Carl Cox - The fastest DJ in Motorsport at Santa Pod for Main Event.... May '24
Well, what can I say about the few days I spent with Carl Cox and the CCM Dragster team at Santa Pod Raceway ? Please excuse my French but.... "What a f**king amazing experience" 💪🏼💪🏼🏁..
For someone who grew up and was schooled in Northamptonshire, I only attended Santa Pod a couple of times, as chose F1 to follow after an interesting encounter with James Hunt at Brands Hatch in 1976.
And it wasn't until I arrived, for Thursdays testing session, that I realized what I'd been missing for so many years.. Wow... After meeting Carl, with his usual huge grin on his face and the CCM Dragster team, I was given a few technical lessons in Pro Mod Racing and Paul, Carl's Chief Engineer, explained some interesting facts about the vehicles powertrain and his companies Pro Charger unit, which added a lot of extra power plus the deafening sound of the engine. Should have brought ear defenders with me.. because when they started up Carls 1970s Plymouth Cuda, my god, the noise was unbelievably intense. 😝
Thursdays weather was slightly unpredictable, with cold clouds and some warm intervals, which affects the drag strip but as Carl pointed out... " ALL of the racers face the same conditions, so it's a level playing field"...
Although just a testing day, you could see an intense, more serious look on Carl's face, after he'd suited and booted up, and not your standard Racing suit.. Extra fire proof with a 30 sec "fry" window " before being burnt to a crisp" Carl added, quite casually.
He was making light of the obvious... Even in testing, these Racing machines do the quarter mile in less than 6 secs and top speeds of 340mph... Not much room for error at those speeds... Safety ALWAYS comes first and with the FIA Championships, it's meticulous. Still, I've seen the USA Funny car incidents... Ain't that funny!! 😔.
With Focus, Confidence, quality Homologated safety equipment and a highly skilled team in place ..... Testing went smoothly. Very impressive, EXTREMELY loud with some key performance adjustments were made for the following days qualies...
One thing that really spiked my interest AND Pitlane's campaign for #DiversityInMotorsport, was the youth element to this Extreme Sport....
Whilst following the CCM Plymouth Cuda BEAST to the start of the SP Strip, I noticed several MINI Dragsters and Mini Drag bikes... In bright colours including a lot of pink... Yes, these youngsters, boys AND girls get to compete in the Juniors Championships from the age of 8 years old.
And we got to speak to the King family from Next Generation Racing.... Dad, Blade ( ex junior DRAG Bike Champion, now coaching his younger siblings), Hollie 15 years (400cc DRAG Bike 3 time Champion and ton the win at the Main Event) and the youngest star of the King family, 9 year old Jaxon King, with his 125cc drag bike... 💪🏼💪🏼🏁🏁. I was so impressed with this families attitude and LOVE of Motorsports, that we'll be inviting them to join the Sponsors4Racing platform, so we'll be hearing much more from this passionate and skilled Racing team in the near future.
Now, I'd had SO much fun, I decided to attend the Fridays qualifying event as well.... Just couldn't get enough of Santa Pods atmosphere and Extreme Motorsports....
Weather was much dryer and Carl's Cuda had been tuned and tested, now it was time for some proper High Performance runs up the famous strip....
I'd noticed that once the Drivers were strapped in to their "Rockets" on wheels, it was some time before they actually hit the track... We asked Carl, what goes on in his head during this waiting time? "You've only got several seconds of race time but some anxiety slips in, naturally but the training and a system check done, it's Racing as usual" Carl responded..
As the Plymouth Cuda roared it's massive engine to warm up the tyres, the track was set... BOOM.. in a cloud of tire smoke, both Carl and the car had gone... He'd run 2 x 6.325s, in Qualies and although there was a "Brown Pants" wobble moment on the 1st 6.32 run, the final run was, in my novice opinion, as straight as an arrow and perfect..
Carl and the team went on to run a 6.02 Quarter Mile with a top speed of 237mph, which was only just shy of the 5.9 target.... 💪🏼💪🏼🏁🏁
Great to get the opportunity to speak with the FIA Dragster team too and Connie explained about the Finals in September... So, we'll definitely be attending this fantastic venue for that...
Huge thanks to Santa Pod for their hospitality and a shout out to Callum, Caroline, Keith and Kerri ( In the media room)... Great few days of high octane thrills and spills..