As many of you will know after a 2 year tenure running in VW Alternate Engine and winning the 2004 and 2005 championships I wandered off into the distance to try my hand first at Super Gas and then Super Pro ET.

After becoming SPRC Super Gas champion and National Championship Runner-Up in 2005 with the trusty 468ci (7.6 litre) engine that propelled the Corrado to a best of 9.10 @ 145mph, I took most of 2006 off to crew for a Super Pro ET dragster and occasionally dabbling in Competition Eliminator.

At the beginning of 2007 I decided to celebrate my impending 30th and my Dad's 60th (still now we race as a family) by having Jeff Bull Race Engines build a new 555ci (9.1 litre) engine ready for Easter and moving up to Super Pro ET.

For those that don't know, Super Pro ET is full mainly of dragsters with a smattering of door cars and altereds running under 8.99 seconds. The car was readied the day before Easter and I set off to Chris Isaacs to collect the car, after suffering 3 mishaps on the way to the track all was set to run the engine in on Friday and blast an 8 on Saturday morning, the day of my Dad's birthday. After keeping my toe in a bit too long an 8.79 shutoff run spoiled that, but at least we had run the 8 we so wanted.

Easter finished with an 8.60 best and a semi final finish. The plan was to run just at the Pod and leave Avon Park out due to holiday contraints. After Avon was rained out meant that by the time the Main Event rolled around we were still in the top five.

Friday of the Main Event reminded me of what the extra 1.5 litres was capable of as I nuked the gearbox on the startline and had to sit and watch the others run. Thankfully the rains came (how many people have said that?!) and no ground was lost.

Summer Nats is my worst meeting always, it was one I could never win even in AE and a 2nd round redlight proved my luck wasn't about to change. This left a quandry, to go to Avon or not.

We eventually went and landed a semi final finish redlighting to the Giles and Hartley team who along with Steve Johnson both have 30 years experience each and were my closest rivals.

The Euro Finals is the biggest meeting of the year with 28 cars turning up, things were looking bad when first Steve Johnson and then Giles and Hartley both ran dead on the dial to the thousandth! No pressure we ran a perfect run the next session, to end up third, in the end Steve Pateman from Street Eliminator ran perfect too and 4 of us ended up perfect.

For those that haven't been to a Euro Finals you arrive on a Wednesday, qualify on a Thursday and Friday and run round one on Saturday and 9am, to run on finals day you have to win 2 rounds which we did over John Tebenham (Ford Probe) and Steve Neimantis (Aston Martin), finals day saw us defeat Steve Green, Barry Giles and Steve Johnson to win my first Super Pro meeting and take the points lead with one round to go.

The National Finals was a bit odd, Barry Giles broke out when his opponent broke, this meant a 2nd round win over Chris Orthodoxou and we were champions, Chris redlit and it was all over. A fantastic year and we were the first 'door car' to win Super Pro in 4 years!

A big thanks to my superb crew (who are all V-Dubbers) George and Rachel Georgiou, Steve and Adele Woodbridge and Ady Goodier.

To all those that said it couldn't be done, it can!

Spencer

p.s I've bored you enough now but hopefully later in the week I will have pics of the new Sportsman VW beast!