SIDCUP drag racer Ray White faces the tallest of orders when he resumes his pro-modified farewell campaign over the Bank Holiday weekend.
The international season begins with Santa Pod raceway’s main event between May 28 and May 31.
Twenty one of the continent’s fastest pro mod racers will cross the sea to take on Britain’s seven best in a triple-crown battle-royal.
Round two of the MSA British drag racing championship is combined with the opening rounds of the FIA European championship and the Scandinavian NDRS Bilsport Series.
Pro-mods are the world’s fastest-accelerating ‘doorslammers’, pure-bred racing chassis cloaked in a colourful mix of body styles ranging from the 1930s to the present day.
They possess engines capable of hurtling them from standstill to 230mph in six seconds.
On paper, White is the slowest in the field.
A gulf in time and speed separates him from the quickest, Sweden’s reigning European champion, Mats Eriksson.
At last September’s European finals, Eriksson unleashed the six quickest pro-mod passes ever seen in Europe, including the class’s first five-second clocking over the standing-start quarter-mile (5.988sec/241.59mph).
White’s career best is 1.4 seconds and 50mph slower at the finish line but that won’t discourage him.
Despite the performance gap, White and Eriksson share certain similarities of outlook.
Both have a quirky taste in the composite-material bodyshells they use to cloak their racing machines, with a preference for the Ford brand, and both follow the drag race tradition of naming their cars.
White calls his 1955 Zephyr Lethal Zephyr, while Eriksson’s 1956 Crown Victoria is the Green Goblin.
With 28 entrants, pro-mod qualifying will be a brutal business.
Four sessions against the clock will select the quickest 16 for Bank Holiday Monday’s head-to-head, instant-knockout eliminations.
A dozen will pack for home on Sunday night and fancied runners sometimes falter. The lesson of Santa Pod’s recent FIA races is an underdog or two will often make the cut.
Having raced infrequently in recent seasons, White and his team will take heart from an Easter outing which served to shake out the cobwebs, even if the results did not impress.
Minor malfunctions prevented the car demonstrating its new-found power.
The first goal at Santa Pod will be to improve White’s career-best performance figures (7.391sec/190.92mph), preferably into the crucial six-second, 200mph zone.
At Santa Pod’s last three FIA races, this would have qualified him for eliminations.
It will be an outstanding achievement if White and the Lethal Zephyr can reach Bank Holiday Monday’s eliminations in such tough company.
Once there, anything is possible.
The FIA Main Event takes place at Santa Pod Raceway, near Wellingborough, over the Bank Holiday weekend.
Friday is reserved for sportsman-only qualifying, all classes qualify on Saturday and Sunday, while eliminations are completed on Bank Holiday Monday.
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