I am the owner of the information site Mac Tools. I have been noticing a few referrals from the "other neat links" part of your very cool site. Thank you for the link and I wish you well.

Got a question. Where would I start to look for a marketing person to help find sponsors for a different type of racing. I see you are involved with drag racing. We are looking to talk to someone with experience with SCCA Pro racing. We have an excelent team, two top running cars, experienced drivers and NO time to spend on the very important parts such as marketing and promotion.

If you have any names in this area would you please pass them on. M. Kellermeyer D.J. Race Enterprises

Hi Bob, Daniel here. Here's one for your Top Ten bumper stickers : "Save the whales and harpoon fat chicks". See ya.

I was wondering if you would be willing to add my web page to your Marketing links page. I would be happy to add one back to your page as well. My URL is: home.att.net/~traksports. Thanks very much! Art Laski - TRAK Sports Marketing

Thank you for listing New England Dragway on your Hot Links page. However, the URL is incorrect. Our site can be found at: www.newenglanddragway.com.

Sincerely, Joe Lombardo, Track Manager

Even before the official start of the new racing season, Victor Bray's Castrol GP50 Chevrolet team are already clocking up plenty of kilometres on the nation's highways with their busy schedule. With appearances in Darwin, Surfers Paradise, Cairns and Townsville on consecutive weekends in October, Bray's transporter is set to top 12,000 k's in a very busy month.

The team's Darwin appearance saw Victor arrive on the Thursday for a packed two day schedule of personal appearances and media interviews before race day. Then in front of a capacity crowd he came out on top of a star-studded Top Doorslammer field at Hidden Valley Dragway. After top qualifying he defeated Andrew Searle in the opening round. He then had a solo pass in the second round as Melbourne's Peter Kapiris had to withdraw after crashing his car in round one. Victor was due to meet Shane Elcoate in the final but engine damage saw the Thunder Road car stay in the pits. Bray put on a big show for the crowd though with the Castrol GP50 Chevy spending a lot of time sideways on the tricky Hidden Valley track surface. After the event Victor was kept busy until after 3:00 am with literally hundreds of fans at any one time surrounding his pit area for autographs and team merchandise.

A quick trip back from the Northern Territory saw Bray pull his rig into a featured position in the centre of the Surfers Paradise Indycar street circuit on the Wednesday before flying to Sydney that evening for a Castrol product launch. Next afternoon he was back at Surfers preparing his exhibition car for a series of shows across the four days of the Honda Indy 300. Despite some minor problems with the car, Victor's burnouts around the 4.5 kilometre track were the talk of the weekend.

The team has since headed north where they are the main attraction with the Castrol GP50 exhibition car at major car shows at the Cairns Showgrounds on October 23rd-24th and at the Townsville Showgrounds on October 30th and November 1st.

Bray will then return home for some testing at Willowbank Raceway before heading to Melbourne's Calder Park Raceway where he will begin the defense of his title at the opening round of the Australian Top Doorslammer Championship on November 13th.

Bob, it was a bit warm today so I opened the door to the container and let the breeze blow through. Everything looks just like you left it. It came up a shower this afternoon so I closed everything back up. I have more "gardening" photos. We are a bit exposed here now. I hate that but I guess you have to break a few eggs to make an omlette.

Go to my home page: Sponsorshop and click on "Marketing Thought for the Week." There will only be one item at a time, but there are two in place -- for a short time.

FOR SALE:

1963 Pro Modified Corvette, Carbon Fiber Body, Cathey's Rear End, Mark Williams Center Section, Consistent 1.02 60-ft, Complete minus motor and transmission, $40,000 (US). 706" Pro Mod, Donovan, CFE Intake Heads, 5 Stage Dry Sump, Jesel Rockers, Belt Drive, MSD, Runs 6.40's at 2450 lbs, $24,900 without Martin EFI, $31,900 with Martin EFI.

Mike Janis - Lancaster, New York

Look for the new issue tomorrow around 7pm eastern time. Hey, could you do me a favor and put a post on your site?

Hi there, and thanks for the link to Tarlton, South Africa. Really great. I discovered this quite by accident. What a surprise. I shall add a link back to Northern Thunder sometime today. Regards, Su Drzewicka.

Thanks for the info. It is a bit disappointing. Epecially for Steve (Bettes). Go to Mildura for a 200 metre track? Don't think so. Not unless they get some top fuellers and some doorslammers there. Would nearly be a bit short though. Victor Bray wouldn't even have enough space for his burnout!

Thanks anyway. A somewhat disappointed Ken Adams.

Please help. I am a regular at the Calder Park drags and enjoy it. I have heard that Heathcote is/has started back up again and would like to attend if this is true. Can you please advise me of this and meeting details or where I can find these things out.

Howdy, Good to see you're still punching the keyboard over there. That would have to be the biggest engine explosion I have ever seen as a photo. Did it rip up the track at all? Unbelievable.

Well just to let you know, it's about three weeks away until I jump on board a Qantas plane to your neck of the woods... can't wait. If I get a chance I'll try and get up to Canada to see you (money and time permitting). But the synthetic oil deal I think will take up most of my time, so we'll see. Anyway, good to hear from you at last and look after yourself and say G'Day to the big fella.

Bob...it's a '53 only went 14.68 - 94.6 but out of 18 runs on Sunday (!!!!), the average was still 14.77... i'm happy as a pig in poop actually. It says "FunDay" on the tops of the timeslips!! NO DOUBT!!! See Ya.. I'm off to Bakersfield tomorrow.

I'll see what I can do Bob. How is the kangaroo land? What are you doing down there for a regular job?

Here is a link to Sweden's fastest 55 Chevy:   Lindkvist Brothers

Victor Bray and his Castrol GP50 Chevrolet team are headlining a special four car Top Doorslammer Invitational event at Darwin's Hidden Valley Raceway this Saturday night. Bray will face Brisbane racers Andrew Searle and Shane Elcoate along with Melbourne's Peter Kapiris over three rounds of racing.

"We're really looking forward to racing in Darwin," commented Bray. "The fans up there are absolutely great. They certainly love their drag racing and we'll be keen to put on a good show for them. It's also another chance for us to get on the track before the new championship season starts at Calder Park in November. When you look at who I'm up against it's not going to be an easy weekend away for us. Searly, Elcoates and Peter Kapiris are about the toughest opponents in the country. We're going to have to be on the ball," he added.

A hectic schedule of personal appearances and performances with his unique Castrol GP50 exhibition vehicle have kept Bray's team busy since their last outing on the track back in July. On that occasion at Willowbank Raceway Bray fired a shot heard around the globe when he regained the record as the fastest sedan drag racing vehicle in the world with a speed of 229.94 miles an hour. Since then American Randy Merrick running on nitro-methane fuel has lifted the mark to 230.7 mph once again laying down the challenge to Bray.

Immediately following the Darwin event the Castrol GP 50 team will be hitting the highway south to head straight for Surfers Paradise and the Honda Indy 300. Victor will be performing burnout demonstrations at the event right across the weekend in his exhibition car. He will also be headlining the Triple M drag racing demonstration which has become such a popular feature of the Indy carnival. Over forty thousand fans are expected to once again pack the Surfers Paradise facility on the Friday night as Bray and forty top line drag racers strut their stuff.

You are welcome! I can't wait to see you get that car running. Thanks for running them. My Y2K duties have made me VERY remiss in setting up the free web pages for the guys and gals running the DRL stickers. Denise quit her day job, however, and will do Draglist.com as her full time job at our home office. She will get all the sites up and started, and I will put the finishing touches on them. After that, Team DRL will hit the web!

Thanks again, Bob, and best of luck.

*FEDERAL MOGUL DRAGSTER FOR SALE* 6% FINDERS FEE TO ANYONE WHO BRINGS ME A BUYER! CHECK IT OUT!

Larry Reep  The Grim Reeper   (512) 928-2240 - Austin, Texas

Hi! I'm a marketing student from Nova Scotia and I'm working on a marketing research assignment in which I have to do some exploratory research on marketing a local event in order to write up a research proposal for a descriptive study. If you have any information or suggestions, I would greatly appreciate it. Thanks!

I meant to tell you about the spelling (of my name) but whenever we talked there were so many other things to talk about I just forgot, no big deal. I hadn't e-mailed you because my computer and typing skills have been progressing about as fast as your adventure trying to get your alcohol licence. Now that I have some new friends overseas I guess I will have to learn how to use the email better.

We made one more pass today (Mike McHargue's A/Fuel car) with a new fuel pump that was supposed fix the lack of mile per hour problem but the new pump didn't seem to be any better. The car ran 5.57 at 248; no improvement. We did, however, reduce the lag time on the starting line down to .125 from .260. The car doesn't want to move at the hit of the throttle for some strange reason. Just imagine if they can get rid of the lag time. Here are some numbers from our best run.

    60 feet:   .945
   330 feet:   2.469
   660 feet:   3.656 at 210.40 mph
  1000 feet:   4.665
  1320 feet:   5.540 at 253.80 mph

By the way, Terry (Morrow) now works for Alan (Johnson) and has been for probably three to four months. Till next time Bob.

re the WSM: The silence is deafening here too. The whole matter went onto the Premier's desk three weeks ago last Thursday and we await his decision. The indications are all positive, but they don't tell you anything, so we sit and wait for the absolute word.

We won't - we can't allow it to be swept under any carpet for any more time, and in fact I'm just awaiting a word from our political liaison guy who hopes to be talking to the Special Minister for State at a party meeting this weekend, and unless we have the right answers there we'll be dropping some firm suggestions of a deadline.

Yes, we've been keeping tab on the doings of Harker, Cowin, et al. In fact, I've only just got off a phone call from Andrew C's mother, who I've known for about 30 years, while she checked on Dave Grubnic's best, to see whether her son had become the quickest ever Australian. He just missed, though now he's the fastest.

It was a fantastic run, and Johnny Rocca jumped about three feet when the numbers rang up on the board! I was proud to be announcing that session, as my pals from the IHRA, Ed O'Reilly and Ken Stout, gave me a mike and let me do the Pro Mod qualifying. Troy backed up the 6.22 for the new record, but they have not backed up the speed record yet. They came out loaded for bear in the final session, but the delay from two previous oildowns cooled the track and brought in a bit of dew. Almost nobody was able to put down any power, possibly robbing the "Ironhorse" team and the fans of the sport's first 6-teen Legal Pro Mod run.

We also were hoping for Tom Lee to eclipse his 6.609 Pro Stock run with the first run in the 6.50s, but he acquitted himself nicely on the slippery surface with a 6.650 that easily backed up the 6.609 for a new world record. In addition to the aforementioned 5.96 by Neil Parker (who failed to back up the run for the record yesterday, but will try again today), Mike Swinarski became the first Top Sportsman car in the 6.40 zone with a great 6.48, 211 pass. Mike won the Top Sportsman Quick 8 Shootout last night by almost climbing up the side of the concrete barrier, but somehow keeping it within the lines to post a SCARY 7.03, 177 mph win!

Other amazing runs that you won't see on the qualifying sheets were Jack Dustman in the Dustman Bros. Jet Dragster at 4.993/317.64 and Bob Motz in THE TRUCK at 7.495/214.11. Toby Ehrmantraut took the Odyssey jet digger to good 5.12/294 numbers -- an ET that broke the former MIR track record itself.

I am on my way back for eliminations! Good luck to all racers and let's hope we can get those records backed up!

Oops. Sorry Bob, that didn't come out right! I was announcing the BACKUP run, not the 6.22 record itself... Oh well, Rocca STILL jumped three feet, as you can well imagine!

Just a quick message as the day is over at Mission. Leo and myself are helping Mike McHargue and crewchief Dave West this weekend. On the first pass today we ran a 5.54 at 254 and on the second run the car slowed to a 5.58 at 248 as a fuel line came loose and leaned out the motor and burned 4 pistons. We got everything fixed though and plan on making one more pass tomorrow.

However we did give Leo enough time off to go finish his licencing and he ran a conservative 5.97 at 222 which should be adequate for a final pass. I will let you know how we run tomorrow.

Just saw your post on "WHAT'S NEW" on a Top Fuel dragster out of Calgary and thought it might be worth mentioning that there are also two Nitro funny cars in western Canada as well. Both Jason DuChene from Sherwood Park, Alberta and Charlie McIntosh from Regina, Saskatchewan were testing their fuel funny cars this summer in preperation for licensing.

Answers to couple of your questions in no particular order because it's Friday and my brain is tired. Bernie (Fedderley) is my uncle. Terry Capp isn't currently driving a fueler although he was driving Geoff Godwin and Rob Chaput's FM/FC last year and the first part of this year. His last fuel ride was three or four years ago in Dave Korzan's funny car out of Spruce Grove, Alberta. As far as I know Dave still has the car.

The GM Goodwrench dragster is now owned by Craig Smith out of Washington. I'm not sure if Hodgson has anything to do with it any more. Ron and his son race sprint cars in the Edmonton area. Jason DuChene is a second year drag racer from the Edmonton area. After running an alcohol funny last year, Jason and his father decided to sell their alcohol car and build a nitro car with the proceeds. The car is a '97 Daytona with a 496 stage 10 KB. They have tested the car in Edmonton and Spokane. Can send you more info if you want.

Bob: Ah hah! Now that I know where you are, I can have you killed. No, actually, I am glad that somebody put the stuff out into the public domain the way you have. I hope it is of use to someone; that is why I wrote in the first place.

I think that the only problem is that with the speed at which things evolve, good information is dated as soon as it is in print. That is why I took all my books off the market; they said that things that I would no longer dispense as advice.

Thanks for taking time to write and for your nice comments about  SponsorShop.

To see what can happen when things really go wrong with Nitrous Oxide, check out the photos at  Not A Laughing Matter.  Absolutely scary stuff.