| 12 Months On, RSR Returns |
| Tuesday, 01 September 2009 | |
Well, here we are, 1 year on from what had to be one of the worst weekends of my life. Only a few people will be able to relate to the absolute devastation that was felt on the morning after our accident. We and our guys had invested some much time, money and devotion in putting together a racecar that we were so proud of, then having to stand back and watch as it was cut in half so that it would go back into the trailer for the long drive home. It took a few weeks to come to terms that our dear ‘Vegas’ would not make another pass. Strange though it was, 2 months later the global financial crisis hit our transport company and we went from running 5 trucks daily between Brisbane and Sydney to having no loads overnight. On the very same day Steve had just returned from America after having extremely promising talks with a global company that were going to invest in a new racing programme with us. Two weeks later we received a call from them informing us that they had also been badly affected and had to withdraw all motorsport advertising. People say that when they are having a bad run that they must have run over a chinaman - I felt that we must have taken a bulldozer and dug up China itself! It took until April for work to come in steadily and the sacrifice from Steve to become a full time truck driver again, with me taking on another job as well as running the transport business at home. We had been to Willowbank as spectators in January and although it was good to see everyone again we set a goal in mind that somehow we would be back with another car. This was boosted when Steve was asked to drive at the 2009 Winternationals, but unfortunately due to circumstances beyond our control, this did not happen. Having started to get things in place for this event (and then it not happening) gave an extra shove at the need to fill the gap in the workshop. Many options were put on the table and then came a call from Dwayne Riley offering his car to campaign on his behalf due to his work overload. The car and spares were brought to our workshop and the crew set about readying it for racing. Dwayne managed to take 2 weekends off and came up to work with our guys too. A couple of times over the last few days I have found myself questioning if we are doing the right thing - putting together a racecar, getting parts made, spending money that should really be used on more mundane things, driving all the way down to Sydney to qualify a car that hasn’t hit the track. All that way to run against 9 other competent teams for an 8 car elimination ladder without even a test. How absolutely mad we must be, but then I glance across the workshop floor and look at half a chassis realising we did almost the same thing in February 07 when ‘The Spirit of Las Vegas’ came back to Brisbane with the gold Christmas tree. We shall have to wait and see, wont we……… Heather Bond, Team Manager
We started the car on the Saturday before the race weekend and packed it in the trailer so we could have a relaxing week. On Wednesday Heather and I picked up our brand new prime mover, hooked up the race trailer and set off with the rest of the guys following in the Mercedes Van. An uneventful trip was had until, following a line of trucks just south of Tareo, the truck in front ran over a pallet and next moment pieces of pallet were raining down on our new truck! Arriving a the track we set up the pit and went back to the ECT for a relaxing meal and a couple of light beers before heading off to bed. Friday dawned and we headed off to the track after breakfast. We decided to sit out the first session, but go to the line and watch the other cars. On warming up for the second session, just before I shut it off the chassis gave a twitch, we investigated but could find nothing wrong. We pushed the car out ready to line up but it would not go forward, so we dropped the coupler off and pushed it back into the pit. Upon investigation we found the gears in the reverser had shattered and were lying in the bottom of the reverser. After pursuing options of reverser's from other teams which unfortunately did not fit, we took out the broken gears and put it back together thinking we would still have forward drive, unfortunately we did not and had to shut off. Saturday morning our good mates the Shepherd's came up with an old 1.5 inch shaft reverser and told us to rob it of the bits we needed, THANKS GUYS!. Third qualifying session and we were the 1st pair out, the car fell down the track but at the finish line the car did not want to shut off. When I finally got it stopped in the shutdown area the blower belt was lying on the top pulley just below the injector, so i thought, given the throttle cable was free and easy to operate, that the belt had caught in the way of the butterflies. We downloaded the data and it told us that the clutch had not locked up and that it had dropped 3 cylinders at 3.4 seconds. We readied the car for the last session, after making a small change to the clutch we were the last car out. I will run through the pass in the mental stages I use while driving the car - We fired it and did the burnout, all seemed okay, pulled into prestage and pulled the fuel pumps full on, slid my foot off the clutch and eased into full stage, on the green I mashed the throttle, through 60ft with no tyre shake and it was hauling, just after half track the car started to move around a fair bit but i knew it was on a great run and stayed with it, approaching the finish line I mentally prepare for the shut off, the finish lines there, off the throttle, bugger the throttle is stuck again. I slid my foot out of the pedal to try and pull the throttle off, but no hope, by this time I knew I wasn't going to stop. When I sit in the car waiting to run I close my eyes and go through all the scenarios - if "This" happens I will do " That", if "That " happens I will do "This" . The thought of the throttle sticking on a 7500hp dragster is something you don't want to think about too often. It was asked why I had not pulled the chutes earlier. Well at a meeting in Melbourne in the late 90's we had a situation where we had a strong side wind at the far end of the track, so much so they stopped the bikes from running. I decided to make the car stop quicker by pulling the chutes out under power so when I came out of the wind cover provided by the bank I would have slowed dramatically.Unfortunately it blew the panels out on 3 pairs of chutes, this i remembered and I thought I wanted to have some braking if I could unjam the throttle, as there was no way you would stop it on brakes alone. The car was on full throttle for 7.35 seconds and on overlaying the data we recovered on our fastest run we saw it was quicker than the at pass. At 300MPH you travel at over 450 feet per second, after the finish line you have about 4 seconds at that speed before the track ends and you are in the sand.Approaching the end of the track and still having to use two hand on the wheel, I thought this is going to be BIG!When suddenly the fuel ran out, the throttle unjammed and I got the chutes out, by this time I was almost in the kitty litter.I concentrated on keeping the car dead straight so as to go in "head first", with approximately 15 feet of car in-front of me to act as a crumple zone, I had to hope that was enough.
At the last second I pulled my hands off the wheel and then a mighty WHOOMP and the car stopped dead. My first thought was that was not too bad! and then the fuel tank exploded and the fire came into the cockpit. I had no pain apart from my left hand so with it getting a little hot in the car I got out over the front of the car, and trod straight into a tyre full of water. By this time the rescuer's had arrived and they were all falling about in the tyres as well which i thought was quite funny! When I got down to the gravel Phil Lammattina (Sorry Phil I have to tell this story it still makes me laugh) proceeded to tell me the story of him running to the car, but he gets physically sick when he runs - so there he is bent over upchucking when the paramedics come up to him and asked him his name and was he okay let us look at you and he tells them that he drives that car over there ( pointing at the Fuch's Top Fuel Dragster at the bottom of the return road)and then points me out walking across the gravel as the driver that crashed! Now you have to look at the accident philosophically, all the years of driving gave me the experience not to panic in a hairy situation and the the car do its job to protect me. Buying the best safety equipment that you can get and lastly my thanks to Heather for buying me a HANS device, without which I KNOW I would not be here to tell this story. To go from approximately 180MPH to 0 in 4 feet is a BIG hit and to get out with only a fractured finger is incredible. Heather and I can only marvel that even a few days later I did not have one bruise on me. I know one sure thing that I will never get into another race car without a HANS device on and urge all drivers to purchase one. Backat the pit I changed out of my fire-suit and to appease a few people I took a trip down to the Blacktown Hospital for a bit of Saturday night entertainment with the drunks, druggies and OD's. They finally let us out at about 5am and Heather and I took a cab back to the hotel for a few hours sleep. I felt so sorry for the guys on the crew led by Colin Miller this was their baby as well and there they were cutting her up with a 9" angle grinder to get the car into the trailer. All packed away by Sunday lunch time we went down to the ECT for lunch before the trip back.Heather and I set off and wend to bed at 11pm at Nambucca and set off the next day at 8.30am.1.5 hours later the new primer mover broke down for over 10 hours so we finally got home at 2.15am Tuesday morning. It was an eventful week that we could have done without but the good part was that I was unharmed. I would like to thank the Marshall's, fire crew, paramedics and fellow races for their assistance and well wishes, a special thanks to Phil Read who commandeered a vehicle to take Heather down the the accident scene. I will prepare another report, with assistance from Colin our car chief, about the amazing efforts of RSR to get to the Spring Top Fuel championships. We look forward to being back racing as soon as possible. Thanks Pommie Steve Read |
PHOTO COURTESY LEE DAVIS