Well we're back in the UK after probably the best(and worst) 2 weeks in our teams history.From the outside it looked desperate but apart from the buckets of rain we got at the wrong time it was an awesome event that i wouldn't have missed for all the tea in China,or the coffee in Tim Hortons!!

We landed in Halifax(after having to travel to Montreal due to an overbooking by the travel company) to be met by Roddy Simpson(our saviour for 2 weeks) who drove us to the hotel,then dropped me off to pick up his car.We then spent a couple of days sightseeing (including an 800km drive back and forth to the track!!!)before picking the truck up on Monday.Unusually customs was easy and we got on our way to Moncton for the breakfast TV slot on Tueday am.We got to meet our first "foreign" racer here.Justin Stannard was a local guy who had an awesome looking pro-mod.and a great sense of humour.Although we never got to speak on TV we created a good first impression for the local population.We loaded the car back up and then headed up to the track(140km drive).We finally reached our destination after a solid 6 weeks of graft and i promptly got out of the truck and kissed the ground al la the pope....

1 broken engine fixed,3500miles and we finally made it!!!

Kissing the tarmac pope style......

We were greeted by track owners Terry and Sylvia McGraw who immediately made us feel right at home.We were parked in the very top spot in the pits, a reward for being the furthest travelled racers.That was a nice gesture from these guys.....

Tuesday at 6.30am Chris(Biro) and i drove 2 hrs to Fredricton to appear on Fred FM to promote the race.This is the biggest radio station in New Brunswick so the plan was to big up the race and get some more interest....Here we met Philip"Flippy" Dukes who was one of the racers and one of the main sponsors of the race from Auto machinery. From all accounts it went down a storm so it was back to the track with mission accomplished! We were hoping for some much needed track time in the afternoon but the track wasn't prepped enough for us.

track not quite ready

track a little better.....notice the flags...

So we spent some time getting to know some of the Maritime racers/fans that had turned up early and walked the track to familiarise ourselves with what was instore for us during the coming days......

Wednesday was slated to be a test and tune for every racer.Good friend and tuning guru Steve Sczepanski and Christina had turned up (a 1900km drive)to start tuning the car in earnest. Unfortunately we only managed to just drive down the track twice to run the fresh engine in.An 8.8 and 8.4 gave some good data and made us realise how much we had in the fresh combo! The VP Q16 fuel made the car like a rocket.This was the time we realised the track had it's shortcomings..... By this time Boo King and the Pizza boys had turned up.This meant (unusually for me) some very late night/early morning talking sessions.I missed all of this at WSR1 and was determined not to miss out this time.....

We were hoping that the track could be rented out on Thursday to start tuning the car properly but unfortunately this didn't come about.That left us to wait until the afternoon to cruise into town for the Sobey's gathering.Before we got to Canada we'd been asked to go to Boston pizza and park the car outside their premises.In return they'd feed the family for free.Not one to refuse that kind of offer we obliged and drove into town a couple of hours early.I don't think the management we're expecting 6 of us to turn up but nevertheless fed all of us without compliant! We only needed to travel to the next car park for the Sobey's cruise.It was pretty special driving into the already full car park.We parked up and started to meet with some of the folk would said they'd be there.It was no surprise to see Steve Wilson and Gerry Treit from Scotland as we'd arranged to meet there.They had driven up from Boston for a road trip.A bigger surprise was 3 other guys(and gals) from the UK! Kev Preston,Mick Pusey and Dave B(UK streetracer)all came over to say hello.... The car park started to fill up with cars from the racetrack including Rod Saboury's unbelievable Corvette,who on driving 22hrs to get to the track and realising we were at the cruise just unloaded his car and drove straight over..Top bloke!! Also there was good friend Pat Weisgerber who we had met at WSR1. We had kept in contact and it was great to meet up again.

Meeting up with Pat again....

Sobeys cruise night in the rain....

  Mid way through the evening,just as the people started to arrive guess what? It started raining.Not just a shower but proper english type rain...noooooooooo! Most of the other cars had come on trailers but Rod,the pizza boys with the Malibu and i hadn't.This meant travelling back to the track on ET streets which are NOT rain tyres.The journey was very interesting to say the least,not helped buy copious amounts of standing water making the cars slide about a lot!! Thankfully we got back without crashing into anything which was a bonus,and dispelled any rumours that these cars weren't street cars..... Would the rain we had today was a portent for the rest of the weekend? or would we get race done? Find out in part 2 of our blog of the trip....

ps: More pics available on the World Street Race page...