home
racing
First car – 1992
Speedflow’s owner, Fay Fischer has driven a number of drag race cars since her racing debut at the famous Santa Pod drag strip in 1992. The later cars were emblazoned with the Speedflow logo although her career started with home financed efforts in the old class of “Modified”. This was a class for cars capable of running the 1/4 mile in 11.5 seconds or quicker and attracted huge fields of 30 to 35 cars. The front engine “altered” (pictured right) ran a big block Chrylser with a drive train taken from a 60’s Jensen muscle car. It is pictured at the old Avon Park track where Fay took out two teams from “Pro” division during a Good-Guys shootout before rain stopped play.
Now competitive – 1994
1994
at Santa Pod, a beautiful sunny August Bank Holiday, a new paint job and
a race against Mike Ismail’s radical Citroen. 25 entries in the class
forced a pre-race eliminator on the previous night to get the field down
to 16 cars. A huge Santa Pod crowd remain on the bank to become engrossed
in the regular frantic dogfight that “Modified” had become. Mike
runs too quick and Fay moves on the next round. A small nitrous oxide kit is added and much weight is removed from the car, Fay gets a best of 9.6 seconds at 134mph. A couple of event wins brings about the Santa Pod divisional championship before the car is sold.
A big step up – 1995
1995
at Santa Pod saw the new car’s debut, shown here with original wide-stance
front end and huge front wing which achieved two things, (1) It weighed
22lbs and (2) It triggered the starting line beams. This was later removed
in favour of the 2lb version along with a 10 inch reduction in the front
tracking. The car could now turn through 180 degrees in less than an acre
but was totally unsteerable under power due to the loss of front end weight.
A weight bar was then added to ensure the carefully constructed plan came
together perfectly!The car featured an ICE built 516cid Big Block Chevy mated to an “indestructible” JW Ultraglide – which was promptly destroyed! But the car did hit 7.95 seconds at 169mph.
The Super-Pro wars – 1997
The car is now well equipped and Fay has reached a standard of driving which
makes the team the least welcomed opponents. Running regular 7.85s at 170mph
plus saw some event wins and a top three placing in the National championship.
A sponsorship deal was signed with the Big Bus Company, a tour operator
in Central London who came on board with financial help and some good engineering
backup. Opportunities in other areas began to emerge.Top Alcohol racing – 1998
Old
friends, Mick & Bob Gleadow had teamed with Barry Redstone to put together
a budget TAD operation using an ancient chassis and many borrowed bits.
Fay joined the team to drive in 1998. A first outing was at the Cannonball
event at Santa Pod where she debuted the TAD car and also drove her own
Super-Pro car. The TAD made a first full pass of 6.66 seconds at 211mph
– much to everyone’s surprise and the team’s relief. That
weekend saw a best of 6.47 from the TAD but Fay went on to win the event
in the Super-Pro class. Those sort of weekends don’t come around too
often. The stress (not to mention the extreme differences in driving technique)
saw the Super-Pro car parked for the season despite leading the national
championship points race at the time.A new Top Alcohol car – 1999
A near-new TAD was purchased from a retired Finnish team and readied for
the 1999 season. The parts were not the latest state-of-the-art kit but
everything was there to get the team into the rarefied air of the 5 second
zone. Alas, it was never to be. Despite the team having worked every available
hour and spending much more money than they should, the old saying of “you
can’t buy experience” applied. A lack of real track time and
a bewildering set of adjustments for which there was no known “norm”
proved beyond the team’s ability to overcome. The car never ran quicker
than a 6.33 at 215mph before Fay moved out of the drivers seat and the team
was sold on.Super-Pro again – only bigger!
The Super-Pro fields had grown larger and much more competitive, several cars were running deep into the 7 second range, one or two into the sixes! Notably Steve Johnson and the Motormouse dragster. The picture shows Fay in the left lane at Shakespeare raceway about to hit her dial in dead-on, that – coupled with a .52 light was enough to take the win against Martyn ”Sid” Jones in the final round of a Super Series event.
Later, many of the door cars moved to a new class and it was judged that
Super-Pro had possibly seen it’s best days. Her beloved dragster was
sold at the end of the 2001 season along with the entire racing operation.
Fay says she will not operate her own team again – but has had many
years of enjoyment from the actually racing and the camaraderie that exists
at all levels of drag racing. Advisor to the Roadzombie Jet Dragster team – 2003 onward
Speedflow has acted in an advisory capacity for the Roadzombie Jet Dragster. Every aspect of the plumbing, from brakes, fuel and pressure operated systems as well as the safety elements related to the safe control of fuel has been overseen and supplied by Speedflow. The systems on a jet turbine are unique and demanding, high volumes of fuel, often under high pressures and requiring higher than normal safety factors have all been dealt with by Speedflow. Other elements have included accurate control of air pressure to operate turbine controls and to replace the vacuum created by the sudden emptying of fuel tanks – the latter needing accurate metering and fail safe devices.
New Project – 2007
Speedflow is researching and specifying the fuel delivery system on a totally unique project. It is a hydrogen peroxide rocket capable of delivering up to 7,500lb of thrust that will be installed in a custom made dragster rail. This project represents many challenges, huge fuel demands (circa 20ltrs / second), an operating pressure between 700psi and 1,000psi with a fuel that has some sensitive properties. The vehicle will be exposed to extreme G forces, both on launching from the start line and when slowing down, these are key considerations when planning the control of fuel.
This
project is in its early stages, the rocket has been fabricated by a world
authority and the next stage is to create an operational system ready for
the chassis to be fabricated around it.
