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Sadly, with round 2 just two weeks after the opening shoot out of the season several cars were now reported as ‘missing in action’ for round 2 at Santa Pod’s Big Bang event. The forced induction quartet of Jon ‘Moose’ Holingworth, Alex McIntosh, Davie Murdoch and ‘Billy the Kid’ MacDermid had all suffered damage at round 1 and with just two weeks between meetings were unable to effect repairs.
So that’s who wasn’t there, who was? Winners of round the Lazenbys were there with their immaculately prepared ’56 Chevy as was the runner up, Jeff Meads. Andy Frost made his return to the class, his twin turbo Vauxhall Victor sporting its freshly rebuilt big-block Chevy, and he was joined by rookie Mark Todd along with SE’s Scandinavian representative, Mats Andersson.
The talk around the track on Saturday morning was of the match up between Frost and Lazenby, twin-turbo and radials versus mega-inches, nitrous and Sportsman Pros. After two sessions of qualifying it couldn’t have been closer, Lazenby in first spot on 8.25 with Frost just two-hundredths behind and with the fastest ever pass from an SE car under his belt (189.4 mph).
Sadly all the excitement generated was to come to nought when the ’56 failed to appear at the gates for that evenings qualifying road cruise (valve spring failure).
The following morning’s qualifying saw Frost run an 8.17 to take pole and become the first SE car to top 190moh with a terminal speed of 190.40. Unfortunately this will not stand as a class record as current rules deem the ‘on trial’ MT DR tyre a ‘temporary addition’ to the rule book thereby making cars shod with these tyres ineligible to set records. Frost, despite being aware of the rule beforehand, was understandably displeased with the situation.
Lazenby’s qualifying pass meant that there would still be three rounds of eliminations despite there being just four cars left in competition. The first round saw Frost, Meads and Andersson progress with Todd again having trouble in the Pontiac.
The semi-finals presented Andersson with his second bye and an automatic berth in his first ever final. In the other semi Meads actually took the lead on Frost but the turbo power of the Red Victor kicked in and took the win with the quickest ET of the weekend, 8.12. Meads also ran his quickest of the round with a stout (but losing) 8.6 second pass.
The final looked a foregone conclusion (so long as Frost stayed away from the cherries!) and proved to be as the Vauxhall produced an 8.66 for the win over Andersson’s 9.9 in the Opel.
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