Friday, July 20, 2012

Dragstalgia 2012

Dragstalgia is a festival of historic Drag Racing which takes place at Santa Pod and has a mouthwatering lineup of traditional racing.  It includes Fuel Altered, Wild Bunch, Outlaw Anglia as well as numerous vintage Nitro cars.

The first one was last year and somehow I missed it ... and so I was determined not to this year!

We booked weekend tickets with the plan to make a weekend of it but as the weekend got closer the forecast looked typically suspect.  We'd already been to the pod three times this year and each one had been disrupted by the awful summer we're having.

A call to the Pod on the Friday morning confirmed we wouldn't be camping - they actually recommended NOT to camp with children!  In truth Santa Pod hasn't recovered since Big Bang and with every shower the place floods again.

Still, we were prepared this time and with it being only 30ish miles from home we could easily make it as two day trips.  Saturday had a poor forecast, but it was expected to clear in the afternoon.  Perhaps we might even get some racing?

We arrived in rain.  The dragstrip was being cleared but there were huge bow waves coming out the front of the tractor!


The next few hours were taken up with wandering about the pits and Alfie jumping in puddles. 


But he was having fun so it was all good!


By early afternoon our friends Claire and Jody had arrived and so at least the downtime on the track gave us time to introduce and catch up.  There was also Santa Pod's first ever beer festival! ... with FOUR beers.  Rubbish! 

By late afternoon the rain had passed and the track was dry.  We found some seats in the grandstand and spent some time watching the racing.  Alfie loved it, especially when the cars were being guided back to the startline after their burnout.  He was mostly seen stood up with his hands in the air moving from 12 o clock to 3 or 9 o clock depending on where the Back Up Girl was indicating.

A shower late on in the day put an end to the action and it threatened the end of day Jet Car and Cacklefest.  Thankfully things still went (roughly) to plan and we were treated to the sound of 15 drag cars all simultaneously fired up on the strip.  It was immense!


Sunday was just perfect.  The sun shone, we were in great company, and we had roaring V8's to watch all day! ... oh, and the little bar at the top of the bank opened.  Newcastle Brown never tasted so good!


And Alfie got back onto Back Up duty!


Lunchtime came and we had a wander around the pits.


Before Alfie dragged Claire onto the trampolines!



The afternoon was spent just chilling on the bank watching the racing.  Do Sundays get better? I think not!



Alfie couldn't get enough of it!


Here's a few other shots from the weekend, and the full album (of nearly 100 photos) is here.  I took a load of video over the weekend which hopefully I might find 5 minute to edit and upload.






The quality of the cars and the racing was first class and one things for sure now - we won't be missing Dragstalgia 2013!

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