Once you were in the top 8 the races were run off an index basis, your PB (personal best) + 0.5 seconds, my PB is 7.26 so my dial in was 7.76, my first pairings PB was 6.46 so his dial in was 6.96 and he has to give me a head start based on that time difference.

We added a bit more power and decided to try and cut good lights and get down the track straight and true and "hope" the other guy red lighted or had some other problem.

We decided to go conservative, hope that others didn't de-tune enough and with any luck we'd get down the track and post a time good enough to make the top 8 shootout and others wouldn't............IT WORKED!!!! We qualified No8 against the big boys!!! That in itself was a dream come true. I knew I'd probably get beaten but just the chance to race against these guys was something I'd wanted for a long time and to say I was nervous would be an understatement.

We entered an open season, all in, up against ANYTHING drag meet on Sunday at Meremere where there were Nitro and Top Alcohol dragsters, Top door slammers and plenty of other SERIOUS cars in the field. My first qualifying run ended with an abort after wheel standing towards the left guard rail, the track wasn't there yet and lots of guys were having trouble.

What an amazing weekend, I've never been so happy to lose a race!! Sound strange for me to say that, well here's why..........

I decided on a short burnout to get to the tree a.s.a.p to try and rush the other guy might also help. I cut a good light (.117 to his .194) and was on my way 0.8 seconds before him.

I can't describe the noise of having one of these things coming up behind you. I lost a lot of my sense of my own car - I couldn't hear it and it almost seemed like even if something was going wrong, I wouldn't know and I wouldn't lift. I was on auto pilot, foot hard to the floor all the way and he "just" caught and past me at the finish line, margin of victory to him of 0.177 (6.398 to my 7.452) but I was the happiest loser you have ever seen I tell ya!!!

2nd race went much the same but this time it was against a 5 second top alcohol dragster driven by one of the best in the business. I did the short burnout and up to stage as quick as possible tactic again but this time he cut a better light than me (his .078 to my .169). I had a 1.27 second head start and once again the noise and vibration of 3000hp bearing down was incredible. Once again I was caught and beaten to the finish line by 0.200 seconds and once again I didn't care (his 6.073 to my 7.452)! I'd had the 2 best races of my life and to even make the field against these guys was a big deal for the RIPS team.



We have found that the new wings are working too well, they are giving too much downforce and robbing us of ET and mph but the car runs straighter than it ever has so we'll de-tune the wings and get it back to the point where we have just enough downforce to get the job done and chase that 6.

Thanks again for your continued support. We are at Meremere again this weekend for the V8 V Jappa drag battle where we need to be running very low 7s to be competitive. Lets hope the weather/track is good and we can get enough wing out and enough power in to do well there.





December 6, 2010... R.I.P.S. FED Wins at Drag Battle!

Another awesome weekend with Azhah and 4 & Rotary Promotions putting on a great event, the weather was great and there was a good sized crowd.

The concept was an open season event for V8s and Jappa's, 2-3 qualifying runs then everyone put into 6,7,8,9,10 second brackets based on your qualifying times with heads up racing to follow to find a winner in each bracket.

There were plenty of serious V8s in attendance with several of them capable of 6 and 7 second runs but the track didn't feel too good before the first round of qualifying so we felt baby steps were the order of the day and to finish first, first you must finish.

We took some rear wing out but left everything the same as the previous meetings last run of 7.45 @ 175mph and straight off the trailer with a gentle launch, we ran 7.35 @ 181.75mph. Super smooth and straight as a die, we had qualified No1 after the first round.

The V8 boys were struggling and I didn't hear any strong full track passes, instead a lot of misfiring and aborted runs.

Round 2 of qualifying:

We felt we still had too much rear wing so we took another 2 degrees out and gave the tune a tickle up so we would hit it harder to 1/2 track. We had a beautiful clean run although a little slippery at the end. It felt super strong to me but the timing lights didn't work!!! We were gutted because we knew it was a beauty.

The V8 boys were having trouble with reliability, broken transmissions, oil downs etc and after round 2 our first run still had us in the No1 qualifying spot.

Round 3 of qualifying:

The V8 boys were starting to get on top of the track and their cars and I heard a couple of clean strong runs.

We put a little rear wing back in but left everything else the same so we could get a time to try and keep our No 1 qualifying spot. The car ran great, nice and straight, and we managed a 7.29 @ 296kph (185mph).

We checked the data of the run with no time slip, compared it to the 7.29 at 296kph and Jase is sure it was a 7.1 at over 300kph. It may well have been the world record run we needed to take the title off HKS Japan (7.18). Oh well, although gutted we didn't get the slip, at least we know its in the car and we will be able to do it again sometime.

One of the V8 boys ran a 6 so we qualified No 2 out of the whole field but were quickest in the 7 second bracket.

I'm not 100% sure what happened to the V8s in the 7 second bracket, maybe breakages, maybe none qualified in the 7s. It was an all Jappa 7 second bracket and we were paired against the Curren Brothers Rapid little RX2 in a best of 3 shootout.

There were delays while the track was cleaned after serious oil downs (both lanes on separate runs) and we were warned it was slippery out there. Also the wind had picked up so we decided to de-tune a little, try to cut good lights and do our best.

First of 3:

I red lit by 0.004 (left before the green light) and although we beat him to the finish line no problem, I handed the win to Brent Curren. :-(

Second of 3:

I decided to take it easy on the tree and just do what we knew the car could do consistently. I cut a slow light and ran a 7.43 to his 7.86 to take the win. 1 all.

Third round:

We decided to do the same again. We wanted the win bad and in all honesty, we needed the prize money so we could travel to Motueka this coming weekend. All went to plan although I got all out of shape just after 1/2 track and had to lift. I got back in it and "just" took the win with a 7.61.

Big thanks to Link for an ECU that is so easy to tune to track conditions, big thanks to Jase from Infomotive for working the laptop to make it all happen on the day and big thanks to my crew, sponsors and supporters. Without you all we simply couldn't be out there doing it.

This coming weekend is the first round of the NZDRAchampionship series in Motueka where we hear the track is pretty "average" with very little run off. It should suit us though, as we are running the NZDRA series in EE/D without NOS and we have a 9.2 second record index to race against (we have already run 7s during testing in EE/D specification) so we will have a good advantage over the others, therefore no need to push very hard at the end of the track.





December 13, 2010... RIPS FED claims NZ record and secures substantial points lead after round 1 of the NZDRA series

What a fantastic weekend, lots of ups and downs but it ended up perfectly for us and we now have a serious points lead going into round 2 of the NZDRA series.

The Nelson and Motueka guys sure know how to make you feel welcome, its a beautiful place and it turned out to be a hot one. The goal of the trip was to get maximum points to start the series off well. We needed to claim 2 x NZ records and win the meeting to do so.It didn't all go to plan but the end result was actually better than we first thought.

Under normal circumstances there'd be a full field of cars, you'd qualify, get points based on where you qualified then race for points each round with 5 extra points on offer for claiming an ET and/or mph record. At first we were disappointed to find that only 2 cars had turned up for the Competition class of the series, as that usually would mean both guys get equal points for "appearing and qualifying" but due to the lack of a full field no more points are given as the "racing" doesn't actually happen.













We knew we were still eligible to claim an ET and mph record and the 5 points that comes with each during qualifying so we thought that was our best hope of getting at least 5 or 10 points over the other guy. We knew the track would be slippery so we took out as much power as possible and thought we'd still have enough to easily claim the NZ ET and mph record for EE/D which stands at 9.22 @ 137mph.

The other guy started his engine only to find it was history and he was out for the day. He didn't do a qualifying run so he now only gets 10 points for entering.

We went out for the first qualifying run, smoked the tyres, had lots of tyre shake and then a very slow accelerating car, something was seriously wrong! We ran through with a terrible 9. 7 @ 141mph. . . BUT we had now done a qualifying run and were entitled to another 60 points.

The 141mph was quicker than the current EE/D mph record but we could only claim it if we backed it up.In the mean time we found a big split in the inlet plenim which was quickly patched up with a length of wood, race tape and a motor cycle tie down - kiwi ingenuity at its best!! There was a serious problem with the torque converter in the trans which we think was caused by, or at least, unknown existing damage was compounded by the brutal tyre shake on the run.

A long story cut short . . . we went out, limped down the track and did another terrible 9.8 run at 144mph which was enough for the NZ mph record, claimed the points and very disappointingly our day was over due to no drive from the transmission.

Although gutted, once we started to think about it, we'd actually had a great day because "if" a full field had arrived we would have not been able to race anyway, THEY would have got all the points and we would have come home well behind in Series points.

Although no-one ever likes to see a competitor have problems, the fact the other guy who did arrive, did have problems, and didn't do a qualifying run it means we got a lot more points than him. So all in all, we left with a 85 points lead over everyone in our class and that is not going to be easy for them to catch back up.

We'll get the transmission fixed this week and be ready for our next meeting in Taupo early in the new year.

Thanks for your continued support and I'd like to take this opportunity to let everyone know we now have Rotorua Steel Structures Ltd as a new sponsor, it couldn't have come at a better time and we really appreciate the deal they put down for us,

Sorry about the quality of the newspaper article - it had to be cut up to fit on the scanner!

January 13, 2011... RIPS FED wins dragmasters pairing 3 - nil

Another great day at the drags although once again very hot and very slippery with track temps reaching 150 deg. (ideal temp for traction compound is 90-110). Dragmasters is an event where a team of Jap cars race against a team of V8s to decide an overall winning team, the Jap team has won it the last 2 years in a row and we were looking to make it 3 from 3.

The well known and quicker cars get issued a pairing before the event based on their previous best ETs but also on the day other cars can try to qualify to be in the Dragmasters team and the ones that don't can race in 9.90, 10.90,11.90,12.90 brackets and so on. Once they have done 2 qualifying passes the Jap cars and V8s are matched so as to give close heads up racing, its a great concept and brings in the crowds of loyal V8 and jap fans.

At the last minute, I ended up being the Jap team captain as Glen Sucking couldn't make the event which was a real shame. About 5 or 6 pairs (including myself against a 7.4 second big block altered) had been pre-arranged and about another 6-7 Dragmasters team pairs were decided on the day based on qualifying times.

We knew it would be slippery so on our first qualifying run we set it pretty soft and with 3 lots of tyre shake and 3 pedals before 1/2 track (only 136mph @ 1/2 track) we managed a 7.65 @ 172mph. My paired competitor went up in smoke off the line and ran a 9 something.

2nd round of qualifying we took some more power out early on and added a little bit more up top, left pretty well (1.10 60ft) and got to 1/2 track OK with 147mph then it smoked the tyres at around 300 meters and we rolled through with a 7.55 @ just 165mph. My paired competitor went up in smoke off the line and ran a high 8 I believe.

After qualifying all the chosen Dragmasters pairs would have 3 heads up races, each win scoring a point for their team. It was clear the winner was going to be whoever could make it stick and be super smooth with power delivery, we knew we could run under 7.5 with less power than we had been trying to use so decided to detune even more and just go from A to B and smoothly as possible.

By now it was very hot and there'd been a problem with the timing gear, they took about 2 hours to try and sort it then came to us and said we can race but we won't get normal time slips, just a hand written slip with our own ET and MPH with no info for the other guy, I thought that was fine, as long as we knew who had won.







Round 1: We both went up in smoke off the line and it was a pedal fest, I could hear him for a while but I kept coming on and off the power, gently feeding more in each time and managed to somehow get to the other end with a crazy slow 8.44 @ 175mph to take the win.

Round 2:

I got away "ok", he went up in smoke off the line again and although I had to pedal it 2 or 3 times I pulled a huge lead and took the win with a low 7.98 @ 166 mph.

Round 3: He informed me he wasn't going to come back out and it had cooled off a bit so we decided to set the tune on "kill" and see what we could manage. Got off the line pretty well but about 50 meters out we got massive tyre shake and went up in smoke, I pedaled it, then gently got back into it and drifted a pair of black lines all the way for a 7.65 @ 176, what a ride!!

All in all a great day but unfortunately the Jap team as a whole were having serious traction problems and overall the V8 boys managed to get the job done better than us to take the V8 teams win.

I've got a fantastic crew and they all work hard each day racing all for a few beers, lots of laughs and some KFC, hahaha, massive thanks to all my sponsors and supporters. The next meet for us will be Jan 23rd if its not too hot, it looks like we have a lot of work to do to get that 7.19 record of HKS Japan and even more to try and get that 6, but nothing REALLY worth having comes easy.......













January 18, 2011... RIPS FED wins the Hell Pizza Summer Slam





What an incredible day and by FAR the hardest we have ever had to work for a win.

It was crazy hot (around 30 deg C outside and around 60 deg C in the car sitting on top of the trans and diff), we were at our highest altitude track in Taupo, it was slippery and we entered a DYO competition class with a 27 car field of very experienced, mostly V8, DYO racers.

1st round of qualifying smoked the tyres just before 1/2 track, got massive tyre shake, headed for the center line then the left hand wall, the most out of shape I have ever been in this car but managed to keep it together and roll through for a 8.09 @ 169mph.

When I pulled up at the end the engine was missing and popping. It turns out the tyre shake had thrown the fan belt off and the resultant low voltage was not enough for our new CDI ignition. Damn that tyre shake can be violent!! A very rushed replacement of the fan belt (not quick or easy to change in this car) and we were ready for round 2.

2nd round of qualifying went much better with a gentle launch and slippery 7.59 @ 171mph. With that we managed to qualify No1 out of the 27 car competition field but we would need to win 5 rounds to get the job done.













Round 1: The other guy was a no show and we ran a 7.67 on a 7.50 dial in.

Round 2: I had to give the other guy a 2.38 second head start and its so hard to watch a guy drive off for that long but I cut a good light (RT 0.021) caught him "just" before the finish and backed out, I was sure I had the win but the timeslip came up that I had run a -3.601 1/4 mile!!!! and it gave the win to him... After it was shown to be a timing error (turned out the timing blocks on my lane were miss aligned) it was agreed we needed a re-run.

Round 2, part 2: My opponent changed his dial in time slightly and this time I had to give him 2.45 seconds head start, he drove off again while I watched, I cut another good light (RT 0.055) and didn't quite catch him, I thought I'd lost but it turned out he'd dialed in at 9.950 and ran a 9.895 so we took the win.

Round 3: Due to qualifying No1 we got a bye run and just accepted the green for the win to help save time as the meeting was running well behind by now. It was now 6:54pm and we were through to the semi final, it was crazy hot and our trans still hadn't cooled down properly from the run before the bye. Despite that I presumed it would be OK and I dialed in at my usual 7.50, he dialed in at 10.75. I watched him drive off, cut a 0.123 light but it was very lazy off the line and I didn't quite catch up, I thought I'd lost but he broke out!! I ran a 7.834 and he ran a 10.727 (0.023 too quick)

Round 4: The other guy was in a N/A big block coupe and was rearing to go because he knew we were having trans problems and needed time to cool down, we stalled them for 20 minutes and then headed for the start line. I knew we were going to be slow and I knew we'd lost 3 10ths on the previous run due to heat so I decided to dial in real slow, hopefully catch the guy early, back right off and play the side by side game till a fraction before the finish line where I'd nail it again and hopefully beat him across the line with out breaking out.

Round 5: I dialed in at 8.10 and he dialed in at 10.05, he drove off, I cut a 0.102 light and was off after him, I caught him just after 1/2 track, backed right off, did the side by side and the last minute nail it thing and I crossed the line just ahead but I didn't know if I'd broken out (run quicker than my 8.10 dial in) My crew at the finish line radioed my crew at the pit tower and we got the win with a 8.388 @ 133 mph to his 10.427 @ 135 mph, I was over the moon but almost passed out from the heat (the trans and diff I was sitting on top of were now at over 130 deg C and we had a 10 minute tow back to the pits).

That was by far the hardest and hottest days racing I have ever had with 8 runs needed to take the win, my crew Jason, Brad, Spook, Dan, Sheryl, Makaela, Paige, Annie and Ange worked very hard and all did a great job all day, it was such a team effort and simply not possible without all of them and all of my sponsors



