Recent Team News:

As per usual, Channel 4 decided to reschedule the broadcasting of the Scrapheap Challenge in which the NAST team were partaking.

We have no new information as to when this will be broadcast instead. We will try to update you if we find out before the episode then airs.

As you can see from the above embedded video, we have uploaded some of the recordings of our drag race runs up the track, and now you can watch them anytime from our accounts listings in youtube.

We have some new articles up on the SuperTwins website, the write ups from Round 2.

Also, don't forget to get your forms in for the next rounds soon!

• Entry Forms for Rounds 3 & 4
• 2010 Round 2 - Les Summary
• 2010 Round 2 - Top Gas Summary
• 2010 Round 2 - ET Summary

We have been very fortunate this season (so far) to be running 1.3s 60fts, even a 1.28s which we were all very very pleased about, TC expecially.

With comments such as "well he is my rubber man" thats all well and good until you break traction. We were up against Motty in the semi's my race head was fully on, going for a holeshot (well its worked before) we did a good burn out, Tim confurmed the tire was at the correct temp, we only got about 10ft out, when the slick broke loose in a very big way sending me side ways towards the centre line, it was just like riding on ice!! I remember thinking don’t cross the centre line or your out, which I didn’t. I found grip and another gear, only to look up and see, that Motty was going to be uncatchable, so an early bath for me, and a very big scare for my crew.

We have attached some pictures of this from the weekend, and a short animation showing those which show this happening pieced together.

Regards, Leso

There is an important announcement regarding this weekends tickets on the SuperTwins Website.

Over the winter tilly’s race motor was in York being worked on by Sam who is the man to tune TL motors. After a full strip down the motor was found to be in very good condition so on with the re-build, new big ends/ R oil pump/ big bore kit using JE pistons/ R cams re-profiled by Kent dialled in by Sam. We picked the motor up on the 13th of March.

The following Sunday was a motor swap day. Which went to plan with no problems, start up went well its now dyno time. We use dyno bike in Yorkshire, Paul has always set up the GLS TLs. A power commander 3 was installed, 12 litres of super plus many hours and 1 screwed rear slick later Tilly was ready to go testing at pod. Just a few jobs to do to Tilly before we go testing, New fuel lines with a protective sheath and a new link tube on the fuel pump as the old one came off twice on the dyno, new drive chain, and of course fit a new slick, sorted.

So on the 24th of April at the Big Bang event at Santa Pod raceway we tested Tilly.

Run no1- everything worked well on the bike apart From me! The motor now revs so quickly I was late on the shifter button (BIG TIME) ET was a whopping 10.5

Run no2- much better only missed 1 change ET got a little bit better with a 10.0

Run no3- I was under a little bit of pressure on this run as I was running against Dave the hat who was testing his super charged sv 1000. This helped we did our best run of the day with an ET of 9.66 and a 60ft PB of 1.31.

Run no4- was the last run of the day we got some wheel spin off the line (leaving the temperature gun at home didn’t really help) still a good run with a et of 9.8.

A top day testing at Santa pod with ideal weather conditions very enjoyable and educational day was had by all. We left with confidence and ready for round 1, which was only 6 days away.

RACE REPORT WITH PHOTO’S TO FOLLOW!

Just some extra photos taken by Mike Nelthorpe of the Polharris that we thought you might appreciate a look at before the coming Rock Night.

We've been really busy recently with life in general, so there hasn't been a regular update in a while, so please excuse the mass of summarized links to new posts on the SuperTwins website, but we hope you'll enjoy them too:

• Euro Dragster Perpetual Award Winner Not Listed Last Time
• Spill the Beans
• New SET racer for 2010
• SuperTwin's Down-Under
• Getting Ready for Top Gas

Regards, Les Harris

Our very own slim has just got her first race bike, a very clean Kawsaki GPZ 250.

Slim will be racing in Street ET as SET284, and has already got plans for Kelly (her bike), ie air shifter, long arm, turbo, etc.

Addicted to drag racing, Slim has got the bug big time, and has already got her eye on Tilly 3.

Regards, Les Harris

Recently one of our sponsors created some great new tops for us, and a few days ago some friends stopped around and tried them on for us.

Micky and Aly shown here kindly took time out to model them for us, to show the new designs and fashions for the lady's tops. We hope these images might be of some help to all of you out there curious as to what the new tops look like.

Just recently we received a fanmail from Jack, who kindly sent us a picture as a thank you for the items we recently sent him just before Christmas.

We thought we would share this picture with you all, and say how happy we were to receive it from Jack, and to say a big thankyou to Jack from us.

Polharris is back home after being at HQ Fibre products to have its bodywork made.

All bodywork is being made of carbon fibre.

Starting at the sharp end, streamliner front mudguard, to help send air into the air-box.

TLR nose fairing leading to a big custom air box, one piece body work, rear wheel tub and under tray.

It looks like a pro stocker, I am so pleased with how its coming together, but there is still a load to do (and pay for).

A big thank you to Mike and Sylvia, whose work is second to none, plus they are a lovely couple and a pleasure to know.

So What's next?

Fit a rad, make and fit a fuel tank/pump, get it wired and fired up (cant wait to hear it running), lots of brackets etc.

You will be able to see this bike on the 27th of February 2010 at the boundary Public House at my big party. It's well worth a look as it is the only one in the world we are aware of!

After the party, its going back to GLS in Yorkshire.

I have taken some photos along the way, and hope you enjoy.

Regards, Les Harris

Our lovely Lyn has been nominated for an award in this years EuroDragster.com - SPRC / APIRA Perpetual Awards for the 2009 season.

We are all very proud of her, and wish her the best of luck.

I had a young chap called William call to see me on Saturday, with his Mum and Dad, which was very nice.

He's a big fan of my Drag Racing Team.

I gave him a Calendar and some signed photos, plus a visor sticker, which his parent's had asked for last week through my website.

William had a good look at Tilly 3, which we even have a photo of.

He had a nice time, and is coming to Santa Pod next year to watch us race, so a good time was had by one and all.

Les and Lyn Harris have decided to 'opt out' from the tradition of giving Christmas Cards this year. Instead we have given £25 to the Salvation Army, to help those more in need especially with the cold weather forecast.

We would like to wish you a very Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

On the 27th of February in the coming year, 2010, there will be a big party at the Boundary Public House, in Norwich.

The party is a multi-event party for the Les Harris Drag Racing Team, celebrating the past years achievements, the release of The Polharris, and also celebrating Les' birthday all in one night.

Both Tilly 3 and the Polharris will take some stage time away from the Two Bands we will be having that evening: Hotwired leading into Storm

This will be the first time the Polharris will have been shown in public, so come drool, stroke it or do whatever gets you happy when you see her. :)

It's going to be a big party, so please one and all, come along and have a fun night.

We have put up some new photos of the available types of Team Gear that can be purchased to help support the team and our efforts to retain the championship next season.

You can find all the information you require on the Support Us page of the website, and hopefully some of these new Jacket's, T-Shirts and Vest Top's will be of interest to you.

Great news so far! In one night so many people have already volunteered their support that I've managed to already get £106.15 in support for Children in Need.

I don't know about others, but I think that's a great show of the local community spirit, and even in these hard times people were happy to give even just a quid towards the cause.

I just wanted to say a big thank you to both the Frettenham Rose and Crown with their Thursday night Darts and Pool teams, as well as the Buxton Black Lion and the supporters of all teams at each pub.

It's that time of year fast approaching, time to help support the charity Children in Need.

As you will be able to tell from the pictures attached to this post, one of our Team has quite litterally Gone Spotty this year for the cause.

If you live in and around North Norfolk, Scott will be accepting donations/sponsorship in aide of the cause.

All he asks is If it gives you a grin, consider giving somethin' to Children in Need Donations :).

Scott also wanted to say a big big thank you to Emma for all the hard work she put into making such a fine piece of artwork, and for taking up a whole night of Emma & Ray's, it is much appreciated, and hopefully will result in a nice contribution to Children in Need.

I just thought I would let everyone know, if they were interested, that Don Irvine has sent a small summary and final post for the Super Twins site, and you can read it here.

The NAST AGM is fast approaching us, and the details are available on the SuperTwins website, including some information kindly compiled by our Annette with regards to accomodation in the area.

We are glad to have C41 Corporate Branding on board as a sponsor for the team.

They are kindly currently producing a range of Team T-Shirts and Race Jackets which will be for sale shortly.

The company is focused on many other aspects of graphics and print work. For example if you have a new helmet you are wanting a custom paint job on, vynal decals for your bike or van, or even some T-Shirts of your own they may be able to do you a deal.

Well, this has been a bit of a late heads-up, but we are again in the papers.

Thursday 22nd of October's edition of the Eatern Daily Press (EDP) includes an article about us on Page 46, in the bottom part titled: Harris steps on the gas to clinch Supertwin crown.

Not only that, but then on Friday 23rd of October we have another write-up in the Norwich Evening News on the bottom of Page 67 titled: New champion Les targets world record.

NAST continues to surprise me year apon year. In some race classes things can be a little predictable regarding the end of season results, and yet again this is the area NAST continues to show that these things aren't always the case, and refreshingly so in my opinion!

Not only was it an excellent race season, with constant surprises and personal achievements by so many, it has been a fun and entertaining year!

This year in particular has had one thing come fast to the front of my mind:  The Club.  The club this year has grown so much, and not only in numbers!  The members have bonded so well together that they made it not only a challenging and exciting race season for each other, but had a lot of fun in the process.  This is something that hasn't gone un-noticed, as we've had feedback from so many people, some spectators, others officials at tracks.  To coin a phrase from The A-Team:  I love it when a plan comes together!

I don't think you can put too fine a point on it, but it's this kind of community spirit that not only helps a club develop, but also remain active and enjoyable to be a part of, and so much much more that is harder to really put into words.  I just hope others feel, as I have, that this year has been really great.

We shall celebrate this fact at the AGM, in glorious and legendary style, that should be memorable for many years to come, or fall drunkly by the wayside trying! hehe

The end of a fantastic season is with us! Kindly some of the SuperTwins members have written some articles about the last race meeting, which some of you might find of interest. You can find links to these below:

• 2009 Round 7 - Top-Gas Summary
• 2009 Round 7 - Street ET Summary

The final round of the Insane Motorcycles 2009 Junior Drag Bike Championship was held last weekend at Shakespeare County Raceway, our big congratulations go to Jordon Bissell for securing the JB1 plate for 2010, well done Jordon. Here are the points and race numbers for next season after this final meeting.

Many thanks to Glynn Sainsbury of 2Brothers Motorcycle Services for sponsoring this final round of the Insane Championship.

The winner of the actual final meeting was Scott Collier with runner up Brett Cordelle. Well done to Scott for managing to take the win after such a hard year with his troublesome engine, and for picking up on a problem with his bike that Jerry was able to fix in time for the eliminations. Great weekend for Brett also in achieving the runner up trophy, and also to Giselle Moor for continuing to improve on her new bike, this weekend running a personal best of 10.0!

We are on show this weekend 17/18 October promoting JDB and SCR at the Classic Motorcycle Mechanics Show at Stafford County Showground, we have a stand in Sandylands hall with a display of Junior Drag Bikes and drag race information. Come and say hello if you are passing.

We are now seeking sponsors for our 2010 Championship, a title sponsor and individual round sponsors, if anyone would like to talk about that or any matter relating to JDB please give us a call on 01246 570304.

All that’s left to say it a big THANKYOU to our riders and parents, Julie Wilcox and the staff at Shakespeare County Raceway for their support and help throughout the season, Nick Argyle for his ‘Insane Motorcycles’ title sponsorship of the 2009 Championship, all our foreign friends for being so interested and supportive of the class via the internet and our friendly news editors for publishing our updates. We have a possible SEVEN new riders out for next season, JDB is on the up, as we knew it could be. To keep up with news and info become a fan of JDB on facebook at: Junior Drag Bike on Facebook

What a top weekend! Tilly ran so well, after the mods we made last Sunday, that it was a joy to ride.

In the semi-finals I was up against Dave Jones, the winner of which would be the new NAST Top-Gas champion!

So with no pressure at all (smirk) it was a full on drag race. I beat Dave by 0.3557, and I ran a 9.84s at 131 mph! Dave ran a 10.21 at 112 mph.

My first Top Gas no 1 plate, and my third championship title to date.

As you can guess we are all over the moon, come on the party!

Myself and the Team would like to thank all my sponsers, who have helped to make this possible.

Thank you all to all the NAST members, without which we wouldn't have had a racing season, nor as enjoyable a season as this year was!

Next weekend we will be racing at santa pod at the extreme bike meeting which are our Finals for the 2009 Season.

We are currently leading the championship by 90 points, but it is going down to the wire and we will do our upmost to win the number 1 plate for next season.

Also at some point during the weekend we will be test a new carbon fibre stream line mud gaurd.

Today has been spent working on Tilly 3 to get her race ready for this coming event.

I know there will be a lot of you as eager to see the points for the last round as me, so here you go. The points are now live on the SuperTwins website, so go have a look!

Thursday October 1st's edition of the Eastern Daily Press (EDP) contains a picture of Andy 'Soapy' Watson from Round 6.

It's great to see more NAST members appearing in the papers, although there were some minor editorial inaccuracies.

For those that don't live in the Eastern region coverage, you may find the story drift onto their website in the fullness of time, though it might not be fore a few days yet. You can find the Motorsport section of their website here.

Don't worry those reading it, the season hasn't actually finished yet, we have one more Round to go yet, but that doesn't take away from the fact that it's a tight season for Top-Gas!

Congratulations to Andy for that excellent race win, and we are looking forward to the next round so very much, if the last one was anything to go by.

The 2009 Season Round 6 summaries for The National Finals are already starting to come in. You can read their write-ups on the Super Twins website, when we have them.

The ones we currently have are listed below, and this list might change in the coming days, so keep an eye open.

• 2009 Round 6 - Top-Gas Summary
• 2009 Round 6 - Street ET Summary

The NAST 2009 AGM is fast approaching! Fortunately, we have been a little organised this year and have put up some Notes and Details for the 2009 NAST AGM up on the SuperTwins website in anticipation of all the phone calls.

For those that are interested in attending it or the after party, you will need to check out the link.

The finals of the 2009 Insane Motorcycles Junior Drag Bike Championship is to be held at Shakespeare County Raceway on 3 and 4 October, this round sponsored by 2Brothers Motorcycles. It is very close at the top again, and its all down to the finals who takes the coveted JB1 plate, with 2nd 3rd and 4th places all liable to change!

For the first time our facebook page Junior Drag Bike Club on Facebook will be updated throughout the weekend, after each qualifying session and elimination session with up to the minute points updates and photos.

Our Thanks go to Wayne and all at Shakespeare County Raceway, and also to points verifier Simon Groves for letting this happen.

To all our overseas friends and people who cannot come to the meeting, keep your browsers on our page and live it as it happens.

For any info about Junior Drag Bike please call us on 01246 570304 or visit our facebook page as above, which has plenty of information, rules, construction guidelines and photographs, plus public chat of course.

The Team's 2010 Calendar is now on sale. We are currently taking orders by Telephone, Email, etc.

Please ensure you get your order in as early as you can, because we normally have high demand for them but likewise we would like to not have any disappointed followers.

Scrapheap Challenge - Series 11 starts this coming Sunday, the 30th of August 2009.

Whilst the NAST Team's episode is not the first one being aired, we will be appearing at some point in the future.

Those with the magic Sky+ or Freeview boxes with recorders may want to Series Link the show so they record all the coming episodes.

You know what's going to happen, don't you? It will likely be broadcast on a weekend when we are all away racing hahahahaha!

Regards, Leso

Man these people are efficient, they've already got us the points for Round 5 up on the NAST website! Well done Chris and Yvonne

Race Season 2009 Current Points Standings

Chris Mott and Joe Elliot are kindly providing summaries for the event from their appropriate class perspectives. You can read their write-ups on the Super Twins website, when we have them.

The ones we currently have are listed below, and this list might change in the coming days, so keep an eye open.

• 2009 Round 5 - Top-Gas Summary
• 2009 Round 5 - Street ET Summary

MAZ! Long time no see!

It must be 3 years ago that I last saw you at Santa Pod, and what a laugh that was!

It was nice to meet up again at the Bulldog Bash.

Good to see you again Maz, and thank you for doing the photo shoot on Tilly 3.

Enjoy.

The Scruitineers at the Bulldog Bash helped to raise £ 125.00 in support of Help for Heroes.

We had a strong showing of support for the NAST stand at the 23rd Bulldog Bash. You can read more about it, and see some of the pictures, by going to read this story on the NAST website.

We've had quite a rush of news stories for the past few weeks regarding NAST's trip to Drachten, and Silverstone. You can find these news stories on the NAST website, or by following the links below:

• Drachten - 11, 12 &13 July 2009
• Drachten - Dawn's Super Twins on Tour
• Silverstone Classic Race meeting 24, 25 & 26th July 2009
• Supertwins at Silverstone
• Explosion Super Street Twin (The Meerkat Saga)

We will likely cross post some of the articles here this week as well, until then happy reading.

UPDATED: This has now got the pictures from the workshop attached.

I am indebted to Rene who took Tim, Andy, Dawn and myself to Gerard's workshop just outside Amsterdam when we visited them before moving on to Drachten.

We were given the full VIP guided tour (as well as coffee), it was like being a kid in a sweet shop the first heads we saw belong to Mr Cannon, these were off his top fuel Harley. Next up was Rene's cylinder head and barrells, all billett alluminium, they are so well made you could have one as an ornament on your mantlepiece (or not as Lyn says).

After drooling over all the engine parts we move upstairs to see a top fuel chassais that is being built and should be out on the track soon. Gerard explained everything they were doing in the greatest of detail, it's amazing how 2 and a half hours can just fly by.

We were then shown his own personal project which he started 6 years ago, it now sits in the archive section, literally, and because of customers work it's been left for a while. It is a Top Fuel, big inch, parralel twin which is rare and the only other one that I know of that is raced is The Beast. Because Gerhard's trade is making gears the primary will be gear driven.

There is so much work being done, including a full alluminium body but there is still a long long way to go. Can't wait to see it on the track!!

I took loads of photos which will follow this write up.

We would all like to say a big thank you for such a pleasurable visit

Last week I was sent a Golden Oldie photo, I am indebted to Greasy Tony for sending it, via Brain Udall at hogbitz.

The photo was taken in/or around 1999 at the Bulldog Bash.

Greasy Tony on his big inch FXR, in the near lane, and my good self is riding Black Racer in the far lane.

strange how things happen, only last weekend at Silverstone, I rode Black Racer for the first time in 9 years! And furthermore, Greasy was there aswell! Normally I only ever see him at the Bulldog Bash.

It was good to see you Tony, and thanks for the photo.

Regards, Leso.

Jo Elliot has writen a piece for NAST regarding the trip to Drachten, from the point of view of a Super Street racer. Thanks Jo, and you can all read it by following this link here.

Despite some of the current rumours, the Bulldog bash is going ahead!

Any NAST members who have said they would like work the NAST stand or show there bikes, and possibly do demos at the bulldog, please call me on my moble 07796 360177. There are pit passes available, but in limited numbers!

Regards, Leso.

Our third championship round was held last weekend at Shakespeare County Raceway and after a late start due to rain, we got three qualifying sessions in on saturday and by the end of the day the final qualifying ladder looked like this:

One thousanth of a second seperates Jordon and Scotts qualifiers, fantastic!

The rain was back again saturday night and poured down most of the night and into sunday mid morning, so another late start.

First round and Brett Cordelle went through on a bye run as Joe Dear was a no show. Scott Collier was up against Luke Argyle, Scott dialled in 9.75 to Lukes 9.20 and it was Luke that took the win light with a 9.262 run to Scotts 9.916. Well done to Luke, but we felt the pain for Scott as once again he could find no consistency in his current motor. Jordon Bissell was up against current champ Giselle Moor on her brand new bike, Jordon dialled in 10.00 to Giselles 15.00, but just after the green lights fell both riders suffered engine problems and both had to be recovered from the track. After some discussion with the officials it was decided that this should be re-run, and Jordon went on to take the win light with a 10.162 to Giselles much improved 13.00.

Second round and we saw Jordon on a bye run while Brett Cordelle faced up to rookie Luke Argyle, Brett dialling in 10.95 to Lukes 9.20, and it was new boy Luke who took the win with a 9.327 against Bretts 11.220.

So the final saw Jordon Bissell up against Luke Argyle, Jordon dialled in 10.12 and Luke 9.20, both riders really wanted this win and it showed, a great race which ended in Jordon taking the victory with a 10.143 to Lukes 10.036, very well done to Jordon! He has been so close to his dial in all weekend, a well deserved FIRST win for him.

The closeness of the dial-ins and the closeness of the racing was absolutely fantastic, the standard of machines and the professionalism of these young racers is something we are very proud of, adult motorcycle drag racing will have a some serious contenders in a few years time. Well done to all the lads and lasses, you are all stars.

We would like to thank Shakespeare County Raceway for their help and support with this brilliant and upcoming little class, its going from stength to strength as we always knew it would. We would also like to thank Nick Argyle of Insane Motorcycles for sponsoring the Junior Drag Bike 2009 Championship, which we appreciate very much. All the parents are doing a fantastic job with these bikes, we are lucky that we have such interested and dedicated people in our club, thanks to you all l ! Heres to Round 4, which takes place at the Open Sports Nationals at Shakespeare County Raceway on August 21/22/23

POINTS AFTER ROUND 3

1. Jordon Bissell - 965
2. Brett Cordelle - 745
3. Scott Collier - 605
4. Luke Argyle - 565
5. Joe Dear - 250
6. Giselle Moor - 230

See loads of Info and pics on Junior Drag Bike on Facebook and join us as a fan, or look at our website www.juniordragbike.co.uk

For any more info please ring us on 01246 570304. Many thanks, Sharron Coiller

A friend of ours that we just spent time with when we went to Dracton is selling his Top Fuel bike. He recently sent me this in an email, and I thought some of you might be interested.

Complete Top Fuel Bike with a lot of Spares:

• Super Charger
• Cylinder Head
• Pistons
• Belts
• M.T. Tyre
• Ect.

BEST E/T : 6.5 seconds

Asking Price € 37,500.00 (Thirty Seven Thousand, Five Hundred Euro's)

For more detail email us at info@sharkattack-dragracing.com, or you can call me at 0031 6 20004760

Thank you, René van den Berg

The NAST pit was at the top end, for this meeting, which was handy, watching the trucks go over the finish line, and seeing there times and mph.

A few where hitting 100 mph, not bad for 6plus tons of tractor unit.

Behind us was, truck city, where the truckers spent the entire weekend cleaning them, and sounding there air horns.

NAST top gas and street ET, where the only bike classes racing, with a few super street doing demos.

Again the form book went out of the widow, you will have to read our class reps write ups to see who did who etc. on the track.

NAST had a good time at the truck show, and it would be nice to do again next year. We had 17 enter set, 2 had to pull out but still a very good entry.

3 of the 17, where new members, welcome to NAST:

• Nigel Batsford on his street scrambler style Triumph
• John Monday on his Harley Davidson Sportster sport
• Martin Brooks on his played with TLR 1000

Well done to John and Martin for completing your observed runs.

It was very nice to sit around on Saturday night with a beer, on a warm summers evening chatting with NAST mint!

See you all soon. Regards, Leso

Chris Mott and Joe Elliot have kindly provided summaries for the event from their appropriate class perspectives. You can read their write-ups on the Super Twins website.

• 2009 Round 4 - Top-Gas Summary
• 2009 Round 4 - Street ET Summary

Today, Thursday 25th June 2009, both Les and Andy 'Soapy' Watson appeared in the Eastern Daily Press on page 49, in the Sport section. You can also read about it here.

The paper itself includes a very nice photo of both riders and bikes taken only a few days ago.

We are all delighted that our efforts during that round made the local media, and we hope you will enjoy the photos!

On Friday last Lyn and I went up to Yorkshire to work on the new drag bike, and chill out with George and Loraine.

Lyn says it’s the only place I do chill out and Loraine agrees.

George has done so much to the bike since my last visit! What a top man, thank you George!

We spent Saturday working on the bike, sorting out the seat rails etc. It was part 3 of my frame building course, I haven’t done that much compared to George, but I have done some of it.

Late on Saturday we put the bike on the floor and sat on it. It was a nice moment, a sign that we are getting there! The plan is to race it next year.

George is going to weld the seat rails, then spec can work on the tail pipes. We have had a good site meeting about where the fuel tank/rad/pump are going to live. It won’t be long before it comes back to Norfolk, to have the bodywork made.

I took shed loads of photos, tc ordered me to do so, tc and anna could not come as they had to work (moan, groan). So enjoy the photos of The Polharris so far.

Regards, Leso

Roman Sixta kindly sent this photo to Pavel Kubera, who in turn forwarded it on to me recently. See, honestly I do work sometimes!

Winner and runner-up collecting their Santa Pod trophies and their Super-Twin Dougie's from Round 03!

Congratulations to Otto who won the Czech Competition bike class in the Czech Championship round that was held at Hoskovice. In doing so he set a new personal best of 8.025 seconds! That's fast Otto, well done to you at the team.

Pavel has kindly sent us some photos from a recent event and show he was at.

He had a good run that day into a headwind resulting in a time of 9.662 seconds for the 1/4 mile at 236km/h and 6.35 seconds at 194km/h the 1/8th. On his second race he ended up winning, congratulations Pavel!

In an amazing turn out they had 160 teams taking part in the bike drag racing! What a turn out!

The other photos were from the Motorbike Show Prague 09, which I hope some of you will also enjoy.

Chris Mott has kindly provided a summary for the event from the perspective of the Top-Gas class. You can read his write-up on the Super Twins site by following this link.

I've done a long write-up of the weekend as a summary, not really focusing on the classes but with the odd mention. Kindly enough other people have offered to do write-up's from the perspective of each of the classes that raced that weekend, and they should appear on the Super Twins site in the coming week.

You can read this write-up on the Super Twins site by following this link.

We already have someone that has volunteered to do a write-up of this past weekend's activity from the perspective of the Top-Gas class, and we will try to publish that later this week.

However, we were wondering if someone out there would like to do a write-up for the Street ET class perspective of how the weekend went for them, what they saw as the highs and lows of the weekend.

If you would like to help the club with a report about this past weekend, it only has to be as long as you want to write, then please get in touch with Les or Barrie and have a quick discussion over the telephone.

Joe’s other half Becs asked us to post a note on the website that she will be cutting hair at the Summer Nationals if anyone wants a new look or even just a quick trim!

Scrutineering and Signing On

Please sign on first when you arrive.

Please Note: Scrutineering will not be done in the pits this time. You must go up to the new compound/bay at the top end of the pits.

Friday night starting at 17:00 hrs / 5pm, is open to any class, just turn up to be scrutineered. Finish time will be around 20:00 hrs / 8pm ish.

Saturday morning scrutineering all classes have time slots. NAST Gas and ET is from 11:00 hrs, do not come up before as you will be sent back to the pits.

The running order for Saturday: Gas and ET will be after the jet car, at around 12:00 hrs midday.

Round Two of the 2009 Insane Motorcycles Junior Drag Bike Championship took place last weekend 16/17 May at Shakespeare County Raceway. We were severely limited to qualifying runs due to the bad weather, and we only managed to get one on Saturday and one on Sunday after which the heavens opened and no more qualifying was possible, with all our eliminations completely rained out. Points have been awarded after qualifying only. The qualifying was Brett first, then Jordon, Scott, Giselle and Luke. The usual 25 points for closest to dial in went to Brett Cordelle, and the 25 points best RT went to Scott Collier. So the championship stands like this after two rounds:

1. Brett Cordelle 505
2. Jordon Bissell 480
3. Scott Collier 455
4. Luke Argyle 220
5. Joe Dear 120
6. Giselle Moor 120

The next round of the championship will be on the 11th and 12th July at Shakespeare County Raceway, with hopefully another two riders joining the ranks. Our thanks as always to Julie, Jerry and all the crew at Shakey for their support of this fabulous and expanding class, and to Nick Argyle of Insane Motorcycles for his sponsorship of the championship. Insane Motorcycles can be reached on 01386 41164, and specialise in custom frames and one off designs.

For any information on Junior Drag Bike Racing please contact us on 01246 570304 or look at www.juniordragbike.co.uk, our newly made site by Wizzard Technical Designs, which will be fully functioning shortly.

As many of you know, over the winter break we have worked on Tilly 3. As Lyn pionted out, we run the steamliner, or nothing.

So HQ fibre, Mike Sylvie and I, put together a set of body work.

TLR nose fairing, one off belly pan, and now being made a new front mudgard.

Dave May did the paint work that you can see in the attached photo. Photo taken by Mark Woodhouse, in the pairing lanes at SCR.

So now we have two sets to play with.

More work is planned on the streamliner body, but more of that at a later date.

Just an important reminder that the closing date for Round 4 is the 5th June!

We currently have a small number of entries already in, but you've just about a week remaining to get them sorted and in to take part at this event.

In 1975 Keith parnell riding Rouge et Noir became the first European drag bike rider to break the 9 second barrier . Now well past the age when bus passes are handed out Keith continues to compete in sprints all over the country and delights and amazes all who see his aggressive riding style and low 9 second passes on the Parny Express ZX12R.

So with great delight the NSA would like to announce THE KEITH PARNELL TRIBUTE SPRINT..

The event will take place on the 20th and 21st of June at WESTON ZOYLAND AIRFIELD near Bridgwater, Somerset.

Come and be part of this great event.

Day entry for competitors will be available on both days just bring your bike Full or zip together 2 piece leathers .ACU approved helmet. gloves and riding boots .. And give it a go

Entry fee is £55 for one day or £75 for two to include NSA day membership and ACU licence. Spectators have FREE entry!

More info at www.sprinting.org.uk

The closing date for Round 3 is the 22nd May.

The closing date for Round 4 is the 5th June. PLEASE NOTE: There will be no electricity available at this Round 4 event, so make other plans!

NAST Round 2 at SCR 16th/17th May 2009

This was a fairly small meeting, with only NAST Top Gas, Street ET, and Junior Drag Bike racing with a permit.

There where also some NSA members having a play, and a RWYB, so we had plenty of space in the pits.

I was very pleased to see 9 Top Gas, and 15 Street ET, well done to all of you a good turn out.

Saturday

The weather wasn’t good, with high winds and rain showers, but we did get a qualifying round in, and what a round it was!

I went against Dave Jones, and while I was still trying to find 6th gear Dave was avoiding a pheasant that walked across the finish line!

Chris Mott had a real close look at the armco and most of the track. Robbie Dobbie had front brake failure, Andy ‘Soapy’ Watson went on the full stage lights. Little Joe had a massive tank slapper from mid track to the finish line, you couldn’t make it up, but no one got hurt which is the main thing, not even the pheasant (stupid birds).

We had 3 new NAST racers, Martin Holgate in Top Gas with his beautiful Harley Sportster (now there is a bike for the mint award). Martin got two of his observed runs completed through the weekend, and in Street ET Phil Steele riding Dave Massam’s Buell, and the lovely Bev riding her new Triumph.

Most of you will know Bev as the Marshal working at the end of the fire up road, but now she has done her observed runs, and is a NAST Street racer! Well done girl!

We held our Saturday night NAST site meeting in NAST HQ, what a good meeting it was, lots of input, news, one-liners (thanks Neil) after that the sun came out it was a lovely summer evening.

Sunday

It was really nice at 6 o’clock sunny no wind clear sky, but it did go down hill for the rest of the day.

It was agreed we would run one more qualifying round, which we did at approximately 1250 ish. There where a few racers who did not manage to qualify on Saturday, Brian Udall being one of them, unfortunately due to a flat battery. Brian did a good run only to encounter a pheasant on the finish line, now I don’t know if its the same one that Dave Jones nearly hit, or a different one. Again, what can you say: Stupid birds!

With the elimination ladders all done, a time set for round 1, it rained, and rained and kept raining. At around 3pm that day the meeting was called off, game (no pun intended) over! Who knows, maybe the evil pheasant’s got it the way they wanted it!!

I would like to thank all of the staff at SCR for such hard work, and trying to get us down the track. Having a radio so that we could keep in touch with race control was a top idea, and that worked really well! We will be having one next time.

Well done to Ian Felstead who was the no 1 qualifier in Street ET on his GPZ 500, and I was very pleased with being no 1 in Top Gas.

I was thinking as I drove into Stratford in the sunshine, what a good time we all had, and how happy every one was, despite the weather. Still onwards and up wards, round 3 at Stanta Pod Summer Nationals in June. Don’t forget boys and girls that this Friday is the deadline for your entry forms to be in!

The junior drag bikers started their season at the Springspeed festival, Shakespeare County Raceway, and already the racing is very close. 2008 Champion Giselle Moor was missing from this first round, and Scott Collier, Jordon Bissell, Brett Cordelle and Joe Dear were joined by rookie Luke Argyle in what turned out to be an incredibly close round. Jordon lead the qualifying ladder from session one when he ran a 10.266 on his 10.20 dial in, and Brett ran a 11.066 on his 11.00 dial in. Jordan took the number one spot due to his quicker reaction time, and Scott Collier was third until session four when Scott ran 9.885 on his 9.850 dial in. Joe Dear ran 11.56 on his 11.32 dial, with Luke running into the fifteen second bracket, learning to get to grips with his new bike. Plenty more to come there.

In round one Scott had a bye run and Jordon was up against Luke but disaster for Luke when he couldn’t hold his bike on the line and it crept forward and red lit him, so Jordon taking the win, Brett was set to race Joe, but Joe failed to show and Brett took a bye into the next round.

Round two and Jordon had the bye run, running 10.0 on his 10.20 dial in, and Scott and Brett had to fight it out together, with Scott breaking out of his 9.80 dial after rolling off and braking, and running 9.76, with Brett running through at 11.25 on his 11.10 dial in.

Unfortunately the meeting had to end there due to the time, so no finals were run.

We are pleased to announce that over the weekend a deal was struck with Nick Argyle of Insane Motorcycles, and he is sponsoring the 2009 Junior Drag Bike Championship, so many thanks to him for his interest and support. Insane Motorcycles build custom bikes and choppers to individual design, and can be reached on 01386 41164.

We are having a range of T-shirts and hats designed which will be for sale in the near future, perfect gifts for any child who is interested in drag racing.

The points for Junior Drag Bike after round one stand as follows:

Round two of the Junior Drag Bike Championship will be held this weekend 16/17th May at Shakespeare County Raceway, with reigning champion Giselle Moor back in the pack to stir it up with the boys. They are all keen to achieve the coveted JB1 plate, its going to be very close.

As always thank you to Julie and Jerry and all the team at Shakespeare County Raceway for their support and help with this fantastic class. With more bikes being built as we speak and new riders in the pipeline, we think the next couple of years are going to be great for JDB. For any information on junior drag bike racing, please contact us on 01246 570304 or look at our website www.juniordragbike.co.uk. created and maintained by Wizzard Technical Designs, and is due to be fully functioning within the next two weeks so keep an eye on it.

Just as a quick note to all, there is now a new link on the left for Race Season Points, which will take you to the current seasons points total and that page will have links to the breakdown of points for each specific round.

The meeting that nearly never happened, just a week before this meeting SCR were going to pull the plug due to poor entry levels!

Race entries where down in a big way, for lots of reasons. However SCR were very pleased with NAST. We had the biggest bike entry list, and that’s something to be proud of! Well done to all NAST racers who made it to round 1.

It was good to be back at the track, meeting up with old and new NAST members. I would like to welcome Dave “the hat” Smart with his very fast SV 1000, in the ET class, and his lovely lady Jo, who told me they where a little apprehensive coming to meet up with NAST, worried if they would fit in?

I think I speak for all of us, they did fit in no problem.

Ian Felstead, welcome to you and well done on doing your observed runs. Ian had a very good weekend.

Andy “Soapy” Watson joined Top Gas for the first time, and did very well! He ran a PB, Elapsed Time (ET) of 10.3, on his GLS TL 1000.

It was all so good to see Bob Cornforth back and racing, nice one Bob.

Another well done to Dave Shorthouse ET championship point’s leader!

Steve Partridge also had a good weekend! The crowd pleaser, with his very long mono-shock swing arm smoking the tyre off the line, and teasing the armco, but in the end Steve got the set up right, an ran a PB ET of 10.7! I’ve never seen a racer so happy after despite being knocked out!

The amount of praise I got about ET was unreal! It’s fair to say it is the talk of the pits.

A gentleman of very high standing in the drag racing world came to find me in the pits and gave me £30 to sponsor the ET Class! This was one of the bike classes not sponsored at the event. Whilst I cannot tell you who he is, for good reason, I can say we are very thankful to him.

Top Gas

I was very pleased with my first run with an ET of 9.6s, with a 1.3s sixty foot. Sadly it went down hill from there, but I did keep it in the nines.

I would like to thank HQ Fibre for my lovely new carbon body work, and Dave May for the paint work.

Chris Mott came out with his newly turbo charged v-rod, very nice indeed, and when Chris gets a handle on it he is going to be very hard to beat.

Chris has in the past run on Saturday, blown it up, rebuilt it on Sunday, raced and won on Monday, and it seemed to stay together this weekend! I think he is using a new brand of Super Glue!

Saturday was the best day, with good weather, good runs, all on a good track! Well done to Jon Cross and his team, for the track preparation!

Sunday came with a side wind that did not help, but still ended as a very good day.

Monday, the actual intended race day, did not. The weather was not on our side at all, which is such a shame.

I know ET and Gas did run, and well done to you boys and girls that managed to run.

However, by 5 o’clock I had had enough and my race head had gone, as had a few others, so for the first time ever I went home before the end of the meeting!

I did hear at a later date that the robot ran an ET of 9. 53s! Wow, Top man! That is very fast, especially when I heard the last runs where at around 7.15pm.

I had a good chat with Dave Jones, now running his Harley Davidson v-rod in Top Gas. As some of you may know Dave has run in the Street Class for about 50 years, and last year he moved up to Top Gas Class and found it very hard riding a gasser. So much so he nearly gave up at the end of last season, and I am pleased he did not give up. As Brian Johson said to me at Santa Pod, “never give up!”. Anyway it all came together for Dave, he was so pleased to beat me on one of our runs! Top man, I look forward to many more battles, this year.

I would now like to thank every one who worked at SCR, as they did a fine job, it worked well.

I was only going to do a short write up about round 1 but with the odd glass off red wine to help me, I got a little carried away.

Last thank goes to my Vice Chairman Barrie, who worked his ass off all weekend, well done that man! Barrie wasn’t racing, because of that I had given him lots of club duties to attend during the weekend, and he said afterwards that it was harder than racing!

So next weekend his back racing! See you all at round 2, and take care folks!

Regards, Leso.

Today marks the start of a new direction for the Super Twins club in that we have learnt a lot from the way the club works, the way the internet works, and how we would like it to work for the members.

We have started by putting up a new website for the Super Twins club, on which we would like comments from existing members, as we are trying to refine a template for the site's look, feel and function.

Whilst this is only a small part of the changes to come, it will pave the way to a place where club members will potentially be able to post their own news and information of interest to other club members, and articles about work they have performed on their bikes that they would like to share with NAST.

This is being done with the intention of making it easier for club members to help contribute something back to their club!

Onwards and upwards!

This is an urgent update that confirms that any SuperTwin racer going to Dracton in July MUST HAVE Start-Line permission from the ACU, which will cost £79 (Pounds Sterling).

Please contact Michelle at ACU House on 01788 566400 and she will help you obtain the required Start-Line Permission paperwork.

Please also be aware that you will need to remember to take the following items to Dracton: Your Passport, National Drag Racing Licence, Start-Line Permission and your SuperTwins Club Membership.

In the coming week or two we will be moving the SuperTwins website to a new server, and the website might be down for a while during the transition.

Please do not worry, it will return to service at some point. These are just related to preparations for the future changes going to happen to the clubs website.

Round 2 entry forms are now ready for you to download from the Shakespeare County Raceway website.

This is a direct link to the SuperTwins form, if you would prefer to download it directly: SuperTwins Round 2 Entry Form.

They MUST reach Shakespeare County Raceway by the 24th of April 2009, so get on the case boys n girls.

Don't Forget: This year we HAVE to join, SPRC or APIRA. As you know in the past if you where a member of NAST, that was sufficient. We where warned about this a year ago, now SPRC have made it a rule. So it up to you which one you join but you must join one to race, this can be done at the track on the day, but until you have joined one you won't be able to race.

In the coming weeks we will be doing a structural change to the NAST website, with the intention of making it more usable by all members of NAST, and helping to strengthen our club's community.

These changes are going to take time, and will be introduced in lots of little phases throughout the coming months.

During this time we will only be adding really important news to the NAST and Les Harris sites, to allow us to focus on bringing even some of the basic new working mechanisms to NAST as soon as we can.

Please be patient with us during this time! More information will be announced nearer the time, hopefully of great interest to many of you that are club minded.

Round 1 entry forms are now ready for you to down load from the Shakespeare County Raceway website.

They MUST reach Shakespeare County Raceway by the 10th of April 2009. Mine has already been sent, so get on the case boys n girls.

This year we HAVE to join, SPRC or APIRA. As you know in the past if you where a member of NAST, that was sufficient. We where warned about this a year ago, now SPRC have made it a rule. So it up to you which one you join but you must join one to race, this can be done at the track on the day, but until you have joined one you won't be able to race.

There are going to be 7 rounds this year, 6 of which to count to your points. See you all at the Springspeed Nationals, 2nd-4th May.

Here are some more photos of Pavel's Rebuild for those of you that have been following since he kindly started sending pictures.

Whilst at a deserted Avon Park preparing for Jerry Collier's 40th Birthday Party, Anna and I did a recon of the track.

Now we've all seen the timing boards hundreds of times, and ridden past them even more, but I never really realised just how big they were until Anna stood next to them and I took a picture!

I just thought some of you might also have neglected to pay them attention, so here is a picture with a person in for scale!

Our agents in and around the European vacinity have recently discovered some personages implementing some new and interesting technologies, though information on this is scetchy. All they vere able to get out before zey were shot is a few brief picture's!

Nice pics of a Big Bore Kit, taken this week end. These belong to a NAST Top Gas racer.

All I can say is look out those of you in Top Gas!

Jerry asked me to post a thank you to all those that managed to make it up for his 40th Birthday celebrations! He was very happy to see so many people.

Attached are a few photos that were taken around the track and at the club house. Sorry there isn't more, but you know how things are at a party.

Matt Norwell has a Dyna 4000 Pro Ignition system for Harley's for sale. Attached are pictures to show its brand new, boxed and never used. He is looking for £200 (Pounds Sterling) as these are very expensive these days £400 - £500+ (Pounds Sterling).

You can contact Matt Norwell on 02476344430 or 07857256329 at any time if you are interested.

Back Street Heroes is out, the big bang 300th issue! This issue is dated April 2009, and costs £3.99.

Les is actually to be found on the Readers Lives page, on page 89 of this issue. Bless her that lovely Blue, and thank you!

The first photo shoot of the year was here, and we took Black Racer and Andy 'Soapy' Watson's bike to the studio.

Attached is just a quick photo I took with the mobile when Andy was sat in the seat with some of the models standing around him. There will no doubt be more to see in the coming weeks from the real photographers, but just something we thought we would post in the mean while to let you know about it.

Martin Holgate has recently joined SuperTwins and is bringing his Top Gas Iron Head Harley to the championship.

Welcome onboard Martin, and we look forward to seeing you at the events!

Saturday 7th March, 2009
7pm till late
the Clubhouse
Shakey County Raceway

Theres nothing on at the track, Anthony Hodges has kindly lent us the bar for the evening!

We have DJ's, nibbles, maybe a burger van, and a bouncy castle.

Everyone welcome, children welcome, spread the word, hope you can make it.

Parking in the pits for vans and caravans.

Please let us know either way, Anthony needs numbers for stocking the bar etc.

Sharron, Jerry, Scott and Skye Collier
Website: www.jaderacing.com
Telephone: 01246 570304

We were all saddened to hear that on 28th February 2009 the motorcycle drag racing legend Paul Rose died.

Paul has been involved with racing as long as I can remember, and always since I've been racing myself.

If you aren't aware of this recently, you can read more both on EuroDragster and the associated link on the King Racing website.

Kind regards, Leso

Here are just a few photos from Les' Birthday party this Friday gone.

Don is wanting to go to Dracton this year, and has said he will have space in his vehicle for another rider and bike and has asked if anyone would like to go and help split the travel costs for the weekend to get in touch with him. i.e. If you want to go along, split the ferry and fuel costs for getting there.

You don't have to be a racer, even if you were just wanting to go along and crew, be it for Don or another racer, and still enjoy the weekend at Dracton.

To contact Don in this occasion, just use the Contact Us page on the Les Harris Website and just mention that you are interested in accompanying Don to Dracton.

As most of you know we run Tilly with the streamliner body on at pod, and naked at avon, all or nothing!

This season we can still use the streamliner, and now a newly made TLR 1/2 fairing, with matching belly pan (in otherwords a nice new bike-ini).

We now can keep the air intakes the same.

My very good friends at HQ fibre are doing the work, all in carbon.

As always, I have taken some pictures of work in progress.

I just missed getting a pic with the belly pan on, but in a couple of days it will be done, then its off to Dave May's for paint.

I will keep you up dated, so this all means that I wont be doing runs naked, which must be very good for everybody watching from now on!

From time to time we do have pics of dogs (now, now, stop it !) on this site.

This time its Hillary the Husky, isn't she lovely! How could you not fall in love with her?

Hillary belongs to Marshy the builder, who is doing the work on Lyn's new kitchen, extenson, tiolet & shower etc.

Because, of my lifestye, we cant have a dog, but when I give up racing (if I give up racing) I think I will get a Hillary!

Enjoy the pics!

After the Riders & Drivers meeting this weekend gone, we have learnt that our Finals will now take place at the Extreme Bike Weekend, 10-11th October 2009.

However, the National Finals is still a scoring round for the SuperTwins, so in effect we have 7 race meetings, of which 6 will count towards the championship. It is only the cars that will finish their championships at the National Finals this year. So the Question is when are the finals not the finals? Answer: This season. :)

We know this is a bit of an adjustment, but hope it is sufficient notice for you all.

After having received a number phone calls in the past few weeks relating to errors with the Membership Form download, we are looking into what the problem.

We will try to mention here when the issue has been fixed.

A big thank you to Sandra and Steve for taking the photos and sending us a few examples from the Dinner and Dance a few weeks ago. If anybody would like any photographs from the night then contact Sandra and Steve at Eclipse Photography.

We're trying to organize a 3 race Nitro Harley series at Drachten this year and would like to invite the NAST fuelers to attend, so if you have any ideas that would make it more apealing for your members let me know, like making the points count for your championship, or incorparating our three races with your 6, or anything else that you can think of, please let us know. If you want to follow whats happening here check out the forum at the Explosion Site.

We had a small meeting Sunday with some riders, and officials from Explosion Dragracing, and they have agreed to allow us to have a 3 race series at their events. They have also promised to help us with the organizing, the race dates are: 19-21 June, 10-12 July and 21-23 August, we have our annual meeting on March 1st. Let me know if you need any info, or if your members want me to covey something at our meeting.

What we're looking for now is support from other racers that are interested in what we are doing, our goal is to have sufficient travel money, no start fee, and enough prize money to keep it interesting for everyone that competes. I have also recieved an e-mail from SuperTwin in Scandanavia, and they are also interested. Hope to hear from you soon.

What we discussed at our meeting was that the 3 things that we wanted most was:

1. Travel money
2. No start fees
3. Decent prize money

For now eXplosion has agreed to hold any start fees to put into a pot and to be distributed at the end of the series.

We have also agreed to adopt your (NAST) points system, and the UEM scuteneering procedures, we are now in contact with some potential class sponsors to underwrite the costs of the events.

What we need is some positive feedback from European top fuelers, that are willing to make the trip over.

I've got a very good response from the Scandinavian super twin organization and they have expressed interest to adding our 3 races to their Nordic Cup series.

The important thing is we want to make it affordable for the races and to give the racers the respect that they deserve, we haven't had an official top fuel Harley class in the Netherlands in about 10 years, and we really want to use this in our marketing strategy.

Karl Thiecke
www.siracing.nl

Some more photo's sent in by Pavel showing stages nearing completion of his rebuild, some of which include start of the new paint job for the panels as well.

Pavel also mentioned that he'd been looking at the recent series of photos we had put up regarding what could go wrong. Quite interesting as it's been keenly followed by many people in recent months, and we have received lots of emails about it.

Our friends Tim and Annette have sent us some photographs which might be of interest to some of our mechanically minded people.

Here are some photographs of a recently constructed Remote Control Aircraft, a Ladybird, which was originally purchased by my dear friend Stuart who sadly passed away before he could build it.

Tim and helper Annette assemblied this to finish the build, and kindly let us have some photos as well as a link to a website forum when Tim details a lot of the build and modifications in words and photos during the many stages of the project.

Jerry Collier has recently set up a business working for himself offering a design fabrication and welding service.

Here are some photos of the latest complete bike he has just finished, this is Giselle Moor's new JDB which has been made in chrome molly to house two different engines, a 125cc Aprillia for now and a Suzuki 500 for her to step up into Supertwins with when she reaches 16.

He also reworked his own H2 chassis into the pro-stock chassis you see him riding now. As well as complete chassis, Jerry can design fabricate and mount exhaust pipes, wheelie bars, do one-off machining of parts, re-loop chassis, as well as the other side of his business which is stainless and mild steel balustrades, gates and security posts.

Basically if its made from some kind of metal, Jerry can weld it. His website is www.projoint.co.uk or call on 01246 570304 any enquries are more than welcome. Everything is built with care and perfectionism, and he would not send out anything he would not race himself.

We are at the tracks most of the summer and can provide an on-site service as we have portable equipment also. No fuss, no bull, just amazing work with a down to earth attitude.

Following on from our team site meeting with GLS in Yorkshire regarding the Polharris drag bike, we now have a new and very trick top yoke!

Now GLS can machine yokes, but to help out with the work load, I farmed this job out.

I went and saw one of my calendar sponsers Roy Martin, who runs BILLETBIKEBITS, most of his work is CNC and Roy is happy to do one offs aswell.

I took the whole front end, with bars, and a photo of a GLS top yoke. In no time at all I had a call from Roy, all done. Mint!

What a superb job, real class, even has my name on the top! Happy, oh yes, plus the price was right!

As always, heres some pics of the yoke. So if you need anything made for your bike, get in touch with Roy Martin.

WWW.BILLETBIKEBITS.COM mobile 07793677736, fax 01508 558775.

Regards Leso, and the Team

This week we will be doing some of the photos of the after effects, and the left overs when these things occur!

Attached to this post are some photos of the aftermarth of engines, frames and bikes for your viewing.

This is the 3rd Dinner Dance held by SANTA POD and AVON PARK that we have attended.

Some where nice to go in the winter, and meet up with every one and a chance to dress up and look smart.

Each year more NAST members are coming along, we even had the committee there, and had time on Sunday morning for a site meeting!

The evening meal and breakfast were both top quality, and the staff of the Park Hotel were very friedly and helpfull, full marks to them!

After all the awards where given out and the disco was in full swing, we had an after dinner dance party in my room (nothing new there then) what a laugh that was! Here are some of the photos I took, enjoy.

Hope to see you there next year!

Regards Leso, and the Team

Hi everyone! A friend of mine has a trailer for sale, and I thought it might be of interest to some of you racers out there. Have a read of these details and look at the photos attached to this post:

This trailer is in very good condition. It has just come back from the south of Spain and proved very capable.

It is a four wheel trailer 2.290mtr wide x 2.80mtr high x 7mtr long it can be towed by any 4x4 or any transit sized vehicle . I used it to run a mobile Tattoo business in Spain and towed it behind my motor home with a small car inside. We think it would be ideal for a bike racing trailer or similar.

I have had it independently valued by page trailers of Gt Yarmouth and he valued it at £3500, although that is not what I'm going to be asking.

It has two ramps that can be positioned at any point along the tailgate. And they store neatly under the body and are lockable.

It comes with two spear tyres ratchet straps for car or bike, water bottles, and electric cable for hook up to mains, Tow bar lock and a wheel clamp. As you can see from the photos it has a kitchen at one end with a sink and hot water heater. Plenty of storage and shelving.

It has a side door with retractable steps. And a back loading door the size of this door is 61" high by 591/2" wide. It is lockable from the inside, and the side door has two locks as do the ramps, side flaps and genii box.

The trailer has a fitted awning on the near side ideal for parking under in wet weather. It has 4 corner jacks in good working order.

It has just been fitted with floor mounted tie downs. There are two gas heaters installed and an outside gas bottle cabinet . Two sky lights both in good working order and no leaks. It has an extractor fan and two sliding windows. It has lighting fitted through out and several 13amp plug sockets.

I have just had the trailer serviced brakes, lights, and tow hitch. It is completely legal and fitted with the long vehicle signs on the rear.

For sale today for a quick sale just £2500.

I have tried to be honest in my description of this trailer, and there are photos attached to this post which can be viewed by clicking on the title above, but if you have any questions please call Harry on 07990935894.

John "The Robot" Hackney, sent me a text from pod, NAST Street ET Racer little Joe Elliott, had just ran a new mph PB 139!

So I rang John, who was up in the tower, as we were chatting Joe did a run, with a new Personal Best ET 10.49 at 140.3 mph!

That's good going, on a cold track with a 9-16 mph side wind, well done Joe! No wonder he is the NAST ET no1 plate holder.

Just after that run it started to snow, John said he could not feel his feet and was frozen!

So watch out in ET, Joe is on the case!

On the weekend of the 24-25th January, the whole team went to Yorkshire, to stay with George and Lorraine, which is always good, as we havent been there for months.

On the Saturday George, Tim and I had a site meeting about the Polharris Drag Bike, while the girls walked the dogs, and then went shopping.

Not much has happened to the new bike for the last six months, for one reason or another, and we spent the afternoon working out a plan of attack.

When the girls got home they found three very happy and fired up men, so progress will be made, and plan on doing some testing at the end of this year, we will keep you updated.

We also had a good look at the two hill climb cars (both V8 flatheads) that George is working on.

Because the meeting went well, we had a party on Saturday night, but thats another story!

We left for home late on Sunday, after spending a top weekend at GLS HQ. It was Anna's first vist, and she fell in love with the place (as we all have) and did not want to come home!

As always I took some pictures, they are attached to this article, so enjoy!

Regards Leso, and the Team

Following on from last weeks stack of photos of things going wrong.

This week we are doing some more of the action shots of the bikes. Next week we will be doing some of the photos of the after effects, and the left overs!

Any nast racer planning on going to dracten, this July 11-13th, heres some cross channel news.

I have just booked with Norfolk Line, Dover to Dunkirk. We got a very good deal.

Tim and I are going in the transit with the caravan, for the return trip package, it was £105.02. The 2p was a fuel surcharge for the ferry!

I am happy with that deal. Hope this helps.

At present, there is us and one other NAST Racer going (on the same ferry) anyone thinking of making the the trip, please let me know.

There will be more updates, regarding ACU paper work, that we will need to to race in Dracten, and the invites from Dracten. etc.

Any problems, please contact me.

Pavel kindly has sent us some more photo's of his rebuild in stages. As you can see, if you compare to the previous Part 1, that it's progressed on quite well since!

Just recently Turbo kindly sent me this image which was done for him by a very nice chap. However, he may explain it better, so here are his words:

I met a nice chap with a very trick Buell a while ago and it turns out he is a top-notch, commercial photographer named Garth Dale. When he saw my bike he was so impressed he decided it had to be the subject of one of his fantastic 'PAINTOGRAPH's' which he does for bikers! We spent a great day in his well equipped studio and he then went away and spent endless hours on his computer to generate this finished artwork. He has decided to join our merry band of sponsors (we are in Sherwood forest after all) and supply superb images for us.

Should you wish to be immortalised just get in touch with him through his web site http://www.paintography.co.uk his charges for bikers are well below his commercial rates as it is his passion!

If you want more commercial photographs of any other subject then go to http://www.garth.co.uk

Picture copyright 'GARTH DALE 2009' (and he does enforce that copyright!)

Faster, quicker, faster, until the thrill of speed overcomes the fear of death. Or you run out of money!

www.turboville.co.uk. Mr.Spokehead, a tribute to Jim McClure.

This week we received a stack of photos of things going wrong. It was huge!

As a result we thought we would perhaps phase them onto the site in smaller groups to let you all really look closely at some of these pictures of things going wrong.

Mr Stedman recently sent me a few photos from a shoot last year which I liked, so here they are attached to this post.

Many thanks to Mr Turboville for this wonderful photo he sent us recently of me On Duty at Santa Pod. Nice one, thanks.

Pavel has kindly sent us some photos of his bike being rebuilt from the frame up, which I thought some of you might enjoy looking at.

Don has kindly sent us a summary of pictures from his recent Tour of New Zealand.

Here is an example of what can possibly go very wrong in a single run!

Now Mr Turboville has sent us some examples of what can possibly go wrong in 6 seconds! I think this is the one that puts all of us on duty into potential heart attack country!

Here is another fine example of what could go wrong, kindly sent to us by Mr Turboville of something that actually happened to him in such a time!

Photo's kindly provided by Pete Roberts, Ivan Sansom, Stefan Boman, Patrick Jacobsson.

Thank you to those that spotted that the previously published dates didn't seem to be correct. We have looked into them, and they were right, the dates have now been corrected.

The dates that were wrong should have been:

Round 4 - Santa Pod - June 27th/28th - Truck Show - NOT the previously mentioned 28-29th

Round 5 - Shakespear County Raceway - August 22nd/23rd - Open Sport Nationals - NOT the 22-24th as previously mentioned

These pictures just go to show you what could possibly go wrong in 8 seconds down a drag strip! Well handled and recovered from that situation, as it could have so easily gone the other way.

I think the worst thing about a run like this is standing on the start line and watching. It never seems quite as bad for the rider as for the on-looker that see's exactly what's going on as it happens, where as the rider is mostly instinctively reacting and dealing with the situation at hand with the help of masses of adrenaline to focus sharply on only the problem.

Once again we are thankful fo Steve Moxley for his coverage and article on page 103 covering NAST, including a picture of myself with streamliner, and one of another NAST'er, Nick Holland

We will be running in the NAST Top Gas Championship, run over 6 rounds, at two tracks, Santa Pod, and Shakespeare County Raceway.

I will be racing my TL 1000, gaser Tilly 3. We will also be using our streamliner body work, when track and weather conditions allow.

Work is under way on some mods to the spare fibre glass streamliner body, and we hope to conduct some aerodynamic testing very soon.

Also, because theres such a huge difference,between running with the streamliner on, or running with all most nothing, and the changes it makes, to the air in-take system, we are fitting a carbon TLR nose fairing, and small belly pan to cover streamliner brackets.

This will mean the air intake set up can stay the same, it's nice to have the choice.

The data logger will be in use, and we hope to learn so much from it, biggist problem is me understanding what it tells us, I struggle with a moble phone! So there will be lots of info to down load, and study, so we can make changes to go faster.

Going faster is always our aim, so we aim for low 9s, 9.4s is the first target, we cracked the 140 mph last season at Pod, anything above that will be good. We are going to film every run, I need to see what I am doing off the line.

Every season I go out to win the championship, and this season is no different, maybe I will, maybe I won't, one thing I do know is, I will give it my best shot. I've got a good team with me, so together we hope to have a lot of fast racing, and so much fun.

Here is wishing you all a very Happy Christmas this year, and hope you all have a wonderful and relaxing time, and break into the coming New Year with style.

Pavel Kubera and Klara Cermakova, kindly sent us some pictures sumarizing the best of their 2008 Season, showing some wonderful photos that allow us to see what things are like for them racing in the Chez Republic and Hungary.

I don't know about everyone else, but I find it interesting to see how other racers compete and where they take place. I find some of the photos unique, as I have never seen a drag bike racing a aerobatic stunt plan before either.

I hope some of you find these as interesting as we have.

Niel Stedman kindly took the time to send us some photos that he took at the National Motorcycle Museum, and I thought they might be of interest to some of you. I know I have found them interesting and am planning to go to see the exhibit myself.

Good afternoon one and all.

NAST Race Dates 2009.

Round 1 - Shakespear County Raceway - May 2nd/4th - Springspeed Nationals

Round 2 - Shakespear County Raceway - May 16th/17th

Round 3 - Santa Pod - June 13th/14th - Summer Nationals

Round 4 - Santa Pod - June 27th/28th - Truck Show

Round 5 - Shakespear County Raceway - August 22nd/23rd - Open Sport Nationals

Round 6 - Santa Pod - September 26th/27th - National Finals

NAST Fun Dates:

July 10th/12th 2009 - Drachten

August 6th/9th 2009 - Bulldog Bash

October 10th/11th 2009 - Santa Pod - Extreme Bike Weekend

November 7th 2009 - Santa Pod Flame and Thunder Show

November 14th 2009 - NAST AGM/Party.

Thats it for now, anymore and I will let you all know.

Two rock nights are held each year at the shifnal war memorial club, money raised going to the NADB.

Lyn and I, try and do both, its funny, a lot of people think we live in or near Shifnal, because we are there so much.

The last one was held on Friday the 28th of November 2008, which was also Suzy's birthday.

Two bands played {sorry did not get there names} and filling in was Tonto, with his rock disco {who I booked for the 2009 NASTt AGM/party } it was a sell out gig, and a very good night was had by all, it was good to meet up with every one again.

I took loads of pics, enjoy.

Sorry to say folks, Les is ill this week and I've a lot to do this week, so I don't have a lot of time to spare to update the website this week. Hopefully things should return to normal next week.

Here's hoping you all have a good weekend in the mean while.

This information and report of the show was kindly sent to us by Jeremy Cookson, Shakespeare County Raceway. Thank you Jeremy.

This years Classic Car Show had expanded its interest in classic motorcycles with a brand new area dedicated to bike and scooters dating back from pre-war to 80s modern classics. The Pavilion, situated next to the Classic Car Show halls featured classic motorcycle clubs, displays of rare and unusual bikes, a seminar area, motorcycle traders and bike auto jumble for people looking for that much sought after part.

Part of the display was provided by the National Sprint Association with four bikes on display including Phil Steele’s 'Rouge et Noir 2' 750cc Triumph drag bike which was perviously owned by Keith Parnell, and Brett Cordelle’s Junior Drag Bike. While across the way on the UK Honda Turbo Owners Club stand, NAST veteran ‘Turbo Tim’ Boutle had his Street ET class Honda on display complete with info and photos of the bike in action.

Hi Guys,

Heading north now, have had a couple of days in Invercargill and Wanaka and am now heading for Haast and Franz Joseph.

You'll be glad to hear that the weather has turned a bit - rain forecast for later today!

Bike still working fine, but will need a new back tyre by the time I return it.

Have caught up with a few old friends for a beer and a natter - been really good.

Will have a better report in a few days time.

Regards, Don

In supplement I send photo of our team Junior Dragbike 50ccm for your inspiration :-).

Best on 1/4 mile 15.4 sec and 133 KPH rider is a girl: Any Svobodova 12 years old (Any driving bike from 6years old). She is a holder of czech junior dragster record and Hungarian speed record 135km/hod!!

Last friday night a few nast members, Barrie and Viv, Tim {tc} and Anna, Lyn and I went to the eddy to watch the almaboobies.

I had heard loads of good things about this all girl rock band.

Three sisters, Victoria (lead), Elizabeth (bass), Alexandra (drums). Alex has had an arm injury, and Joe helped out on drums by standing in for a few sets.

I am glad I went! A top band, not only can they play but they look good as well! We had a top night.

They are booked for the 2009 nast AGM, dont miss them they are MINT!

Check out ther web site: www.thealmaboobies.com.

Just recently we went to see my new grandson, little Archie with his proud parents Mum Abby and Dad Rich. Here are a few pictures of the little chap and myself.

Now, where did I put the rules for Junior drag bikers????

Hi Guys,

I've now made it to Dunedin (my home town) and I've covered just over 3500kms so far. Getting a bit of a numb bum from the seat on the Suzuki, so I'm having a couple of days off.

Was taken to the local HOG Group Christmas do on Saturday - even won a couple of raffle prizes! Going to the local BSA Owners Club meeting this evening.

Weather has taken a bit of a dive today, not particularly cold, but heavy showers.

Glad to see that the AGM went off OK - hope there weren't too many hangovers.

Will be trying for the southern end of NZ in the next couple of days - hope to get a picture or two.

Best regards to all

Don

This year we moved the AGM , to Shifnal War Memorial Club, and what a good idea that was (well done Netty), its an ideal spot, with everything we need, a good sized n fully equiped kitchen, a snooker room with 3 tables, large function room with a stage,n large bar, and, a comfortable members room, n bar, where we held the afternoon meeting. It also has a large car park up front, and one out the back,which we used to park the race trucks and campers.also, its only 2 miles from the M54, so its not hard to find, or get to !

The icing on the cake is the bar prices, which is a big help. Local accomodation is very good and close by with, again, sensable prices.

On the Saturday morning the girls, Lyn n Viv prepared the food, this year with the help of Anna, TC's lovely lady, welcome aboard darling. While Barrie and I, got the room ready, sorted out the paperwork, trophys and awards, and Tim Hooper (Netty's other half) installed the nast chirstmass tree.

The AGM started at 3.30 ish, it was nice to see so many NAST members, and invited guest.

With everyone sitting comfortabry, we soon got through the agenda, it was most pleasent, and I would like to thank every, even Neil for being so well behaved and constructive, and of course very funny.

Right on with the meeting.

The committee, stays the same Eve, Barrie and myself, with Lorna running the webb site (with Ric helping out when needed). Steve remains in charge of the merchandise. The tech committee has gained an extra member thanks Chris. It was agreed that NAST is affiliated to NABD.

The 2009 race dates where discussed, we will run a 6 round series, looks like 3 ACU rnds at each track. Junior drag bike racers, coming into nast, and running in street et, was disscused, everyone was happy with this, they are most welcome to join up to race at 16. however, certain extra rules will apply, and changed a little, the tech commette, will be involved with this.

After a 15 minute sanatiy break we got to the best bit , the presentations, and we have photos of all the winners ,runners up ,etc, kindy taken by Tim ,our chirstmass tree mover. Netty did the honers, n gave out the awards.

It's nice to see the racers getting their trophys, which they raced hard for. Well done to all of you.

What's even nicer, is watching the face of the person getting an award they didnt know was incoming. for the first time in ten years I saw Steve Moxley stunned, when his name was called out, for an award.

To finnish off it was the silly awards with our Barrie, getting 2, and the Robot getting one, well done lads.

So, to sum up a very constructive, funny, painless meeting.

We then attacked the wonderfull spread, which was very well received.

From then on it was well and truly beer oclock, the sensable bar prices came into their own. Bliss!!!

We had a band, called Teazer, who where spot on, and did us proud.

We all had a mint evening, and would like to thank all our guests that came along and joined in.

People,drifted/staggerd/fell into cabs n left around 1 st (I'm not too sure but I think that was about the time)

An after party was held right next door at Netty's,which went on till 5ish.

Breakfast was served in the Memorial Club,from 9 till 11:30, full english breakfast accompanied by tea or coffe and all for £5,which was needed,mint.

I would like to say a big huge thank you Kath, for letting us use, the club,and for looking after us ,n cooking breakfast.

Plans are already under way for next year's.

Wishing you all a Happy Chirstmass,

Leso.

Hi, Guys,

Made it to the north end of New Zealand yesterday - see pic attached.

Hope the AGM goes well, thinking of you while I'm on some glorious roads (not).

Beer is OK, food is great - sausages made of real meat!

Sun shining, empty roads!!

Don

On Saturday the 1st of November 2008, my daughter gave birth to a lovely baby boy. Whilst he was 6 weeks premature, weighing in at 5lb 1oz, both he and his mother are doing well.

I just thought I would share the news with you all. A very Happy Leso

Here is a short extract from a recent Press Release relating to Skillnet Apprentices spending time at Santa Pod with Northants Nitro motorcycle racing team during the National Finals. I thought some of you might be interested in the read.

Pavel Kubera recently sent us this poster of his team and his STM bike. We thought it was pretty good and worth showing you all.

Here are a few photo's of Don Ervine, one of our Trusty Super Twins members, who is currently in the process of doing a 3,500 mile journey around New Zealand on the motorcycle shown in these pictures.

Here is a lovely picture taken by and copyright © Colin Donisthorpe. I liked it, and he kindly found me at Flame & Thunder and gave me a CD with this great picture on.

A nice picture of the guys that comprise Nitro FM, who I am sure aren't seen all that often.

I just thought I would show some of you the crowd that we saw at this years Flame & Thunder.

Here are some pictures of some of the Dragsters at the Flame & Thunder this year, including this wonderful Junior Dragster, which the team have spent a large amount on.

Saw this beautiful old truck at Flame & Thunder. Sadly the owner wasn't preasesnt to ask. I think it's late 40's or early 50's by it's appearance. If anyone has more information about this lovely old truck, we would love to know more about it. Please do get in contact us via the website Contact Us page.

If I had a truck like this to transport a vehicle to an event, I would almost get a car to race, just so I could show off the truck all the time!

At first I was going to do a write-up regarding this, but as Mr Turburville has done such a mint one, we are going to put his here for you all to read as well.

Also, if you click on the NSA 50th Anniversary Sprint title above, you will see some pictures I took on the day shown at the very bottom below Mr Turburville's write-up.

TURBOVILLE-SLIGHT RETURN

Well I thought my season was over after the national finals and had reconciled myself to a long, cold, winter of nitro deficiency, most depressing! What made it worse was that after our all night thrash at the finals to replace the damaged cylinders and pistons, the bike was all ready to race, 'good to go', and was going to sit there looking at me all winter. As the weekend of the 18/19th approached the weather improved with one beautiful, brisk, sunny day after another as if to annoy me even more after a ruined, rainy, race season! I just had to have one last blast and noticed that Santa Pod were hosting the National Sprint Association's 50th anniversary meet that weekend. There was going to be a lot of famous faces and machines including a lot of my all time heroes. I made a quick call to Tony Hodgson (chairman of the NSA) who said he would be delighted for me to join in the proceedings so I dug out my best Simpson 'pudding basin' crash-hat, donned my goggles and set off!

Brum and Chris from 'Northants Nitro' agreed to help at the drop of a (flat) hat but couldn't make it until the Sunday. Setting the rig and bike up takes over half a day minimum and three people to put up the awning so I was there Saturday by myself in a jam! They pitted my truck opposite the lovely 'Pit Stop Restaurant' right next to Martin Hill's truck and awning and this was to be my salvation. I tried to get hold of Martin but he was away in the States and could not be reached. I know Martin quite well and hoped he wouldn't mind one very careful squatter for the day as the strong headwind made pitting outside impossible with all the dust and debris flying around. So I cheekily moved in to his pit, thanks mate, big drink coming your way and good luck at the 'Flame and Thunder' on November 1st.

There was a big turn out of a very wide variety of machines for the 50th Anniversary, from modern to vintage and we had a great time wandering the pits and marvelling at the sprint machines which are quite different to drag machines! Henry Body, Dennis Norman, Sheelagh Neal, Bernard White, Pete Williams and John Hobbs, all the greats, there with bikes racing just as they were in their hey-day. The smell of Castrol R wafted down the pit lanes as racers bump started their bikes in the 'drifting' area of the pits. They even had their own version of Crazy Tak, a Japanese enthusiast named Shinya Ishigami was there with a really neat 1953 Triumph T100 which he thrashed until it broke. We had a lot of visitors to the Fireforce awning that weekend curious about the strange looking monster of a bike that lurked within, most hadn't seen a modern day supertwin close up and were amazed at the size of Mr. Spokehead. A thousand questions were posed and answered on Sunday. One very special visitor came and had a nice chat then asked to borrow some nitro. I of course obliged and he thanked me, shook my hand, and said "nice to meet you, my names Brian Chapman", well after I got off my knees (we're not worthy) I went over to look at two of my all time favourite bikes, the legendary 'Mighty Mouse' and it's big brother 'Super Mouse'. These were the bikes that inspired me so much in my youth and to see Brian still racing them was an all time dream come true! Further down the pits there was another bunch of modern racers causing a bit of a stir so we ambled down to take a look. It was Barry Holland and Mick Hand with their new age funny bike on it's maiden outing. What a fantastic piece of kit! Lorcan Parnell was going to do the riding honours and it all seemed to go pretty well, with a strong burn-out, but then they found out that their crank-case breather needed to be double it's size! They seemed happy with it all though. John Hobbs put in some great mid eight second passes and looked like he had never taken a break. He told me that was the fastest he had gone in twenty years! The track was surprisingly good considering the cold and strong head-wind, coupled with the fact that there had been no big cars laying rubber down for a while but some of the modern bikes were having trouble hooking up off the line. Keith Parnell was there on his ZX12 but also had the new re-incarnation of his old Rouge et Noir Triumph there. Bikes were buring out the 'proper' way by putting their front wheels against the towers as they always did, the memories flooded back!

I would like to thank the NSA members who patiently lined up to race only to watch me seeming to 'push-in' at the head of the queue each time I ran, there is a reason for this! A big motor like mine, running a big dose of nitro, normally aspirated, needs to be a certain temperature to run. The pumps on our bikes are so big and deliver so much fuel that you are in danger of drowning the spark if conditions are not right, and nitro needs heat to burn. If it is below 15 degrees c. then you are in danger of blowing the motor to hell, and it was on the verge all weekend. The Pod staff know this and I was instructed to warm the bike up in the pits, bring it straight down to the line, give them the nod and they would run me there and then. They even gave the track a quick prep to help me out, total professionals! Apologies if anyone got upset at my jumping the queue, i am not really that rude!

I got three runs in and finally softened the clutch enough to make a decent'ish pass and we ended the day with a nice soft, wheel-up, 8.17 at 191 mph. What I didn't realise until today was that it was the fastest and quickest time of the meeting! Definitely a wonderful day of racing and the perfect way to end the season.

I would like to thank the NSA for having us, Santa Pod Raceway for looking after us, Sue for feeding us, Brum and Chris for crewing and to Martin Hill for housing us.

Don't forget that the massively popular 'Flame and Thunder' at Santa Pod on November 1st. will be your last chance to see some great Jet action on the hallowed track and sniff some Nitro!

Results from the race are

Class 4 - 250cc Racing
First Place, Mike Nelthorpe, Aprilia RS 250cc won with a time of 13.04s

Class 6 - 500cc Racing
Second place, Ric Naylor, Top-Gas Yamaha RD with a time of 9.83s

Class 8 - 1000cc Racing
Third place, Les Harris, Top-Gas Suzuki TL1000 with a time of 10.02s

Class 9 - Unlimited Racing
First Place, Ian Turburville, Top-Fuel Harley, with a time of 8.17s

Back Street Heroes: Issue 295, November 2008, Page 28-32
Streetfighters: Issue 177, November 2008, Page 87

Back street heroes, November 2008 Issue 295, has done us proud, a five page feature on my Harley, Black Racer. Blue bless her has done a fine job of the words, that came from this site, but changed a little, a love story indeed, plus top pics, as always taken by Simon Everett. Also a mention for NAST, its in the shops now, and well worth a look.

I was recently contacted by Pavel Kubera, a fellow racer from the Czech Republic. He was asking for details about taking part in Super Twins racing at Santa Pod in the coming year, 2009. Kindly he provided some photos of his bike (the White bike), and also of a colleage of his that has been an inspiration to him, by the name of Roman Sixta (the Silver bike).

We look forward to his possible participation in the coming year!

I was very pleased that a good friend of mine Kirsty came to Santa Pod for the National Finals on the Sunday (third time lucky darling), what with cars breaking down, and mates letting her down she made it in the end, and the good news is Kirsty is coming back next year. I meet her at a photo shoot in Tamworth last February and you may have seen some of the pics of Kirsty before, if you havent here are some to look at. Enjoy!

The NAST Mint Trophy is now fully completed and ready to go to the AGM, for the Best Appearing Bike of 2008.

If you click on the title text for this article, you will be able to see a photo of the trophy.

The 2008 drag racing season, has come to an end, where does the time go, it doesn't seem possible, it's like it only started a couple of weeks ago. What a start, the weather was against us big time! round 1, we ran on the Saturday morning, then it rained non stop. Round 2 was much the same, did some runs, then rain yet another meeting rained off, the sad part is it still costs the same to enter, get there, and sit and watch the rain fall, as it does race.

As you know I also work at Pod, and first big meeting of this year, we had snow !! how mental is that. The very next weekend, I was at Pod hoping to get some track time on Tilly, and yes more snow ! it wasnt until round 3 the Summer Nationals at Pod that we saw the sun, and with no rain or snow. It was a good meeting, I was very happy runing a 9.55 et at 139 mph.we got this meeting finished, and gave out, the trophys. Rounds 4, 5 and 6 all got finished as well. We also got our 140 mph, in fact 140.64 and we have backed this up loads of times now.

I got third spot again this year, we are running faster, the only problem is the other racers are as well, but its been good fun, a blast/hit, I love it, as if you didnt know that already. So to sum up, a bad start due to the weather, but it all came good towards the end. roll on 2009,we can do it all over again.

Kind regards all, Leso

Another fine example of Annette being extremely well organised, as she is in normal life.

As many who attented the last race event will be aware, our 2009 Les Harris Drag Racing Calendars are now on sale, at just £5 from me, or £6 posted to you.

This is the fifth year we have created a Calendar, and we think it is the best one yet. Scott and I had a lot of fun putting this one together, and we hope you like it!

We have had more Calendars printed this year, as we sold out completely last year.

I would also like to send out a big thank you to everyone who has helped make this happen. I have been sent dozens of CD's, with thousands of pictures to choose from. I've now got so many I am starting to put my book together, but more of that in future posts.

I would also like to thank all the sponsers, with out them there would not be a Calendar, and of course everyone who kindly buys one from us.

Kind regards all, Leso

Some details regarding this years NAST AGM are just being confirmed, and will be made available to you all soon.

This year it is being held at the Shifnal War Memorial Club, 1 Priorslee Road, Shifnal, TF11 8HD, on the 8th November, 2008. More details about the Event, including some information regarding local accomodation, can be found by clicking here.

On Sunday teh 17th we competed in Scrapheap Challenge at Hever Castle in Kent, and SuperTwins Top-Gas Team had a wonderful day out!

The weather treated us to a lovely sunny day in which to enjoy ourselves and our tinkering.

At present, hopes are for the programme to be aired in the Spring of 2009. We will keep you updated if we hear any different.

A big thankyou to everybody that helped make this build possible, and to all those that turned up in attendance to support us through out the day!

For those that may already know her well, I have had Black Racer for quite some time.

As I had earlier promised, I have continued the story about my relationship with this bike over the years.

The updated story is now available in The Bikes section, and you can read more by clicking on this link.

Sunday 16th August 2008 - Scrapheap Challenge at Hever Castle

Hever, Near Edenbridge, Kent, TN8 7NG.
Telephone: 01732 865224
Website: www.hevercastle.co.uk

This weekend the SuperTwin's Scrapheap Challenge Team will be competing at Hever Castle! Yay us!

The kind folks at RDF Television kindly provided us these details in their Friends & Family pack. I could send this out to all those that have shown an interest in attending, but thought it would be easier to place it here and let you all have a place to re-check the details easily without being near your home computer.

Anyway, here are the details for the day and the event:

• TEAMS - Please arrive at 0800
• FRIENDS AND FAMILY - Please arrive at 0915
• Friends and family arriving with teams will not be able to enter the course until this time, any friends and family arriving late may not be given free access to the grounds.
• Friends and family will be given wrist bands to access The Castle.
• When on the course they must take clear direction from the floor manager as to where they can go.

• Enter by Castle Visitor Entrance to the RIGHT of the Castle entrance, through wooden gates and follow signs for 'Scrapheap Challenge' - see Site Map and Directions
• Private/passenger cars - park in Visitor Car Park as above
• Towing vehicles / machine transporters - to be parked in Visitor Car Park for loading and departure

• On arrival please state the name of your team and team member to the person on the gate.
• You will be issued with blue bands to gain access to The Castle and Grounds.
• Dogs are permitted in the grounds on leads only.

• Teas and coffees will be available from production throughout the day.
• A hot lunch will be provided for team members only.
• The Pavilion and Moat Restaurants are open from 10.45. Hot food is available.
• There are public toilets in The Pavilion and Moat Restaurants.

• Please bring clothing suitable for all occasions. Waterproof clothing, umbrellas as well as suitable footwear. Please also bring sun cream and hats it might be hot and summer-like !
• Feel free to bring team costumes to wear during the day.
• We shall be providing all the relevant safety gear for your challenge.

PLEASE NOTE - ONLY follow brown castle signs with HEVER - there is another castle near by.

• From M25 Junction
  Follow Brown 'Hever Castle' tourist signs - A22 to Godstone - roundabout 1st exit onto A25 Oxted Road (Oxted/Westerham) - Right onto B269 Kent Hatch Road (Crockham Hill) - at Crockham Hill LEFT onto B269 Spout Lane towards Four Elms (NB: diversion in place through Edenbridge town centre from 28 July 4 weeks - Four Elms crossroads slight right straight on B2027 (Tonbridge) - RIGHT fork at How Green Lane - over Railway Line - Turn RIGHT into Hever Road - pass Hever Golf Club on left - over river - turn LEFT into Castle entrance - through wooden gates onto single track drive - follow visitor parking signs and 'Scrapheap Challenge' signs to Car Park. Please park as directed
• From M25 Junction 5
  Take A21 towards Tonbridge - turn RIGHT onto B2027 Rings Hill/ PEnhurst Road - follow railway line on LEFT - pass Penshurst Station (Bough Beech) - at Bough Beech turn LEFT into Hever Road - Pass Hever Golf Club on LEFT - over river - turn LEFT into Castle entrance - through wooden gates onto single track drive - follow visitor parking signs and 'Scrapheap Challenge' signs to Car Park. Please park as directed

A few photos kindly supplied by Niel Stedman on his recent trip to Drackton with some other SuperTwinners. Full report on the SuperTwins site.

On a ten day visit to Spain with Colin and Jude, I met my new mate Bertie, and Old "Ex-Pat" English Sheep Dog. I think he should be the new team mascot, but due to his excessive expenses claims, he will not making any trips to the track. :)

In addition, the other photo was when we found a local bike show, and I tried to blend in with the Locals. Can you see me?

Hi folks! Just to let you know we have added some more photos, kindly provided by Dave "My Dentist" McBride. These are available here in the event listing for the Round 3, 2008 Summer Nationals. Just click on the link in this posting to go and see the pictures.

Someone was kind enough to forward on these lovely pictures of some old Bentley's undergoing work! I think they look stunning, and are a classic example of old quality engineering.

I hope they might be of interest to some of you, as I know I was in awe with their beauty.

Again, if you click on the title of this news piece, you should see these lovely pictures.

As promised, albeit a little later then planned, here are some pictures of the Polaris with it's beautifully made spec pipes!

Over the last couple of months we haven't been able to do a lot to the bike, for various reasons. However, we have gathered a lot of vital information, and when we can find the time, we will proceed further with the build.

Just click on the title of this news piece to see all the pictures.

Attached is a picture of Dave's TL1000S looking rather lovely as she does!

A big thankyou to Dave for all the help he gave us over the last two weekends! I'm hoping to see his lovely TL running with SuperTwins one day in the future!

After another weekend in Yorkshire, we have totally changed the gearing on the machine. It's now going to be known as The Machine.

We now have it dialed in and it's currently working very very well.

We will be competing with it on the weekend of the 15th of August at Hever Castle, Kent. We would like to see as many NAST Members as possible, and anybody else that would like to come, there to support us and cheer us on!

We have got hoto's of The Machine, but cannot put these up at this time. We are hoping, in the future, to be able to put together a build page and perhaps step through what we were thinking at the time, but obviously this can only be done when we have been given permission to disclose that kind of information.

There is a page at the Scrapheaps' producers website discussing the event. You can find it at their website by going to this link

SuperTwins Top-Gas team have been accepted for the 11th series of Scrapheap Challenge.

This is a home build in which we have a month to do it. The team members are, myself as Team Captain, Andy 'The Duck' Smith and Rick Naylor.

We will be spending four days in Yorkshire nailing the new device together. The last day Scrapheap will be filming us in the workshop.

More details to follow, as we can't say any more just yet.

STORM played at the Eddie Friday night. Luckily our trip away was cancelled, so we were then fortunate enough to be able to go and watch them.

They were superb as always, and nice to meet up with the boys and girls again!

Click on the Title of this News Article to view some pictures from the night

The next issue of Brit Chopper, which is going to press this week, will contain a large write-up about The Boundary Public House, and the recent Bike Show that was held there, which you have all heard about first here on our site.

At the Summer Nationals, santa pod, 14th-15th June, on sunday at 12:05 in the right hand lane, we ran a new PB for pod, with the streamliner on.

We achieved an Elapsed Time (ET) of 9.55 sec at 139.82 mph.

Tilly ran very well all weekend, the slowest run of the weekend was a 9.85 sec at 133.58 mph, which I ran on the Friday afternoon, backed up with another 9.82 sec at 135.34 mph.

On the Saturday, I ran an ET of 9.65 sec at 138.12mph, an ET of 9.69 sec at 137.36mph, and an ET of 9.78 sec at 138.88mph.

We are very pleased and we are making a change to the gearing, so that we can run a 140 plus mph, and get into the 9.4s realm, and have our data logger working. Information is the key to us getting these changes right, and going faster.

We have now got a big gap before Round 4 at Avon Park 23-25 August, so work has started on a new carbon air box, with two tops. One for the stream liner air intakes, to try and get airbox pressure. The other will have a large mouth.

Summer Nationals worked well for us, three dry days, and about time too! Bring it on, we want more!

Click on the Title of this News Article to see the photo of the Timing Board showing the details of my run.

Emma, Sarah and I are to appear in a movie to be shot in Gt Yarmouth called 'Malice in Wonderland' after our successful auditions on Saturday 21st of June.

Attached to this news article are some pictures of our lovely Emma after the auditions.

Caz Martin who is The Team's Photographer, and the EDP Drag Racing Columnist put together a nice article with a photo about us local racers who competed at the Summer Nationals. This was in the EDP on Thursday 19th of June.

You may well be able to go onto the EDP Sport website and find the article by now: www.EDP24.co.uk/sport

UPDATE: Not only is it up there, we now have a direct link for you to follow that goes directly to the story. Click here to see the article on the EDP Sport Website.

If you are interested, the Round 3 - Summer Nationals in past events now has a selection of photos from the event attached to it. If you click on the title text for the event, you will be taken to the page that lists the images.

If you click on the title to this news article, you will see some pictures of the lucky trophy winners.

It is the first time this season that the Douggy's (the name given to the trophies in honour of Stuart Douglas) have been handed out. These trophies are kindly sponsored by our lovely Annette Douglas of CompuPay

This was the first time this year the meeting had run it's full course, and we were able to hand out these trophies. They were handed out to the winners and runners up in Top-Fuel, Top-Gas, and Street ET. Sadly if the meeting gets cancelled for whatever reason (normally the weather), there are no real winners or runners up, so there have been no trophies until now due to our misfortune when it comes to this years weather.

Whilst we have both been away and rather busy for the past couple of months, we have this evening had a chance to make some changes and updates to the website.

We do hope some of these early pictures and pieces of news are of interest to you all.

We have attached some photo's to the Round 2 event of 2008, during which we took part in a NAST Fundraiser on behalf of the Multiple Sclerosis Society.

There are some lovely photo's of all the NAST members wearing Blue T-Shirts mentioning the Multiple Sclerosis Society, kindly taken and provided by Eclipse Photo's. I think some of these pictures are absolutely brilliant!

During the weekend we managed to raise about £625 for the Multiple Sclerosis Society, and we are planning to do similar again this coming weekend at the 2008 Summer Nationals.

We had a wonderful weekend just recently at The Norwich Bike Show, at The Boundary Public House which was a great success! Be sure to check out the full event story following the link, and enjoy the photos.

Hi Nikki. As promised here is that lovely photo of you on my bike Tilly III. Just click on the title of this news story to see your picture.

Well I was just rather in awe of this, and really had to share it all with you that might also share my passion for metal and machine working, and the skills required.

I went round to see Bob today, and have a look at his new drag bike. It really is a work of art, a total labour of love. Its awsome!

Its now at the stage where its coming apart to be painted.

This is all bobs hard work! He made the gear box, clutch, frame, wheels, and the ali body work and he is going to spray it, wire it up and race it this year still!

Bob made the barrels, has heavily moded the head, and next on the list is casting a new head, plus a spare!

I am still blown away, by what Bob has done in his cramped workshop.

Due to work commitments for this coming month, both Les and I will struggle to have time to provide any significant updates to the website.

However, this does mean that in June we are likely to be doing a lot. Please stay tuned for any new items of interest.

Kind regards, Scott

We found these old photo's recently and thought we would put a few up here for you all to enjoy looking at. Some of them were from very old bikes of mine. Enjoy!

Mr Stedman kindly sent me a picture of himself and his bike Taz for inclusion in the NASTy Mugs section of the site, and one I thought I would attach to here to show you a nice side-on of Taz.

Hi folks, I just wanted to say hi to a friend of mine Chelsea that came visiting recently. I thought it would be nice for her to see herself on a website somewhere.

I hope you have a good time at school. Don't worry, it's only a few months to go before the Summer Holidays. :)

08-May-2008     Norwich Brickmakers
10-May-2008     Gorleston Lord Nelson
20-June-2008    Norwich Edward VII
21-June-2008    Gorleston King William IV
25-July-2008    Lowestoft Triangle
26-July-2008    Coltishall Railway Tavern
09-August-2008   Gorleston Lore Nelson
30-August-2008   Gorleston King William IV
24-October-2008  Lowestoft Triangle
08-November-2008 Gorleston King William IV
15-November-2008 Norwich Brickmakers
06-December-2008 Gorleston Lord Nelson
19-December-2008 Gorleston King William IV
27-December-2008 Oulton Lady of the Lake


For Bookings contact:
07939 313250 or 07526 493494

Some nice pictures of some of the other NAST members bikes, as well as the new Sunday Club Logo attached to my bike. Click on the title of this news piece to see the pictures, or have a look in the gallery.

We met Kirsty at the recent Photoshoot. She is just starting out on her modelling career, and has offered to do some promo work for us. We would like to wish her all the best with her career, and we look forward to doing some work with her this season.

If you click on this link to the full news article, you will even see a photo of Kirsty

We have put up some notes about the Easter Thunderball which I was working at recently. The event was fun, albeit not that productive on the racing side due to the surprise weather. However, you can find these notes about the Easter Thunderball 2008 here on the Events page.

Spec has built the expansion chambers which are the biggest ones he has ever constructed to date. However, now that we have them fitted so many other things can happen, i.e. seat rails, and where we are going to put things like the raditaor, fuel tank, fuel pump, etc.

Sadly there are no photographs as we have a new camera, and I haven't figured out how to use it properly yet.

This was just a brief update to let you all know, and that there may be more news with some photo's in the coming weeks/months.

Now how is this for a bit of news. We posted that article a while ago regarding a Cooper Jap V Twin Race Car - Wow!!!!!, and just recently we received an email out of the blue from James Good.

Quote - James Good:
I happened to come across your website and saw some pictures of a Cooper V Twin you pictured and commented upon. Its owned now by a David Fyfe in Scotland but was my father's (David) Hill climb Championship winning car of 1961. Just out of interest, where did you see it?

I just thought I would post that here and say thanks to James for having contacted us. It is a lovely little car, and well worth the time we spent corresponding. Thank you also for that little piece of history, and I hope she is an championship winning car for her new owner.

The team has a wonderful new sponsor that has joined our proud collection of sponsors. SKILLNET has joined us recently, and more details regarding them can be found on either our Sponsors page including their contact details.

Well, here is a new piece of news for you all. We have decided to do a little secton on the SuperTwin's as we felt that whilst we talk about many people fairly regularly, it is not that easy for people that do not know the people of whom we speak to associate the names with faces at the track.

So we decided we would put together a small section about NAST, and more importantly all the Members that comprise the National Association of SuperTwins. This way, hopefully, people will be able to know who we are talking about, and perhaps even approach any of us if they would like to talk all things drag bike racing.

Just a Note for SuperTwin's Members: If you do not like the photo we have here for you, please feel free to send us another photo you would prefer to have us use instead. Also, if you are missing from the list and would like to be added, please also inform us so we can correct the oversight!

Just some photo's from the tail-end of the 2007 season. I thought some of you might enjoy looking at these. Just click on the title to this news article to see them.

We have bought a camcorder, made for filming extreme sports, so the plan is to take lots of footage from the front of my gas bike, the side, the back etc. and put it all on my web site. We might even put a few on U-tube, then you can all see what I see.

A great Yarmouth based band, now making it on the Norwich scene. I have seen this band at least half a dozen times and they are brilliant, they do covers, all the ones we know and love and boy do Storm get the place rocking. If you get the chance to see them it's well worth it, and so that you can recognise them here are a few photos.

Well the little Gnomes and Pixies came in tanks and helicopter gun-ships, and raided the Gnome wearhouse where we had kept all the 2008 Calendars. Fortunately for us, we had all sold out so the only thing they managed to escape with was the card-board boxes, and perhaps a pair of my old smelly socks (you know what Gnomes are like).

Next year will be a special 5th Anniversary Calendar, so I would have to say now book early to avoid disappointment, as they went like a flash this year, rather like our bikes! hehe

Mik at Stiks, one of our many calendar sponsors, and a damn fine tattoo artist, has kindly donated to our team a nice little caravan for this season. As you may remember our caravan fell in half on the way home from the National Finals!! Thank you very much Mik

Hi all! Well this is a new one that you probably weren't expecting! I'm wanting a picture of each of you. I am planning to put together a page or two about Super Twins and it's members, and I thought it would be nice to have a photo of each of you on the page, so if people are interested in talking Super Twins and see us at a track, they may just recognize someone.

If I don't already have a photo of you, please can you email one to me at the usual email address, so we can get this little project of mine up and running. If you don't have my email address, just use the Contact Page, and we will get back to you, at which time you will then have it.

Once again the Santa Pod Racers Club Perpetual Awards are with us, this time for the 2007 season. We have been nominated as one of the six Best Looking Bike's, with a nice shot of Tilly 3 in full Streamliner!

It is a vote based system to show support for bikes, and we would obviously be happy if anyone would like to vote for us. However, if you choose to vote for us, please only vote once. It's rather smart anyway, as it will only allow one vote from an internet address, but we don't want any vote rigging or anything of the likes, we would just like you to vote once if you think it's a nice bike in the competition. You can find more details about the awards by following this link to the Santa Pod Racers Club Perpetual Awards for the 2007 season

Oi oi oi! Well if it isn't someone we already know that's taking part in the Bennett's Bike Insurance Babe Search, AND doing it in Supertwin Clothing! What a girl! Go on folks, go give a vote for her, you know you want too. Holli B on Bennetts Bike Insurance Babe Search

I saw this beautiful car last Saturday tea time; it's got a load of race history and is to die for. What a tool!!!! Behind the lucky driver sits a V twin 1000cc Jap motor, imagine that lump in a Gas frame. I know it's not a bike, but it's the best Super twin car I've ever seen, enjoy the photos.

Cheers everybody

Leso

Happy Christmas Folks!

Here is hoping you all have a lovely Christmas time, as I am not likely to be updating the site again until in the New Year. Wishing you all well at this time of year, and a happy break from work!

Have a very merry Christmas period, I know we will be. :)

Progress and lots of it. George has been right into this project, Top Man. It's now sat on the workshop floor, on its own wheels and everything. I know there is still a lot to do but haven't we come a long way. Exhaust pipes are next on the list, they are going to be huge and take up a lot of room, so they need to be made soon. As ever, I took loads of photos, enjoy having a gander. Next update will be 2008!!! (won't be long now then)

Cheers everybody

Leso

Hi folks, just to let you know we have put up a new section we will likely be expanding on in the future. It is to do with our Streamliner.

We are hoping we can detail more about the work we did to get it to the point she is at today, but since someone kindly handed us some photo's of the ever talked about Jay Upton's bike "The Edge", which was soooo heavily talked about whilst we were building our streamliner, though amazingly enough we had never seen it until the first time ours was run in her full paint job at Santa Pod.

We thought there might be a few amoungst you that would like to look a both bikes, so we started with a little visual comparison. There are quite a lot of differences, but it's interesting to look at the pair.

Holli B from Studio64 has kindly worn some of our clothing line, and I just thought you all would like to see some of the new SuperTwins clothing. If you click on the heading to this news article, you will be taken to a page which shows you all the pictures we have received.

If anybody would like to buy some items of clothing, please contact SuperTwins directly.

Brit Chopper Magazine should be out around 15th December (Issue 10) the article on Tilly III is in it. Anybody wanting to buy a copy of the mag should go to the website via the link above, and you can order it from there. (Unfortunately not available in the major newsagents shops)

Streetfighters also have an issue which came out today, numbered 167. This one has a great write-up abotu SuperTwins on page 90-91 folks.

Hi folks, just Scott here to let you know that Les is currently having computer issues. His machine is rather dead, so any Contact made via the website might not be replied to for a while. We will keep you informed when it returns to life once again.

These pictures were taken whilst I was on Scrapheap Challenge in November 2007, the Drag Sled's episode, which was the semi-finals which of course we won.

Here are a few links to a very interesting drag bike someone made, that was Electrically powered, and extremely quick to boot.

KillaCycle on youtube

KillaCycle Website

Don't forget this Sunday 11th November at 17:15 is the showing of Scrapheap Challenge where Les is partaking in the fun!

Well if you click on the link to this news article, you will see a truely wonderfully timed photo of Hans Olav Olstad's Super Twin Top-Fuel bike, Ligthning

Here are some photo's for you all from the streamliner, from a trip to Santa Pod back on September 15th.

Snow mobile Gas Bike Update

From Weekend of 20th & 21st October 2007
At GLS Engineering Workshop in Yorkshire

Saturday - Day 1

As most of you know we are building a new Gas Bike, a real one off, using a Polaris 900 2-stroke twin engine, and George Laycock (GLS Engineering) is building the rolling chassis (and more). I haven't been up to see G&L for a while, so it was nice to see the bike again, and it has come a long way. George wants it on its' wheels and off his jig by Christmas (this year). Something else needs to go on there, but….. I can't say what it is (top secret) but I have got a photo.

I have never really done any frame building before so it was nice to go on a two day course at Georges' - him the master and me the student. We had the log burner going, Planet Rock playing, a pot of coffee and some roll ups - the stage was set.

We had a vice each, files, hacksaw and all of the above. My first job was to make a long piece of box section fit into the frame, from mid ships to the rear end (nice and strong) left and right hand sides. While I got lost in doing this and fight into the port side George was fitting the lower front cross member come bottom engine mount. I really did enjoy the filing and fitting, nice and steady, until you end up with a prefect fit. I took loads of photos.

I took it step by step and then with the port side done it was time to start again with the starboard side. I was pleased to get that side done by Tea Time. Boy was it time consuming but a very rewarding day was had by all.

Sunday - Day 1

It wasn't too warm on Sunday morning so our first job of the day was to get the fire going. Now that the box section was in it was tube time - uprights. Same deal, and again, a prefect fit. George had done loads and worked out a few more things. NICE.

I think next time I go up to Yorkshire I will enrol in the full five day course. Prices start from …………….

No only joking, but I will be up there again soon and I'll give you all another up to the minute report (with photos).

Big thank you G&L for looking after us so well

Leso

Hi folks. Sadly not long after we posted a reminder about the up-coming episode on Scrapheap challenge, we received an email stating that things had been rescheduled again by channel4, and that the new date and time for the episode are as follows:

Sunday 11th November at 17:15

Shameless plug I know, but the Scrapheap Challenge episode I appear on is fast approaching!

Do not forget to stay tuned to Channel4 on the 21st October, most likely around late afternoon or early evening, though I can't tell you for sure at the moment because the website deosn't list their TV schedule that far in advance.

The Team appears in Street Fighters this month, latest issue, which is the November issue and I think is number 165. NAST have also got a full page write up in there guys, it's a great write-up, so well worth a read!

Hi all! We just wanted to remind some of you who may have ordered your calendars by post that there are going to be a series of Postal Strikes, which I believe started on Friday, and will continue into this coming week.

We just wanted to let you all know that whilst we have been selling calendar fast, there is no need to worry, as we have plenty of spares still, and will be sending out new orders as soon as we can. You will just need to be patient with them, as they will likely not arrive quickly, as the massive backlog of post will have to be processed by the posties. I would expect to treat this coming few weeks like a bit of a mini-christmas, the post will be slow, but it will likely all make it in the end.

Hi everyone! We just wanted to let you know that we've had some issues in recent months with the Contact Us Page. Sadly it wasn't emailing Les to notify him of new contacts.

However, don't worry, we always store the message and then tried to email it to Les and Lyn. We have your messages, and will get them to Les, so there is no need to resend them.

Les just wanted me to let you know that whilst he is away this weekend, he will do his best to get in touch with all of you after he returns late Sunday sometime.

Yes, the Les Harris Racing 2008 Calendar is available Now!

The new coming season's calendar is now available, and we started selling them at the finals this past weekend. We completely sold out of the stock we took to the final's weekend, though don't worry, we have more available!

They are available for their usual price of a mear 5 Pounds! Order your copy quickly, either by calling us, writing to us, or using the website Contact Us form.

Les won the final, against Chris Mott at the finals this weekend just past! Chris still won the championship on points. back in the semi's, but during the final we also achieved a new speed PB on Tilly III of 139.75 mph with the full streamliner! The photographers everywhere were taking photo's of Sundays final run where the streamliner was on the bike, and even the crowd were quite snap-happy.

The team is looking for a new Caravan! If you have an old one, or know someone that is selling theirs, we may be interested to hear about it. Just use the website's Contact Us page to get in touch!

So far, we have sold about 70 Calendar's, all of which were sold at the Finals this past weekend. This is wonderful, because that was all the stock we took with us to the Finals! I would like to thank everybody that bought calendar's at the track, and that came to see the weekend. It was a great weekend.

Saturday was a bad day, lots of oil downs all day, and come 8pm they were managing a few runs but it was not in a good state really, as we were slipping everywhere. It definitely made for interesting runs!

In the recent runnings we have had good news!

Previous PB was 9.75s
New PB's run:
- First run of the weekend: 9.56s at 136 mph
- Second run of the weekend: 9.52s at 138 mph

It was the first time the team made it through to a final in a while, first trophy in a while, and first time as fastest qualifier in a while. Sadly we were beaten in the final by 0.02 of a second, which just shows it was a fast and close final. That having been said, the team was still elated in our performance.

The weekend was dry for the whole duration, which made a lovely change to have such good weather with us!

Sadly the track got worse as the weekend went on, which was the experience of everyone, as times got slower and slower throughout the weekend. Everyone's best times were listed on the Saturday. That aside, it was a very productive and successful weekend, and we are all happy to have done so well since the intense cahnges to Tilly 3.

It just goes to show how much of a difference the new changes have made over the old configuration.

The Main Event
May 25th to 28th 2007, Santa Pod

Sunday
Good afternoon from a rained out Santa Pod, it's Sunday and the only thing that has gone up the track is the tractor!! As regular viewers will know, I do a write up after most events, but, because of the rain and we are stuck in our caravan I'm writing it now. I'm writing in the style of Pulp Fiction, back to front, inside out, etc. Today the racing was called at 3 o'clock, it's rained all day, a washout and a great shame, but then there's nothing we can do about the weather. So for the rest of the day it's 'beer o'clock'.

Friday
Sunshine, dry, just right! This time it's only steve and myself working cos Dave can't make it, too much work to do at home/workshop etc. So Steve and I have got 46 bikes to scruitneer by Saturday morning at 10:30 - that's when the first qualifying sessions start. OK so it's only 46 bikes between two of us but they are all Pro Class bikes, Top Fuel, Supertwins Fuel, Funny bike, Comp Bike etc. There are no 9.50 or Super Street which I think is a great shame and a backwards step. It's just not the same without them.

I started work at 8 o'clock, only because no one told me we should start at 9 - still never mind. Steve soon joined in and we got stuck into doing the bikes that were ready and here, some turned up late but that didn't matter. I think it's the first time I've been at the track for the whole day and not watched anything run - too much to do in the pits. I do enjoy checking the fuel bikes etc, I just get lost in it (it that makes sense).

It's also nice to meet the riders that I only see at these big meetings. I would like at this point to thank all the riders for the cups of tea and coffee they made us during the day, and thanks to Steve Willott, Jackie and the crew for the invite to the birthday party (and the JD of course) Nice one. We worked all day at a steady pace and called it a day at around 7.30 pm.

One bike I checked (and have before) I would like to take home with me, it is the Pro Stock Buell from Denmark, ridden by Tom Tinndahn, which ran an ET of 7.2. WOW nice, very nice, but….. in order to buy one, a 2nd hand one at that I would have to sell my house. I did mention this to my lovely wife Lyn, but as this is a family show I can't print what she said. No would have done!!!. Just look at the photo below.

The Buell - I want one!!!

Gold star for effort goes to the Hells Angels Supertwin Top Fuel team. Stefon and the team were testing the Harley the weekend before here at Pod and blew the crank, busted a rod etc, etc, too much advance and nitro mix. Friday morning they didn't have a crank etc. By that night it was all re-built and running, well done everyone who worked on it. It was good to see them do a run on Saturday (by the way thanks for the folders they came in handy).

Waiting for bits

Wot no engine

Broken I think

The 'What could possibly go wrong?' award goes to Carine Sjutti from Sweden and her Supertwin nitro Harley. In her first run (and last) at 60 ft there was a big bang! I knew it wasn't good when her crew chief picked up half of a piston ring from the track, Oh dear, well that's the end of that motor. Just look at the photos and see for yourself.

Anyone good at jigsaws (No OK then)

The big bit doesn't look good either!

Now, as you know, I have built (with lots of help) a Streamliner fairing for my Gas bike, so when I saw Michael Ponca's Yamaha from the Czech Republic, I felt better. So it's not only me that does extreme things to their bike. He has stream lined the rear end (see photos below). No I'm not fitting one onto my bike, but whether he is going to do the front like mine I don't know.

Not only did he build the bodywork himself he painted it as well!!!!

Pitted next to this bike was another Czech bike, a Kawasaki, I just had to take a photo or two of it. Now I think this makes me a pro photographer, as when I had taken the photos, Otto who rides the bike gave me two cans of beer for my trouble. Thanks Otto very nice of you.

Not bad photos EH???

Saturday
8:30 start, 10 bikes left to sort out before 10:30, plus other issues that I won't go into. By 10:30 all the bikes had passed scruitineering, so time to go to the start line for the first session, and what a session. I am very lucky to be on the start line watching these pro bikes run (and get paid for doing so).

Top marks go to Steve Carey on his Top Fuel bike the Purple Princess for running a new PB of 6.6 at 201 mph and later a 6.80. Also well done to Loranz Stauble for keeping his Supertwin Top Fuel Harley away from the wall, close call or what!!!!

Another Brit who got a PB for mph was Turbo on his Top Fuel Harley, well done, good team work (and hope your foot gets better soon Steve). Steve is a top man for turning up with his foot in a cast to work on the bike. By the way I wish a speedy recovery to Brum after breathing in too much Nitro fumes (tear gas) whilst pushing Turbo back across the line after a stonking rolling burn out.

Turbo's bike and crew

I did enjoy Saturday, well done to one and all.

Lyn and I stayed in the caravan Saturday night and tuned into Nitro FM - Naughty Nigel what a star!!

Monday
Race day - or not as the case was. It still had not stopped raining and the wind had got up. Game over. Lyn cooked us a lovely breakfast. Steve and I went to the Marshall's meeting. Got the Transit out and the caravan, by which time I was wet and very cold! We left the site at 2:15pm and headed for Fox Food, which has now become our local!

The Buell (that I like) team were at the Fox and we got chatting and I was introduced to Chip Ellis who was over from the USA. He had come over to help out at the Main event (like you do).

When we got home that evening I watched NHRA Drag Racing on Five US and there was Chip racing his Buell - small world or what? (and I thought I got home fast)

So to sum up - we had two wonderful days and two awful days. The saving grace of the weekend was Nitro FM from 7 am to 10 pm. The jokes that were texted in to the station were so funny, even the ones Nigel couldn't read out.

Take care everyone and see you at the next big meeting at Pod, Euro Finals.

Cheers everybody

Leso

Sorry folks, I was hoping to have had enough time to post another piece of news before I went to Germany, but this just hasn't happened. I will be back Saturday, and hope to have it up for you then.

Take care all, Scott

Date: Friday 6th July 2007 at 16:30
Place: Telford Cramatoriam, Red Hill, Telford

No flowers please. Donations will be split between National Association for Bikers with a Disability (NABD) and the National Canine Defence League

Afterwards at: Shifnal War Memorial Club, Shifnal (excellent venue) where (in Annettes words) there will be 'tea, sandwiches and sympathy' first, followed by a party celebration of Stuart's life with at least 4 bands and a 'Rock Night' will take place.

All Stuart and Annettes friends are welcome.

If there are any questions, please feel free to email Les. If he is able to answer them, he will do his best to.

It is with a huge whole in my heart that I bring the news that this morning my good friend Stuart has passed on. Annette informed us that he passed on peacefully in his sleep during the night. Words cannot express how sad this day is. Lyn and I are heading up to see Annette now.

For those that may not know, Stuart and Annette are some of our oldest friends, and one of our kindest sponsors. We have had the fortune of knowing them for some time, and this terrible news has many of us in the team very upset.

Our hearts and support go to Annette.

TJ O'Brian's wife Pat Ginn sadly passed away Saturday 23rd June, 2007. Our deepest sympathies go out to TJ, family and all her friends. She was wonderful fun at the races, and will be deeply missed by so many.

For those that would like to say something, there is a Tributes to Pat Ginn Page on EuroDragster. This link will take you stright to the page.

For all those fans of Scrap Heap Challenge, the new series is already starting to be broadcast and is on the ever regularly reliable Sunday early evening time-slot.

We are now allowed to tell you a little about this year. We would recommend those of you that are fans of the series, or even those that just want to laugh at us after the show, might want to make a date in their diary for a particular episode, in which Les will be appearing as one of the team's Experts.

On 21st October, UK Channel 4 in the early evening, which I think might be at approximately 1745 ish (thought if I was you, I would check on the day for the actual time, as it might be moved in the mean while) a Scrap Heap Challenge Episode Titled Drag Sleds will be broadcast.

It was a great pleasure to take part in this program, and I've held my tongue until I was told I was allowed to let people know. You are now officially in the know, and I do hope that many of you will enjoy the evenings entertainment, and look forward to the comments and emails that will likely follow it.

Take care all, Les

Hi All

We have posted a new Event on the evening of the 25th June where you can meet British SuperBike Riders. The Event details contains more information about the event, and the aim. I would ask that you all give it a read, it seems to be a nice idea.

Last weekend Lyn and I set off for Yorkshire to visit George and Lorraine Laycock, as we often do. They live in the middle of nowhere a real chill out zone! The track that leads to their cottage is nearly a mile long, how wonderful.

Just look at this view, approaching the cottage:

The view from the cottage:

George has a little shed, and over the years that we have been going there the new big shed has taken shape and George is in there working. This is a view of George's Shed:

I got the idea for shed/workshop features from Chris of Brit Chopper magazine. Every man needs a shed and there are even books about men’s sheds.

When I first saw the big shed it was an open fronted barn (as you can see from the pic above and below) it is a proper workshop, well done George. On this visit we had take up 2 very large speakers that Lyn’s dad made years ago, I was going to have them for my shed but they are far too big. They sound really good and now they have gone to a really good home.

The AJ's and the Speakers:

Inside the shed – I love sheds:

It’s great looking around in workshops, it’s the place to be on a Saturday afternoon (just before going to the pub). Tinkering with a race bike or whatsoever, and there is always a race bike or two to look at and a very nice race car that George is sorting out for himself.

Mr. Collier’s bike:

The hill climb car (being re-built):

The Saturday afternoon pub:

Before that’s race ready George is going out in his old car, a Grenfell Special, it has an ali body with a 4 litre flat head V8 under the bonnett – Nice!!!. A Grenfell sounds like something out of The Last of the Summer Wine!!!.

Grenfell pictures – isn’t it wonderful:

The Grenfell lives at George’s dads workshop, another place I love visiting, and a whole story all on it’s own. So next time you see George out on the track on one of the many bikes he has build you will know where it was made.

If you would like your shed/workshop featured send it in cos it’s good to see where it all happens.

Hi everyone! Well if you look at the Event on the 29th of April 2007, you will see pictures that were taken at the sprint where the bike was run with the Streamliner in place to test. The grey primer coat was already on, and it is this week going for a complete paint job.

We are glad to mention that we have had a successful few runs there, and will be looking forward to racing Tilly 3 in her new look very soon!

That isn't the only news we have for you this evening either! We have a new sponsor joining the team as of today. Weatherleys Motorcycles have joined the team as a sponsor. We have known the folks at Weatherley's for a very long time, and are very happy and grateful for their faith in us.

Given the other recent news, this just seems like bad timing, but here it is anyway.

We have had the carbon fibre Streamliner fitted and ready. It is actually going to get a basic paint job today before it is used in it's first runs at the end of this month. If you click on the link formed by the title of this news piece, you will see the pictures, and they will also appear in the Gallery.

It is with much sadness we received news of the death of a very good friend of ours, a man that co-built Tilly 2 with Les before she was ever run. Sadly Ian Dwyer died in a road accident on Good Friday. He will be dearly missed by all, and great sadness extends across a wide selection of family and friends. Our thoughts are with his family at this time.

Ah some more shots for all those of you curious as to how things are progressing on the Streamliner front.

Mark Duckett from Brit Chopper Magazine kindly took these shots this morning whilst we were chatting about it. If you follow the link that makes up the Date and Title of this news story, you will see the specific pictures attached. Otherwise, check out the gallery, they will also be visible in there.

Ahh well, that wasn't a long break for Holli B. She is already back to work and Studio64 have kindly sent us some new photo's.

Hi folks! Well here we are, some more things for people to look at.

Firstly, there should be 5 pictures of the Snow Mobile engine and the frame that is going to be it's home in the future.

Secondly, here are some movies (well, were supposed to be pictures initially) of the Streamliner that will be fitted to Tilly 3 hopefully before the season even starts. Don't worry, the movies do actually start at 3 and go to number 5. :)

Streamliner Movie 03
Streamliner Movie 04
Streamliner Movie 05

Some news for all the NAST (SuperTwins) members. Don has kindly provided some articles about recent events. Sadly I was unable to attend the Riders and Driver meeting recently, and Don very kindly offered to go in my place. Firstly, a big thank you Don, that was greatly helpful and appreciated.

I have put these two documents up on the site for all those interested to read. The links to these are as follows:

NAST (SuperTwins) Press Release
Riders and Drivers Meeting Report

This date is being cancelled, and moved to a time when we are hoping the weather is more likely to be suited to having fun, and camping out. At present this is likely to be in June or July, and further information will be provided a little later on once we know more.

IMPORTANT NOTE FOLKS:
There was an error in the previously listed dates for this season, specifically the June Summer Nationals at Santa Pod. It was incorrectly listed as being on the 9-10th but is actually on the 16-17th!

Stalky was very pleased with his trophy from this season. Sadly he has many things to sort out this season and will not be participating in the racing. However, he does seem to enjoy racing and is already planning to be back racing next season!

Just as a note of warning for people, I've got some pictures coming later this week showing the Snow Mobile Engine based bike progress. Stay tuned.

A big thank you to both Street Fighters and Back Street Heroes for their recent coverage and articles. They have printed the NAST race dates for this season and some other news in their March issue in both cases!

Avelease have donated a 15 gear mountain bike to help Les get into shape, so you may see a gnome riding along the riverbanks in Norwich, don't be afraid! You're eyes aren't deceiving you. :)

Holli B & Lance have given birth to a little boy by the name of Logan! Congratulations to you both, should I say all three of you, and hope the sleepless nights are grown out of quickly. :)

Progress has been made in that we meshed it up to an existing frame and learnt alot about how it's going to have to be positioned. A big thank you to Steve French for lending us the rolling chassis. We are now in the process of building a one off chassis so we can put everything where we want it, so that it looks like the end of the season before we can possibly even test run it.

Crank cases now back together after having been machined to accept the 1475 cc mellenium cylinders. Now in the process of rebuilding the engine in time for the start of the new season, with the associated testing hopefully and some sprints before the official seasons races.

Dave May now has the petrol tank, and is going to do some new paint work for us including the Gnome logo.

Now in a position where the streamliner body work plug/mold is ready to take the first fibre glass production which will be used for fitting purposes, before it gets made in carbon fibre. Dave May, again, is taking care of the paint work/job and the first test session will be the 29th of April, at the first sprint of the year at Wattisham.

First Dinner and Dance attended in my 10 year career, which was a wonderful night. It was wonderful to see around 500 people there in all their evening best, and it was a fun night all round. I collected trophy on behanlf of Stalky, who was runner up this year in Supertwin Street. Congratulations Stalky! Here is hoping you'll keep chasing Dave.

Here are seasonal thoughts (or end of season for some of us) going out to you all. We wish you all a great and relaxing Christmas, with a speedy New Year and Season coming for us all. We know we are looking forward to what the year has in store for us, and hope you are also!

Les & Lyn

Les has been voted in as the Chairman of the SuperTwins Association as of 11th of November 2006. If people would like to know anything about the group, if you would like to know about getting started in drag racing, have queries and questions about your bike and it's specifications, or anything like that just to get in touch.

Tilly 3 has gone on a diet, and she has had a lot of things changed to make her lighter. She is also having a complete streamliner faring made in the coming months in carbon fibre.

Calendars are going well this year, as we've started selling them a little earlier, as we started having them available from the last event of 2006. Over half have already gone out the door, so if you fancy a calendar this year with some great photo's, that will be helping support the teams racing in the coming season. All these funds go into the team coffers! We even had the pleasure of getting one of this years calendars signed by Jules Holland himself after his recent visit to Norfolk's UEA on the first night of his new national tour! What a result!

Scott Collier's 10th birthday was a wonderful event! An absolutely blinding night had by all, ending in a blur for many, but more importantly Scott was really happy with the present we had brought for him. He now has his on personalized Les Harris Crew jacket in his size, that we are reliably informed he wears everywhere, to school, etc! We are very glad you like it Scott!

CompuPay have stated they would like to sponsor the trophies for this coming season, and we'll keep you updated if things change.

Les has recently been selling lots of his many horded things on ebay, and it's all been going great so far, for a person that was kind of a technophobe less then a year ago, he's well up with emails, web pages, and selling stuff on ebay (with Lyn's occasional help of course). If you see anything for sale with the tag gnomeracing that you fancy, then just feel free to get in touch, perhaps we can do a private deal. It's all well and good having a collection of 28 bikes, but when you start running outta space to keep them, you gotta consider other options. Queen Bitch may even be up for sale if people are interested. :)

A 6.2 litre Chevy pickup is up for sale, or perhaps for quiz raffling. This might be ideal for someone that does a lot of towing, or hauling of heavy items in the back.

Black Racer is making a comeback for both Les' and Black Racers Tenth year of racing! The engine is stripped and ready for machining to accept some brand new 90 cubic inch barrels, fresh from the states in the last quarter of this year!

Les wants her back out for next season in time for some sprints, and at would like to do at least one round in the season for super twins, and will also be showing at the Bulldog Bash in the Custom Tent for those that would like to check her out Ten years on!

She will be getting some new paintwork to blend in with some of the old, and original paintwork. Dave May of J & J Body Repairs will be sorting this out at the early part of next year to be ready for racing time!

A photo shoot is planned for Backstreet Heroes for as soon as she is back together in her full splendour!

Over the winter period we are hoping to start documenting all of the history of Black Racer, and will start putting up more information about the bike, and photo's in the coming months. Watch this space, and keep an eye on the bikes section when we've made these changes!

A new project that was under wraps can now be talked about. We have for some time been planning the build of a bike based around a snow mobile engine. It's a Polaris 900 Twin Two Stroke engine, and we have it and the transmission and a possible choice of two chassis' to put it in to test before building a one of chassis for it to live in, once we know a little more about how it interacts with the frame. Our good friends at GLS Engineering are taking care of the engineering work.

We've got some new race dates for SuperTwins, and these are definite dates, not provisional:

• Avon Park - Round 1 - Unknown Name as Yet - 4/5-7th of May 2007 - First bank holiday weekend in May
• Santa Pod - Round 2 - Summer Nationals - 16-17th June
• SuperTwins has a stand at the Bulldog Bash this year, between the dates of 9-12th of August
• Avon Park - Round 3 or 4, depending on any we may fit in earlier - Last bank holiday in August, 25-27th August 2007
• Santa Pod - Round ? - National Finals - September 29-30 2007

Keith Bale of Bale Engineering is sorting out the team Race Truck in the coming weeks, thanks again Keith!

We've organised a photo shoot for one of the coming rounds at Santa Pod with Suzie and Jenny, from Shifnal, two sisters that have been long time supports of the rock nights in Shifnal, and have just managed to climb mount Kilimandjaro, for charity! Well done girls, what an awesome effort! We are all so proud of what you've achieved, and good luck with the coming years new challenges!

Sprints dates and times will be coming out in the coming weeks, we are just waiting to hear on their details, so keep your eyes open we will be bringing Black Racer and Tilly 3 in their new looks out to play!

End of November Les and Lyn attended yet another Rock Night in Shifnal, and had a wonderful time. Thanks to everyone that helped, involved or attended the event, which raised something like 1200 pounds for National Association of Disabled Bikers! Two bands played this event, V8 and Gatecrasher, and V8 have already agreed to play at our AGM in the final quarter of the coming year (2007 if anyone is reading this as an old post)! Great effort from all!

New sponsors for this years calendar: Keith Bale of Bale Engineering, Anna of A Multitude of Sins, and Shaw's Newsagents and Convenience Store in Norwich. Thank you both for helping to support us this coming year!

Some kind soul pointed out that a few uncensored images made it past our checking process and were published. Thank you for the information, and we have removed those images. :)

Our friend Scott Collier from Jade Racing is to be on TV this coming Saturday, on CBBC between 1145-1200, on BBC2 during Sportsround! How cool is that? You can check the BBC scheduled times here: CBBC What's On Details

Our new 2007 season calendar is available now! Details are available on the Team Funds Special offers page, which you can get to by clicking on this link: Les Harris Drag Racing Team - 2007 Season Calendar.

If you are interested in a calendar, please either phone us, or use the Contact Us page to send us an order along with your contact details, Name, Telephone Number, and Address.

We hope you will enjoy the calendar, the fine photographs, and the reminders for dates of importance next year.

This weekend was sadly badly affected by the weekend. It was awful on Friday with a huge wall of water, yet surprisingly Saturday started very well indeed with wondrous blue skies, and the first round of runs went pretty smoothly, and just after starting the second round it started raining.

Sadly that was the end of the weekend as far as racing was concerned. It stopped all running from Saturday onwards, and Santa Pod eventually called it a day just before 1400 on Sunday, as the rain was still coming in waves, no sooner had they dried the track after a downpour then it started raining again.

It was a fun social event non-the-less, with a large racing community attendance. It was just a shame that very little in terms of racing was to be had that weekend. I think almost all classes will now have to end with the points from the last tables, which is a shame for all those closely matched near the tops fighting it out. Lets hope the weather in the start of the 2007 season starts with a little better treatment of the people below it. :)

Kind regards, Scott

Svein "Gotten" Gottenberg sadly died Friday 1st September in an accident at Mosten Raceday in Denmark.

It is a very sad time, and I am sorry the news is late here, but there are a few places of interest for those wishing to read the tributes being made to Gotten.

Super Twin Drag Bike Association Memory of Gotten
The STDBA also have a short letter heading their Home Page currently.
Svein Gottenberg Tribute Page @ Blogspot

Quote from King Racing Gossip:
Details of the account set up for donations to the Pat Ginn appeal have now been published.

"We collected £800 at Hockenheim" said Matthew Wright, who is organising the Appeal. "Craig Gibbs donated his Super Modified prize money, Tina Gibbs made an additional donation, and we made some money from T-Shirt sales. We have had a lot of pledges and now there's an account to pay into so you know what to do."

Bank: Barclays
Account name: The Pat Ginn Appeal
Sort code: 20-20-37
Account number: 23409724

Congratulations to all at The Mob for their wonderful work recently! Jim achieved a new P.B. of 6.982 seconds crossing the line at a huge 204.56 mph!!!

Well done to you all, its a great team result!

I have just been informed today that our friends at Studio64 and CompuPay will both be sponsoring trophies at the up coming event.

Apparently Studio64 have graciously offered to sponsor the trophies for the Supertwin Top Gas category, and Compupay for the Supertwin Street, which we think is wonderful news! We are all looking forward to the next race with eager anticipation!

Just recently the team attended the NAST E.T. Weekend, and Les sent me a short write-up of things from that weekend.

Also this weekend just passed was the 20th Anniversary of the Bulldog Bash which Les and Lyn have been kind enough to have already sent me notes about. I hope you guys all enjoy the read until such time as I can get my hands on some pictures for the event as well. :)

Scott

Ahh the photo shoot of July. Well there is a huge selection to view folks from this Photo Shoot, lots of The Mob, and some corkers of a vehicle painted by our mate Dave May, called Chaos, as well as some really nice ones of Les, the bike, the van, the Tim and the Camera Man ;).

Some more news about the recent Bulldog Bash 2006, it's 20th anniversary tomorrow!

Hi folks!

Last night I was made aware that the Contact Us form wasn't working. We aren't sure when this happened, but it must have been during our recent update. For those of you that may have been trying to contact the team, we are deeply sorry. For those of you with Les' mobile number, it might be worth texting him if you can't get in touch again in the future.

I can only think this was a SIE (Scott Induced Error) sometime recently, but thats what you get sometimes without sufficient caffeine deposits to keep these software engineers working correctly ;)

Anyway, it should be working again now, and we wouldn't mind a few tests from any looking at the site.

Two more CD's have arrived from the recent photo shoot, and we will be choosing what to show soon. There are a lot of our friends at The Mob, so there will be a mix of cars and bikes for you all to look at, as well as some extras <wink wink>.

Kind regards, Scott

Hi folks! Very sorry for the delays in updating, but the hot weather has been causing lots of problems with peoples computers, so I've been rather busy. :(

However, the good news is that the new approach to the Gallery is live and working now. Please be patient, as we may have not yet inserted some of the older pictures. We have a huge history of photo's, so it may take us a while to sort them all out, but by default the pictures are all sorted by date from most recent to oldest at the back. This means that any new pictures we post for any event, news article, or anything we can link pictures too will actually also be seen in the gallery. :)

Some tweaks to this new approach will come in the next few weeks, as well as The Team Diaries with any given luck, and the time without distractions. ;)

Kind regards, Scott the Techie

Well the photo shoot this weekend was wicked! We were the only bike there with a couple of cars, and a good ten models all to ourselves! Come rain, wind, sleet or snow I'll tough out the modelling!

We had some wonderful shots taken, so hopefully in the coming week or so we will have some great new picies for everyones enjoyment!

I just thought I would offer a word of warning to all those of you that love the Gallery on our site. I will be making an update to that section related closely to the changes I've made recently. This will mean any time we add images to whatever (news, event, etc) they will automatically be listed in the gallery as well. The down side is the gallery will then be hundreds, if not thousands of pictures strong in no time! There will be ways to filter things a little, but more importantly all these images will be linked to things in the future, so if you go an view any team members particular details, you will also see all the photos that team member is in (once we've done the work linking everyone and everything in a photo to each other).

Right well that took longer then expected, but all has gone smoothly with the updates and upgrades in the background. There shouldn't be any major issues, but if you do come across a problem, please feel free to email me or use the Contact Us form to submit notes about any errors you encounter, and I will try to address them. :)

You may not have noticed much difference yet, but in the coming days I will be removing certain pages, updating others, and entering more content I have some photos for. The majority of this past few weeks work is mostly non-visual, so you probably won't notice much has changed on the site yet. However, these changes will make it easier for people to enter data including the team diaries we have planed shortly, and also the ability to add pictures. Doesn't sound like a lot until you start seeing that we will be indexing each bike, event, team member, location about each photo, as well as their photographer! This will make it easier to you to see only images that might interest you, say for example, relating to Stalky, or the CompuPay Express, just as two examples off the top of my head.

I may also start noting down some of the techie stuff in my own diary articles at some point in the future, but for those bike lovers out there I know some other people are wanting to share information about particular builds and bits of work they've been working on that they haven't had the means to do so. This should all start showing its face in the coming months.

Kind regards, Scotty :)

Hi folks. I know a few of you have been wondering whats been happening with the site recently, and I will try to fill that in a little (for those that might be technically interested).

I was meaning to update the site with a few changes, but after watching how we had been using the site for the past few months, I had wanted to make some changes to the structure of the data you may not see, and to bring a few new features to certain parts of the site we are hoping to developing in coming months.

These changes brought with them some unwanted or expected technical issues which hopefully have now been addressed, but a few more changes may be required, and some testing before things go live. When they do they will allow us to be a little more selective about some aspects of the photo's, allowing us to only show photo's that might relate to a specific person, machine, event, location, etc.

This is one of many changes we had planned for prior to the availability of a diary for the team members.

Please to excuse us if the site may have a period of time where it is being updated sometime this week.

Kind Regards, Scott

Well this weekend was a mix of good and bad. Les did his first red light ever, on the first run of the competitive Sunday. Les admits himself having been trying a little too hard that day. Les got awarded a Red Light by the Scruitineers in the fireup lane after they had sourced one from the spare Christmas Tree. Hehe :)

Stalky has had another great weekend, having done a 10.5 run, and finished runner up in final again! Some more metal work for his shelf, hopefully with some celebratory liquid.

A surprise birthday party thrown for Lyn during the weekend, which really took her by complete surprise! We hope she had a great evening, and a lovely relaxing time. We hear it was very entertaining, and she had a good time.

16th July Les is acting like another model again, with a planed Photo Shoot, including 10 attractive models (wink wink) and Tilly 3 will be keeping company with some other drag racing vehicles for a days shooting. Hopefully we will have some more news and picies for you sometime around that date!

At the end of next week, after Les' weekend of fun, he will be doing work on Tilly 3 trying to play with the ignition curve to see if her performance can be improved some, with possibly some more information for you at a later date, or even an article for reading.

We also will have the dyno runs that Compupay Express had documented, the results of which will be coming shortly for review as well.

Well its that time of year that is making many people happy, and to join in with things our friends at the James the 1st public house are selling Shirts for the event, of which they are kindly donating a proportion to The Team.

All those football fans amoungst you, we dearly look forward to any support for the team. Have a fun sporting filled time folks!

Sunday was the only day we went in attendance, and were we blessed with perfect conditions or what?! It was perfect, which is lucky for us because Saturday seemed to be quite bad weather. It wasn't just good because of that though, oh noo! Can you believe it, not two weeks since the last race, and Stalky has again set a new PB of 10.35 seconds! Not only that, but Les ran a 9.95 seconds which we believe was the fastest time of the day.

It really was a wonderful day because Stalky managed to put in something like 15 runs, and Les got 6 or 7! Les even had the opportunity to ride someone elses bike, how kind was that of the other chap!

Our friends at GLS Engineering now have a new website. You may want to check it out some time, its pleasant on the eyes. Nice one George!

Now how about this for spoilt hey? Team members not only having jackets, but also new clothes! Now we really have spoilt them. Take a look at Bod's new overalls wearing team colours.

Sorry for the late update of the site folks, but I have been down with the local lergie, and its taken its time to part company with me. Must be just such a good holiday retreat for viri :)

Well what a weekend. Some great racing was had, with Stalky doing himself and everyone else proud with a new PB and just 10.537, now only 0.4 of a second behind Mr Jones! This landed him a new little piece of metal for his mantle-piece! Go Anti-Gnome! You can see a picture of his smiling self and the metal here on the 2006 Shakespear Nationals page.

Mr Floyd also did his team proud with yet another run in the 8 second mark, and hopefully this time around it will be good enough to get a record. Congratulations lads:

Supertwin Gas ET: 8.870 seconds, John Floyd
Supertwin Gas speed: 144.94 mph, John Floyd

We sometimes stop at Fox Food on the way home, and of all the times we've been there it took us a while to recognise our team in a painting on their wall. Check out the photo's of the painting. Not only do the Thunderbolts in the painting bear the team yellow and black colour scheme, but the one in the forefront also wears the identifier LH being the same initials as Les Harris. Now how freaky is that, this place has always been a favourite of ours because of the nice little pub, great good and people.

Well folks its the start to another weekends racing in the SuperTwins at Avon Park in The Nationals.

We also have made some changes so as to list some Past Events of Interest on the home page. This will list some other events for which we may have some pictures or words from Les and the crew. In particular we have changed the Ally Pally and the Woodbridge Sprints pages just recently.

Team jackets are now up for sale! You can find some pictures of the jackets on the Special Offers page, but I will update them at some point in the future with clearer, closer and more detailed shots of the back of the jacket.

Mark ("Dave" as Les always calls him) Pointer has sent us some wonderful photo's of his Outlaw Anglia. Its an amazing beast of a small car that they have worked very hard on recently, and have achieved figures exceeding 2000 break horse, yes you read that correctly, two thousand! We have knocked up a little page with a little information and the fine photo's he had sent. You can view the engine in the beast here.

Well Les wasn't racing at this event, but rather he was working. Yep, on with the scruitineer cap, and round looking at peoples bikes. I hear it was a great weekend with plenty of things to be seen, and a whole heap of hot air balloons playing around in the wonderful blue skys.

You can see some of the pictures of things from that weekend here, on one of the past events pages. Keep an eye out for Roel Koedam's bike, its the one that all shiny, neat, tidy and polished. It really does look well kept. 2006 Easter Thunderball.

Well the Site Events Page has been updated. This includes two new links, one for the APIRA Power Nationals, and one for the Woodbridge Sprint that has just happened this past weekend.

Well the first runs of the season came with the Power Nationals and have gone again. It was great to get back racing, albeit most of us probably in the rusty category, but just sad that the weather so often stopped play.

Most of us managed a single run on Saturday's qualifying, and the same again on Sunday during the racing. Whilst both Les and Stalky made it through to the semi-final's, the rain again stopped play for the rest of the day. Shame, because the runs were looking better then Saturday's.

Even sadder still, John Floyd's Team managed to get their bike to do an awesome 8.875 second run, which if they could have got a chance to do another run, may well have been a new world record! Got to feel gutted for the guys, but at least we know what sort of things we need to pull out of the bag to catch up with them this year. Its gonna be hard work!

We have provided some brief stopgap information for the Team and Bikes pages. These pages are due to be worked on and expanded a lot in this coming month, so expect them to change again as we start making them more dynamic and a little more personalised for each team member.

We also have a few links on the Events page at the top, listing some pages specifically knocked up with regards some past events, at least fo the short-term enjoyment of all. The Ally Pally and a brief whatnot about Les' Birthday and some Prezzies.

Oh yes, and did I forget to mention The Gnome has finally graced our presence on the page?

Well it appears today Les also received his clearance to scrutinize stuff more. Congratulations to him, as today he is cleared to be a Senior Scrutineer. (I daren’t ask if this is like an OAP pass at drag racing events, nah only kidding Les). Well done, I hear it normally takes people a little longer then this to be approved, so well deserved chap!

Today we also have a Team Funds Special Offers page, which we hope some of you will take a look at. A little bike looking for a nice new home.

Sadly on Monday a good friend of the Team suddenly died. We were all gutted to hear this, and would like to extend our deepest condolences to the wife and family of Mr Terry Gibbs. We are so sorry Tina.

Terry was the Events Manager and organiser of the Xtreme Wheels International Show that we exhibited at only a few weekends ago. I am very glad we had time to chat that weekend, and am going to dearly miss him. It is such a tragic loss for Drag Racing, as he always has done so much for the sport.

Well this weekend was the first set of runs of the season, testing the bikes at Santa Pod. On my second run I was paired with John Floyd and wasn't upset with my time of 9.817 seconds, but even more pleased for John with his time of 8.959 seconds, which is the fastest for a Top Gas Twin that I am aware of, and had this been a real event and recorded as such, would now have been a World Record!

Very Big Congratulations John and the Team for such an excellent run! You can all see the Time Slip here, showing a copy of the recording of the run!

This weekend Stalky also had a very good run, recording a 10.8 on The CompuPay Express, which deserves a mention. Perhaps just a good start to the year.

Many thanks to everyone that came to wish Les the best, and helped make it a very enjoyable night, well up until I left of course. The rest were still partying on heartily at the point I had to cave and get some kip, though I am sure they kept making it a great party. :)

Here's hoping everyone made it home without toooooo many scrapes, bruises, and encounters with the pavement, or at least have some humour to let us know about hehe.

Happy Birthday Les!. Here's hoping you have a great start to your new year, and many many fun parties, including this evening. :)

I am sure there are many incoming birthday wishes, and we just hope you enjoy yourself thoroughly.

Don't forget to tune in later in the coming weeks for more photo's from the Ally Pally, and the stories folks that attended may have for you all. Apart from the normal cost of all things London like, I hear it was still humour, apart from to the wallet of course. Hope everyone bought Les enough drinks for his Birthday too. :p

On behalf of Les and the Team we would like to wish Annette a very happy birthday, and a great start to the new numbers year for her and Stuart.
Along comes a song... Happpyyyy, naah just kidding.

Well I hope you can all see we have a new website and hosting services provided for the team kindly provided by adecs.

In the coming months we are going to change the whole way the site works, and it will be some very clever stuff. We hope you will all enjoy it.

A few new posts on the Super Twins website for those that might be interested in them:

• Post NAST AGM Write-up
• Don Leaving