Our drag racing history goes back to the early 1980's when a work colleague of Trevors asked if he'd like to go to a meeting at Santa Pod.

"We went to a major meeting which had all classes from Sportsman ET (road cars) up to Top Fuel. I was hooked. The next time I went to Santa Pod I was Run-Wot-you-Brung-ing my own car."

And that's the way it was for about the next ten years. Trevor RWYB'd a succession of fast road cars ("Most of them looked like crap!") with times dropping into the 15's.

In the early 90's, the family built up a Rover SD1 V8 purely as a strip car. It was seriously lightened, and had home-made exhausts and inlet manifold with twin twin-choke Webers. A completely illegal aluminium roll-cage kept the scrutineers happy, but it at least looked tidy, and would run 14's all day long. We must have invested nearly £200 in it!

A chance find in a neighbours garage resulting in the next serious race car. The original 'Kitney Transplant' 1966 Ford Anglia. This was bought as a birthday present by Janet ("She loved me so much that the £25 purchase price was no object!!!!") and had the original 1200cc engine removed within the first weekend.

First it was a 3-litre V6, and then a 3.1V6, and then a well-worked 3.1V6, and then a well-worked 3.1V6 with twin Webers, and then a well-worked 3.1V6 with twin Webers and Nitrous Oxide injection. It was in this guise (painted in red-oxide) we first ran it in competition in the 1996 'Street Eliminator' championship, a class for road-legal cars which includes a 30 mile 'cruise' on public roads to ensure your car is really streetable. It ran 13.9 seconds, but wasn't really competitive. Shortly after its first outing we went testing and...............twisted the crank! Apparently the amount of nitrous we were using had detremental effects.......

A rethink was on the cards. All of the heavy acceleration had started to make the rear suspension part company with the 30 year old body. Out with the angle-grinder and welder and......A new chassis with integral roll-cage replaced the original rusty metal. Coil-over/ladder bar rear suspension with much-narrowed Chevrolet LSD 12bolt axle, and Viva HA transverse leaf front suspension. At this time the intention was to fit a Rover V8 engine and run the car in both Street Eliminator and the then popular Rover V8 championship. but seemingly overnight the Rover championship disappeared without trace. Enter a 390 Cubic Inch (6.5 litre) Ford FE engine, and the future was set.

Eldest daughter Marie seemed to get the 'shotgun' seat every time we ran this on the road (yes, this was road-legal too!). I'm not sure whether she appreciated the skill of her father every time we were sideways (that was most of the time) but I hope she enjoyed it. Watching her drive my standard RS2000 sideways everywhere  confirmed that she really  is a petrol-head!

Brian also raced the Anglia at York Raceway (in the wet!). Seeing the car disappear in a burst of spray at 100mph+ was a lot of fun for us, and just as much fun forBrian as he aquaplaned up the track.  Ah, happy days!

By the time we sold the Anglia the engine had developed into a twin-carbed, Holman & Moody headed, Nitrous injected 428 Cubic Inch (7 litre) lump. The car had fibreglass wings, bonnet, boot and doors. and we loved it. Problem was, because of the short wheelbase and skinny track it was beginning to get a bit hairy above 120mph. A new toy had to be found......

We love English Fords. We've had 100's of them from meek Mk1 Escorts to monstrous Mk2 X-packs. Henry may have been dead, but I'm sure he was trying to tell us something.

A chance advert in a free-ads paper saw us buying a part-built RS2000 race-car. As with most part-built projects we ended up re-making most of it. After nine months of Brian & Trevor burning the midnight oil we debuted the car at the 2002 National Finals at Santa-Pod. It was powered by the 'old' 7-litre engine out of the Anglia, but had grown a little GM 8V-71 supercharger.     'Kiss My RS' was born!     It's first ever run in the 14 second bracket demonstrated that it worked, and it remained undefeated in the National Finals (The last 3 rounds could not be run due to the weather) but it showed promise.......

.....It also showed power as within the 2-day meeting it had destroyed the torque convertor, gearbox, diff and, just for good measure, twisted both of the axle half-shafts. The engine wasn't too happy either. An expensive winter ensued.

For 2003 we decided to shake-down the rebuilt car before the 'Street Eliminator' season started at the 'Ford RS day', Santa-Pod again. It was at this meeting that Street Machine Magazine photographed the car for the amazing article they ran in their July 2003 issue, but the curse of the camera hit, and the car failed. On strip-down and inspection it seems that the radiuses on the crank had been ground too large which pushed the rods together and, eventually welded them that way!

After years trying to make the Ford FE lump work, the expense of keeping up with the repairs got too much, and we decided to fit a 460 (Ford 385 series). Much more available and modern engine with much more tuning potential. Bigger though, both capacity (7.6 litre) and physically. We had to re-make the entire front of the chassis to get it in.

But when we did, what a difference it made! Straight in to the low 11 second bracket. Then we put bigger carbs on it and went straight into the tens. A bit more fettling and very low tens were the order of the day.

Our first season with the car resulted in a mid-field finish in Street Eliminator. Not bad considering we didn't attend all of the rounds.  Since then a 24th in the  Pro-ET championship was another good finish, again considering we didn't attend all of the rounds. The car has also been in the '0-60' challenge, registering a creditable 3.2 seconds in the wet (and spinning the wheels to over 100 mph!)

In 2007, Classic Ford Magazine photgraphed the car at Shakespeare County Raceway for a full colour article that appeared in their September 2007 issue. Unfortunately this was at the ill-fated test so no 'power' shots were taken. Still an extremely good article though, and one of which we are justifiably proud!

So what next?

Well, now the car is  rebuilt with more of everything so it should be quicker and hopefully be more reliable. We'd like to test in late 2008 to see exactly what it can do. If we can find a cash sponsor we'd like to run the car back-to-back in both Pro-ET and Super-Gas. If no sponsorship appears we'll still try to run the car as often as possible. Even if it's only down to Sainsbury's............

The old Anglia was bought by a gentleman who has fitted a small-block V8 and runs it in The Sportsman ET class. It has been repainted, but looks largely the same.  It is really great for us to see our old car being campaigned in anger.