My belly tank is this years Pendine sands poster car, which as you can imagine I'm very pleased about. A great bit of photograph/artwork...
Just a lilte update, been out testing at Santa Pod this weekend and although not the perfect place to test due to it being a 1/4 mile of sticky rubber not a lake bed/beach/salt flat the tank still managed to clock just over a 100mph at the 1/4 mile and felt like it still had some leg room to go on a longer course....we'll see in september.
Nice video. It looks like it ran straight and tracked well. You musta given that FED a run for his money too. Have fun.
The FED is the Charles Bang dragster, they were very sportsman like and gave me a three second head start to even the playing field, was a good race.
I hadn't noticed this while driving, but shows up well in the video, I'm going to do some investigation. Due to no rear suspension it hops the rear wheels badly at Santa Pod as soon as the boost kicks in in first and second it starts to hop, so I usually change up a bit early to minimize it, once in third it seems OK so long as I don't stamp my foot in it straight away....which is hard not to do
Well I'm pleased to add this update as its taken a few years to iron out the bugs with the belly tank, but finally we managed to get a respectable speed at the VHRA Pendine Sands beach races. Saturday was an absolute wash out with rain all day and no racing but the sun came out early Sunday morning and my first run of the day the belly tank sped to a blistering 122.51mph and a second run of the day came in at a respectable 119.7mph. On both runs going up through the gears it was difficult to keep traction and stop the tank from drifting around but once it had built up some speed it became very stable and confidence inspiring to just keep my foot firmly to the floor. All in all an excellent weekend and not only got me my 100mph club T-shirt but also broke my own class record and fastest vintage engine 2025 award.
Wow! That's not just breaking the record, that's advancing it dramatically. Looks like a record you will hold for quite some time. Good job.
Great to have an update and you deserve that record from all the hard work and setbacks over the years, well done my Friend. JW
Thanks for all the congrats. I've enjoyed doing this build thread, its great to get feedback from others, perhaps spread a bit of inspiration and posting my progress with the tank was great for motivation and speeding up the build. What I need to do now is win the lotto so I can ship the tank to Bonneville and have a blast on the salt....
You need some corporate sponsorship. Must be some big company over there that wants to show off a bit of British ingenuity and maybe rub some Colonist's noses in the salt.
IIRC, MG had a factory sponsored streamliner back in the day. So maybe a British invasion could be possible? Just saying.
When i had Bonneville in my sights with my Tank i was going to ask local businesses for a $500 donation and they got to put a sticker for their company on it but the cost has now tripled and it's not going to get any better. I'm OK with running in New Zealand only, as Land Speed NZ is only a 6 hour drive. Good luck with the next adventure, Jamie. JW
Running at Bonneville would be fantastic but I really cant complain when I've got "the worlds fastest beach race" literally on my door step. I'm still following your build JW and your tank is coming along nicely, wont be long and you'll be out tearing up the NZ beaches.
If I were a hot rodder in New Zealand I think I would set my sights on nearby Australia's Lake Gairdner. It reportedly is smooth, rock hard, and dwarfs Bonneville.
The Jalopy Journal
