Although he hasn’t figured in the points chase this season, four time champ Steve Pateman sat on top of the pile after Street Eliminator qualifying with a late night 8.142, and then worked his way through the upper half of the ladder to meet Splinter (far lane) in the final round. Although Splinter took the winlight, Pateman’s scoreboard lit up with a 7.951 for the first side by side seven second race in class history.

Outgoing ACU Top Fuel Bike champion Steve Carey managed to get the Purple Princess PBR Puma down track to the event title after qualifying in second spot with a 6.813/201 behind 2007 champ Steve Woollatt’s 6.377/211. Woollatt stripped his rear sprocket on a subsequent qualifier and was a no-show during eliminations, Carey lucking out with a pair of competition solos (run with a pair of almost identical 7.342/198.28 and 7.342/198.36 passes) after Ian Turburville’s Harley refused to fire in the first round and Rene van den Berg’s Puma started it’s own nitro lake as the Dutch rider headed towards stage. A new frame might make an appearance for the start of 2008 as Carey looks for a solution to the high speed wiggle the team just haven’t shaken off this year.

After running through a multitude of settings to try and get the Cannon Engineering sponsored Suzuki to run straight, Neil Midgley managed to punt out a nice series of passes in ACU Funny Bike and wrapping up his fifth National title since 2002 in process. A 6.785/197 put Midgley on pole, a 6.626/205 reset his PB in the semi finals, and a 6.735/196 victory over Steve French reset the ACU Funny Bike ET mark to round off a great season end and provide an excellent baseline to overtake Tom Perry’s best marks on the bike in AMA/Prostar competition and become the second Funnybike into the 6.5s in Europe.

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