???

Here's another shot of my mate Alasdair's '29 Chrysler roadster. On the day he ran a blistering 26 seconds on the quarter mile, which was only around 2 seconds slower than the Blower Bentley that was there. I think maybe Alasdair had some traction problems ;)

This XP Falcon Coupe (65-66) was just parked under the trees minding it's own business. Quite different, and in my opinion, quite a bit nicer than the American version of the same year.