A Petroleum Fix.....

Leonie did the navigating and I steered the race tuned Ford Focus to take a look at the speedway meet at Coventry last Saturday night.
We talked to, earlier in the day, and met at the track our mates from the Tardebigge Flight house, Ann and Fred.
All good we had a look around the pits and there was plenty going on. With 90 odd Formula 1 stock cars alone it promised some great racing.


The World Formula 1 champs were held the weekend before at Kings Lynn and.......

This immaculate car with the World cup was the winning car....

Driven by.....

 

Tom Harris.... only 23yrs old...... beat the best UK and international drivers.

The entry tickets for the champs cost 32 quid per adult...
Ann introduced us to Tom, bloody nice guy. He's driven in NZ before and is going back this coming season for a couple of specific races.....

I've done the speedway photos before but this meeting was a two day meet celebrating 60 years of speedway at Coventry.

So in the pits on display were some big horse power machines used for.....

 

Tractor pulling competition.... Large Hemi motors with huge blowers...... The straps over the blower stop it ending up in the crowd if the motor "Lunches"itself....

They tow a "Sledge" with a weight that moves forward and puts more weight on the tractor. They go forward until they stop. The winner travels the greater distance....

Big "Butterflies" here....


This late model......

Case tractor had the big blower mods....


In the "old days" in NZ speedway.....

 

Exhaust pipes like this were allowed on race cars...... then along came neighbours and OSH.......


This "pulling machine" had.....

 

Five 400 cubic inch Chrysler engines.... all linked and driving through centrifugal clutches.....

They all did some exhibition laps during the night with a couple of the drivers putting the foot down on the straights. They're not made to turn corners so I had my fingers X,d for a stuck throttle... It never happened...

The F1 racing was excellent all night with 1 roll over, a couple of cars through the fence and plenty of contact.
Topped off with great company and the traditional trip to line up at the "Chippy" after the meet it was a bloody good night....