Latest News 16/5/06

Welcome to the latest update to Trakbytes. I am pleased to say that in the four months since I re-launched the site I have renewed contact with many of the regular contributors and correspondents, and I have also heard from many people who have discovered Trakbytes for the first time, including some of the many racers featured in the archives. I am aware that lots of you out there are missing the regular updates to the site. As I have explained before I would like to add to the site on a more regular basis but time does not permit this. I hope that this latest small offering satisfies your thirst for nostalgia, for a short while at least. There has been a particular interest in UK Drag racing nostalgia in recent months which has been helped along by Stu Bradbury's excellent idea to launch a UK Drag Racing Hall Of Fame. You can read the story of this in Stu's own words on Andy Kirk's Drag Rod And Classic Review here...   At the re-launch of the site I mentioned that I will not be concentrating too much on adding to the photo archive on this site. I will be continuing with the pictures that have already been donated to the site but after that I will be concentrating mainly on the other parts of the archive. There are a few other sites that cater predominantly for photos. Alan Currans Acceleration Archive and Jon Spoards UK Drag Racing Nostalgia site are two of my favorites. Jon has recently begun to update his site again and, as well as a huge set of photo galleries, has a nice collection of video clips, most of which you won't find anywhere else. On the subject of video (well sort of) Nick Pettit recently contacted me to tell me that his impressive set of Time Travel videos (of which I own a fair few!) are now available on DVD. In addition to this he has launched a website detailing them which also includes some photos from his collection. If you have never seen the Time Travel collection, and you have bothered to read this far, then you have to give them a look. Although with a current total of 48 volumes it will be a tough choice deciding where to start. You can find links to Nick's, Jon's and Alan's sites on the Draglinks page. There is now a "Search The Site" function included on Trakbytes. I introduced it some time ago but didn't announce it as I wanted to see how well it worked first. I'm glad to say it seems to work quite well so feel free to check it out. If you are looking for details of a particular racer or vehicle then it could be very useful. You can find the link on the left. Finally don't forget to visit the Help Us Find... page and see if you can help anyone find what they are looking for.

The Latest Updates

In the History Archives there are a number of new entries from Clive Rooms. The first of these is from 1905 would you believe. The next is bang up to date from 1962 (details of Sydney Allards entry in a Debden Speed Trial). There's more in 1965 with a FTD for John Lloyd at a Duxford Sprint in April. In the 1970 section there is a new entry that saw the Santa Pod strip speed record broken three times in one day in June. The 1972 section has details of a previously unrecorded meeting in March where the Stones debuted a new car. There's details from every class added to the Santa Pod European Drag Racing Grand Prix in April/May 1988 There's details in the 1992 section of an Avon Park meeting in April, of which I only previously had the winners list, and a huge report of Santa Pods Main Event in May. Following on from the above updates there are now new Hall Of Fame entries for Sydney Allard, Dennis Priddle, Tony Densham and The Stones. Some time ago Rupert Lloyd Thomas sent me a couple of scans from 1969. The first is from a Drag Racing show in Croydon, in January. Rupert kindly supplied some details to go with the programme cover he sent. The second is a flyer from the Elvington World Records Weekend in October. Both these events have been added to the 1969 archive. Rupert now lives in Canada but had an article published in the BDR&HRA newsletter in autumn 1971 about his trips to race meetings in the States. By chance a picture appeared in the November 1971 issue of Hot Rod magazine which caught Rupert on one of his visits. He is the young guy here with the bag that has London England painted on it. In the Special Features section the list of Blackbushe race dates has been updated with some missing detail. A big thanks to Jeremy Cookson for the extra info which helps complete the story. Unless you know otherwise... In the same section you will find the concluding part of the Dos Palmos Diaries, a unique look at the personal notes of Peter Godlee who looked after the mechanical side of the Dos Palmos dragster for the Croft Partnership. This section covers the arrival of Bill Weichelt, the re-naming of the car, the world records and the abrupt end to the story. There's an update to the Photo Archive with another selection from Tim Claxtons collection. Included are some of UK Drag Racings most famous vehicles. The Skilton fueler, Tee Rat, The Gladiator and Stardust to name but four. The second Photo update features another gallery from Dick Thompson. This includes such vehicles as Mickey Mouse, Mean As Hell and the Mantis wheelie truck with all wheels off the ground. The third (yes third!) update to the Photo Archive features a number of pictures sent to me by ex-pat Bill Taylor. They all date from around the late sixties/early seventies. A lot of Bill's pictures have appeared on David Kiplings site (see Draglinks) but I don't think there is any overlappage (?) here. Some of the pictures are of a slightly dodgy quality but I make no apologies for that as the subject matter is exemplary.

Latest News 1/1/06

Perhaps if I just carry on like nothing happened nobody will notice........... Oh alright then, I know you're not that daft. Welcome back to Trakbytes. It has been 17 months since the last update to the site and somewhere in the region of just under a year since the site vanished from the web. I won't go into details about the circumstances that were the cause of this, all you need to know is that it's back and hopefully won't be going away again. A big thank you to all of you that sent messages telling me how much you missed it while it was gone. It's always nice to know that someone out there is actually bothering to read all this stuff. An equally big thanks to the kind folk who made much appreciated offers of help in getting it back. You know who you are. What we have here is the site exactly as it was before it vanished. nothing has changed except this page and the URL. It took a lot of work to upload everything again and in the process I had to update and repair a lot of links between sections. It is possible, if not highly likely, that there may be one or two that I missed. I checked through as thoroughly as I could but if anyone discovers something I have missed then let me know. I am aware that the Draglinks page needs attention and I will be attending to that in due course. For anyone who may be new to the site I have always encouraged visitors to add material to the site. Wether it be meeting results, programme covers, anecdotes, snippets or a single detail from a single meeting. If it's relevant it will be added. Corrections are also welcomed. I have never claimed that Trakbytes is the absolute definitive version of events. When researching details for the site they can quite often be found from only a single source, and that may not be accurate. So if there is anything here that you think may be incorrect then get in touch. How often will the site be updated? The truth is I don't know. A change of jobs for me, not to mention the addition of two children to the family, means that spare time is a rare thing these days. All I can promise is that I will update it whenever possible. I have a mountain of new material to add, including many photos from Dick Thompson and another gallery from Tim Claxton. After those particular additions I may have to scale down any new additions to the photo galleries. These additions do take up a lot of time to prepare and to be honest there are some terrific photo-specific sites catering for this side of the nostalgia scene that do it much better than I ever could. Standing above all others is my buddy Alan Currans Acceleration Archive. A rapidly expanding wealth of photographic nostalgia. The only exceptions will be any really good rare stuff that comes my way that I don't want Alan to have. I'm sure you will be understanding mate! If anyone reading this is signed up to the mailing list, and did not get a mailshot about the re-opening of the site before the news appeared on Eurodragster, then it is possible you did not update your details when changing e mail addresses. The subscription form is on the front page of the site. Any e mail addresses that bounced back from the mailing list will have been removed. So get yourself signed up again in case I ever get an update posted! NOTE: If you have had trouble replying from the mailshot it is because I forgot to update the reply address (doh!) I have rectified this now. So, enough waffle for now. A happy new year to you all. I am looking forward to hearing from some of my regular correspondents who I have lost touch with over the last few months, and hearing from new visitors to the site. - Chris

Latest News 17/8/04

What's going on? Regular visitors to the site will have noticed the recent annoying appearance of advertisements and pop-ups on the site, along with the absence of any recent updates. Please accept my apologies for these, it is due to circumstances currently beyond my control. The main reason is that I am temporarily unable to meet the costs of renewing my host's fees and so the site has been downgraded to a free service host for the time being. Unfortunately it also means that I will have to suspend the updates to the site as the free service does not provide enough webspace for any new material. Bandwidth is also limited so you may not always be able to access the site. Another drawback is that the e mail address on this site will no longer work so please do not try to use it. If you wish to contact me you can do so by clicking here. I do hope to be able to have the site back to normal in the not too distant future. In the meantime thanks for your patience - Chris

Latest News 26/3/04

Welcome to the latest Trakbytes update. As you may have noticed they are becoming more regular again. The new additions to the site are listed below and I am pleased to say that the first of Dick Thompson's photo galleries has now been posted in the Photo Archive. I met Dick some time ago after he initially contacted me with reference to one of his photos that I had used on the Showtime site. I'm sure you will enjoy seeing some of his work over the next few updates. Continuing on the photo theme a previous contributor to this site, Chris Dawson, has contacted me to let me know that he has posted some of his photos on his own site. You can find them here; www.madhats.co.uk/dragpics. And if nostalgia photos are your thing don't forget to check out Alan Currans site at www.theaccelerationarchive.co.uk. Alan has been regularly updating his site, obviously he has far too much spare time on his hands! Finally for now Danne from Sweden contacted me recently to let me know about his Swedish Dragracing nostalgia site at race68.com. It's well worth a look if you haven't already seen it, the nostalgia galleries contain some vehicles that will be very familiar to UK fans, including some of "that Jeep..", in fact some of the vehicles there also appear in the latest Tim Claxton gallery update on this site. Finally there is a new poll now open for the Hall Of Fame. Take a look at the list of possible new inductees and vote for your favorite. The winner will be included in the Hall Of fame as part of a future update.

The Latest Updates

Be sure to check out the "Help Us Find" section and see if you can help anyone with finding the information they are seeking, or post your own request, the latest entries include requests for help on matters such as Tim Cooks Chevies, a film of the '73 Internats and the Tokyo Tart! The next installment of the Dos Palmos Diaries has been posted in the Special Features section. The new material, from page 10 to page 14 records the teams performances at the 1965 Dragfests, the subsequent break-up of the Croft partnership and the arrival, four years later of a new driver. There are now links to various sections of the diaries at the bottom of the introduction page so you can jump straight to the new sections. The Photo Archive has been updated with the addition of the latest batch from the Tim Claxton collection and the first in a series of galleries from Dick Thompson. Dick has supplied a number of photos that will appear over the next few updates. The first features some of his driver portraits. Clive Rooms has supplied race reports for no less than 11 meetings in the 1981 and 1982 sections. These were badly needed as the eighties section was the least detailed section in the archives. There are two updated entries in the 1975 section that I put together some time ago and never got around to posting. They are the GMAX Trophy meeting at the end of September and the September International a week earlier. Both these entries have been enlarged considerably and also now contain full results lists. There are new entries in the Hall Of Fame files for The Stones, Allan Herridge, John Hobbs, the Pages, Peter Crane and Dennis Priddle. There is now a new poll available on the Hall Of Fame page so take a ok and vote for the racer you would like to see included next.

Latest News 8/2/04

Welcome to the latest Trakbytes update and the first for 2004. There are some updates this time that may not be too obvious at first glance. My thanks go to Clive Rooms, who has contributed before with help in compiling the list of Blackbushe dates. He supplied me with a list of 22 corrections and updates to dates that were incorrect throughout the archives. Fortunately there was nothing too serious, and correcting them took less time than I imagined, but I cannot forgive myself for getting the date of the 1965 Blackbushe Dragfest wrong! Clive then offered to compile some race reports for some of the missing meetings in the archive, and I naturally took him up on this. I need all the help I can get here! So the first of Clives reports are contained in this update. Many thanks Clive. The Hall Of Fame vote should be back in action on the next update and I will have the first set of photos in the Dick Thompson Galleries. There will also be more race reports from Clive as another batch have appeared in my inbox as I type this.

The Latest Updates

Be sure to check out the "Help Us Find" section and see if you can help anyone with finding the information they are seeking, or post your own request, the latest comes from the current owner of the Pubcrawler, remember that? Perhaps you can help the current owner trace the old owner. The occasionally updated Anecdotes page has a new tale for you, this time some memories of a beach party on Romney Sands from none other than Stu Bradbury. It's funny how often Ronnie Picardos name comes up in stories like these! The next installment of the Dos Palmos Diaries has been posted in the Special Features section. The new material, from page four onwards, includes a magazine article on the car and some press cuttings as well as details of the Croft teams appearance at a B.A.R.C. demonstration. The Photo Archive has been updated with the addition of the latest batch from the Tim Claxton collection. Among the new additions are some shots of Dennis Priddles first Avenger Funny Car. Clive Rooms has supplied race reports for the following meetings, all in 1980, Blackbushe April 20th, Blackbushe June 8th, SPR October 11th/12th and SPR November 8th/9th. There are new entries in the Hall Of Fame files for Allan Herridge, John Hobbs, Dennis Priddle and the Stones.

Latest News 6/12/03

Another update so soon! You can tell that the long winter nights are drawing in. The votes are in for the latest addition to the Trakbytes Hall Of Fame. It was a close thing again with two favorites heading the field. In the end it was the Page boys that took the honours and their page is now added to the site. I e mailed Gary Page and had him check out the entry before publication and he was kind enough to supply a few corrections. He also sent the following message: ...have read the feature and think it is great...thank you very much for this it is a great honour that people think so much of my family to vote for us, please thank them. - Gary Page There will be a new poll in place for the next entry soon. If you have any suggestions as to who should be in the running please e mail me and let me know. This update sees the first in a series of new additions in the Special Features section. There you will find the first four pages of a genuine 1960's drag racing diary which was kept by Peter Godlee who was part of the Croft partnership that owned the Dos Palmos dragster from 1965 onwards. In memory of William Peter Dossett 1952 - 2003

The Latest Updates

Be sure to check out the new "Help Us Find" section and see if you can help anyone with finding the information they are seeking, or post your own request, the latest comes from one of the most well known and successful Altered pilots of the 1970's. As mentioned above the Pages' are the latest entries into the Hall Of Fame. These files are a compilation of all the relevant details from the Trakbytes archive plus any additional details that I may have. Also new in the Hall Of Fame are some of Dick Thompsons photos in the Sammy Miller section. I will be hosting some more of Dicks photos here soon so stay tuned! In the 1973 season there is a short summary of some of the achievements of the drag racers that attended the Elvington records event. I don't have the date for this but believe it to have been in September. Can anyone clarify this? At the end of the '73 section there is a list of the eleven UK Drag Bike riders who had made runs under ten seconds. 1975 sees a new entry at the beginning of August with details a visit to Sweden by some of the UK's finest. Also in August there is an updated entry for the Holiday Weekend Supernationals at SPR with an updated results sheet also. On to September at the Snetterton International and there is a major re-write of the meeting with plenty of new details including the climax of the TOR LINE Funny Car championship. Finally for '75 there is a new entry with details from the NDRC Championship Finals at Blackbushe. The Special Features section now includes the first installment from the 'Dos Palmos Diaries'. A unique look at Peter Godlee's notes from his time with the famous dragster. The Photo Archive has been updated with the third of a series of pictures from the collection of Tim Claxton. The Claxton galleries are now located in their own section which is accessible from the main Photo Archive page. There are new entries in the Hall Of Fame files of The Stones, John Hobbs, Clive Skilton, Dennis Priddle, Peter Crane and Tony Dickson.