TEAM TURBOVILLE............... ‘IN-THE-BLOOD’ TOUR-2010

If you didn’t guess the identity of the mystery racer posted on Sunday, it is Laura Grace Turburville, the new addition to the TURBOVILLE team.

Laura will contest her JMA Jr. Dragster next year in the national championship while I take the year off to try to recover from all the expenses incurred this season. I had a hard year as I tried to step-up the performance of ‘Mr. Spokehead’ with new fuel and clutch systems but had a few mishaps along the way, which cost me dearly. Racing a fuel bike (or any nitro vehicle) has been getting increasingly expensive for decreasing returns and, as the only normally aspirated V twin in ACU, I have to race in TFB against the blown Pumas, a race I can never win. The costs of touring Europe in UEM are totally beyond my reach so that is out of the question. I also struggle for crew constantly and the stress of building, tuning, riding, driving, etc. was taking the fun out of racing and without that, what is the point? Joe and Pete were great all year but have left to continue their own program in SSB for 2010, especially important now that the class is in the UEM championship. Ingrid and Martin are still with us, thank god, and do all the hard work behind the scenes setting up the pit and looking after us. They have made friends with just about every team at the track and are just great, but not ‘technical’ crew. The year was emotionally draining also, especially the Euro Finals after my terrible start line incident, which brought any future drag racing for myself into serious doubt.

After a lot of soul searching I decided that drag racing meant too much to me and I had to carry on but not at that level of expense and grief. I love that bike too much and owe it to Jim McClure’s memory to persevere!

So, in 2010, I will just do the odd event or demo as money becomes available, but no championships, and try to coax the bike down to the sixes. The performance at the national Finals was very promising, resulting in our only trophy of the year, so I know I am on the right track at last.

The brightest moment of 2009 was when my daughter, Laura, without any encouragement, suddenly decided she wanted to race! We rented the Pod car for her birthday and she turned out to be a natural, pulling great RT’s and coping with problems very intuitively, so she got her licence quickly. As she is fourteen there was no point in getting her a slow car so I bought a nice, ex-NHRA, car from German racers Dirk and Carlo (massive thanks to Pro-Mod racer Harald for bringing it over) and have since brought it up to date. It is a lovely JMA dragster with a good motor and a SFI tagged, flex chassis with launch air suspension and all the right bits. It went really well in testing and now I have to learn about tuning Methanol, which seems to be the complete opposite of Nitro!

These lessons will be put to good use however as I decided that I too needed a dragster like Laura’s, so am building a big 'Jr. dragster' for myself to race in pro-et. Laura can step up to it in 2011 if she wants, as she will be sixteen then. We are mid-way through the build already and it is looking good!

The car is called ‘OVERKILL’ because it is powered by my spare Overkill motor, which will be set up in a similar fashion to my bike motor. It will be normally aspirated, injected, single speed, slider clutch etc, but on methanol with a good hit of nitrous oxide. No idea what the performance will be like, around the ten second mark would be good, but we will have fun. Anyway, I can pretend to be Barry Sheavills for a while and hopefully be competitive in that great class of pro-et whilst not incurring the costs inherent with nitromethane.

The concept is proving quite popular and the car is already attracting interest from sponsors but of course we need more to finish the car and race it, so please get in touch if you can help. It will be pretty unique and a great crossover between the bike and car classes. Pretty sure it will be a hit with the crowd!

Laura is also in need of sponsors to help with entry fees etc. for next year but has concentrated her efforts so far in sponsoring others! She is registered with that great charity ‘HELP FOR HEROES’ and will be a great advert for them throughout the year. We will also collect for them at our pit so please come up and see us in the JR pits next year as she ‘Races for Heroes’.

Laura has made her own web site so please have a look around it and check out the new division of TURBOVILLE RACING. You can get to her site by clicking on her picture in the middle of the www.turboville.com home page. (check out the picture of me getting stuck in her car on delivery, doh!)

We both look forward to seeing you all at the track in 2010 for a year of great racing and good times.

Wishing you all the very best of Christmases and another rain-free new year, your bud’s, Ian and Laura Turburville

Especially good wishes to the people that have helped with parts and advice already, namely:- Jon Webster, Al Smith, Tim Blakemoore, Dale Wilch, Ron Houniet, Rush, Martyn Jones and Crunch, Martin Curbishley, Dave Wilson, Hayden Wheels, Shaggy, Jimmy Fox, Sparky Wiffen, Chris Mott, Tim Fountain, Will Sharman, Martin and Ingrid, Vincent Pels and of course the wonderful resource that is Eurodragster (no really, what would we do without it?)

Team Sponsors so far for 2010 are:- TURBOVILLE.COM, CUSTOM CHROME EUROPE, GATES BELTS, RED LINE OIL, FAST LANE RACING, RUSH RACING UK, SPRINT DAMPERS, BUTLER FABRICATIONS, EGT, TIMTIME.CO.UK, YOU???

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

Mr.Spokehead, a tribute to Jim McClure.
Laura Grace, racing for heroes.

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