Hi everyone

As you may or may not be aware, the reason why the Nelson report is extremely late is because there is not that much to report.

After a relaxing couple of days in Nelson with good friends seeing the sights, the boys figured out that two of the lifters had been damaged and the cam had been scuffed in two places. This was at around 5.00 pm on Friday 31 October. So we made the decision to not race at the Nelson meet.

We loaded the race car onto the trailer and had it ready to pick up the following day on our way to Motueka where the drag strip is. What a beautiful drive through mud flats and wonderful scenery of orchards and wineries to Motueka and the airfield. We parked the race car and trailer up so that the public could spend the day having a look at our amazing set up.

I went and spoke with John Gourdie who is the Southern Drivers Representative, President and organizer of the Nelson Drag Meet. Then I went to the caravan where "The Rock" announcers were and told them of our unfortunate news. They asked me if I would be happy to be interviewed on air and of course I said yes, can’t keep an Aussie girl quiet… I had about a 5 minute interview with them and spoke of our 3^rd place in Christchurch and our disappointment at not being able to race because of the damage incurred there. I urged everyone to come over and see Top Cat Racing’s set up. We had a wonderful response during the day and several other plugs on "The Rock".

Two people wanted to know if they could buy our T-shirts so they must look okay to the general public. Something to think about maybe next year. There wasn’t a large amount of competition cars but the day ran smoothly and everyone was finished by 4.30 pm. We packed up and went back to Nelson. We joined John Gourdie and the race teams at The Bush Inn in Nelson for the after meet prize giving.

We left Nelson the next morning at 5.30 am to catch the ferry back to the North Island just making it again in time with our new friend Steve "the mad Greek" letting the ferry know that we would be making the crossing and not to go without us…

Another uneventful but fairly windy crossing with breaky to wake us all up. I enjoyed a short kip without the kids annoying me in one of the cabins. We embarked from the ferry, waved goodbye to "the mad Greek" and made our way to Wainouiomata and our friends Pete & Jo Meo’s place. We stayed overnight with them and made our way back up the island to arrive in Hamilton at 6.00 pm on Monday 3 November. We had decided to return to Hamilton and get the damaged pieces fixed properly, have a test & tune at Champion before our next meet so consequently did not go down to the New Plymouth Street Drags which we heard were a huge success.

Well that’s been our adventures in drag racing so far, the broken bits are with Mike Gearing to assess and get fixed for the next test and tune at Champion Dragway on 23 November before the next big day out on Sunday 7 December at Champion. Please feel free to join us for an exciting day’s drag racing.

We have been advertised on SKY 2 on Sunday 16 November at 12.00 noon and again on SKY 1 at 7.30 pm as "Thunder V8’s" from Ruapuna, Christchurch. Hopefully we haven’t ended up on the cutting room floor. If there are any changes I will let you know or if we make it on to TV 1…

Again thanks to all our wonderful sponsors for making our adventures in drag racing possible, and to our equally wonderful pit crew, friends and supporters.

Kind regards

Terry & Kathryn Christensen