1066 Cruisers live band bash

And so it was when Bexhill-based 1066 Cruisers Hot Rod and Custom Car club staged their innovative Valve Cover Drag Championship.

Just as at Santa Pod or Avon Raceway, laying the power down on the start line was only part of the challenge.

Staying on the racing line was another, as challengers soon found.

The club hit on the valve cover challenge as an interval novelty for Saturday's charity fund-raising Live Band Bash at The Mermaid.

Local rock group Dead Calm laid down a solid and well-received beat from the outset for more than 100 revellers.

The Valve Cover Drag Championship was an idea borrowed by club vice-chairman Paul Dowling from American hot rod and custom car enthusiasts.

The challenge was to use a car rocker cover as the "bodywork" for a model dragster. Electric and internal combustion motors were banned.

Club chairman Kim Freeman had produced two easily-assembled 24ft drag strips, complete with 1066 Cruisers logos on the start-line - and skilfully-rebated "Armco" safety barriers.

How would entrants respond to the challenge?

Ingenuity was the name of the game.

Taking a lead from English Electric's famous Lightning jet fighter, Paul had superposed two lengths of catapult elastic to drive a dual pusher-puller propeller system for his Rover V8 rocker cover.

Kim went for the catapult elastic approach for his "Pist-n-broke" challenger but used it to drive the rear wheels, shod with wheelbarrow inner tube rubber to give grip to the Action Man Army trailer rear wheels.

Committee member Dave Murphy's Pontiac valve cover featured spinning-top inertia technology, courtesy of a drive-shaft flywheel and a pull-cord.

On paper, club treasurer Jason Smith had the challenge sewn-up from the start.

His valve cover was topped by solid fuel rocket, secured by two exhaust clamps.

With a five-second burn time, the booster was - theoretically - enough to leave the opposition standing.

But Margate-based challengers Nobby and Chris Kennedy of the Tec Warriors favoured low rolling resistance rather than brute power. Their Mercury Pontiac valve cover had paired CDs for wheels. How narrow-profile is that? And they ran on sophisticated bearings.

Paul's push-me-pull-you proved under-powered and relied more on gravity from a ramped start.

Kim's rear-wheel drive was potent but inaccurate. "Murph's" string-pull was ingenious but suffered somewhat when he failed to let go of the string'¦

Jason's rocket was outlawed by scrutineers, fearing it would trigger The Mermaid's smoke-alarm system!

But, ultimately, it was Kim's "Armco" barrier which proved the undoing of all except the Margate challengers.

Any contender which stepped out of line and scraped the barrier was brought to an untimely stop by their rubber tyres.

Not for nothing is the Margate hot rod and custom car club known as the Tec Warriors.

Their CD wheels were not only of low rolling-resistance but the smooth tyre-walls simply slid down to the barrier to slip the glitzily-chromed challenger effortless over the finish line.

With a best of three runs, the winner of each heat went into the next round, culminating in the first round with Nobby of the T.E.C. Warriors, pitted against Kim of the 1066 Cruisers', Kim.

TEC Warriors finished as convincing winners but everyone was a winner at the Big Band Bash.

The Cruisers were able to make donations to both the Sussex Air Ambulance and Demelza House, the children's hospice charity, as a result of last August's annual Mid-Summer Picnic car show at Catsfield.

They now hope to share out more cash between the charities as a result of Saturday's fun.