It was a sigh of relief at the end of a torrid weekend for the team.At one point we didn't think that there would be any racing at all(again),but thanks to the stirling work by the SP track crew and a little smile from the gods we were up and racing on Saturday afternoon.The 1 run we did get on Sat was pretty dire,with the dreaded "radial rock" returning and  twice as bad as before!! The 2 runs on Sunday were still bad,but not as severe as Saturday due to some swift mods to the chassis/power tune.This left us in 4th place on the ladder and an easy 1st round pairing...NOT.Having to face "the Fox" at any point in elims is bad enough,but in the 1st round is daunting.This guy has more tricks up his sleeve than Tommy Cooper in his heyday....but we got on with it and ran a '05 light and an off throttle early 8.29 to Ian's troubled 9sec run.After that i knew we had lots in the bag.

Next up was my old friend and rival Fatty,Unfortunately he is not able to match the power we have this year but he can certainly cut a light as always.Obviously we were on a roll because i even beat him on that too(.0410 to .0411)..OK,it wasn't a treeing,more like a "leafing",followed by an off early 8.2. from us.The semis got serious when we drew another old friend and rival Jeff Meads.We knew Jeff had run 8.5,s at the last round so this was no gimme.Jeff pulled a great 008 to our not bad .056 but after the 60ft it was all Vauxhall with an off early again 8.3 to Jeffs spinning 9sec run.

So,the final.I was SO hoping that Pateman would make it to the final,but he couldn't stop himself pulling a cherry to get out of racing us(again)...By now i knew we had an 8.0 in the bag and whoever got to the final was going to get hit with it.We knew that winning the final would put us back in the lead of the championship too,so after a couple of 330ft burnouts it was down to business.No funny stuff in staging,just have at it.An .04 from us to Splinters slow.12 had us out in front straight away and again it was all Vauxhall,but this time with full throttle to the end...yep,you guessed it,an 8.02 @185 to an 8.4 did the job very nicely thank you.

So,with 2 meetings left we have the lead back but it's still anyone from the top 4's championship.I have a feeling it'll go down to the last race at the last round.Let's hope mother nature doesn't decide it for us...

Finally a huge thanks to my crew,sponsers and supporters for their great efforts over recent weeks.Hopefully this win was a little consolation for last meeting....