HISTORY

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THE HISTORY OF TEAM PREDATOR

The teams founder members all have their own first memories of drag racing and it is from these memories that PREDATOR RACING has evolved,

Stu            Shaun          Roy

The earliest recollection belongs to team technician ROY FARMER, He grew up in a small village on the outskirts of  SWINDON and was drawn to the raucous noise coming from a nearby airfield most weekends. Unbeknown to him at the time this was the likes of Dennis Priddle, Clive skilton and Roland Pratt racing their cars and Pete Miller , Don East and John Clift racing their bikes – it was WROUGHTON 1973.

( John Clift later went on to become a chassis builder of considerable note and built the chassis for the Predator racing funnybike – amongst many others )

The team's crew chief  SHAUN HOWARD attended his first drag race( at SANTA POD ) as reluctant teenager in 1978 - reluctant that is until a certain American driver wheeled into stage a very plain looking silver funnycar  - and then lit the fuse !!! – rocket man Sammy Miller

Shaun was then a regular visitor to “pod” as an avid spectator until a move to the other side of the fence in 1989 – This was the year that he took a work colleague ( DENNIS AVENELL) to pod . Whilst sat on the grass bank the topic of conversation turned to the times and speeds being run in the street bike classes and Den was sure that his trusty GS1000 suzuki could compete. Before too long Shaun found himself stood on the hallowed startline watching a sky bound GS1000 wheelie its way down the track in a very competitive ( and entertaining ) manner.

It was only one later when Den decided the GS was not fast enough that he purchased the first Turbo bike !!!  

 PURPLE HAZE

To finance this move a buyer was needed for the old GS1000

Enter STEWART CHAMBERLAIN ( Team owner and rider )

Den knew Stewart from a local gymnasium ( hard to believe – stu in a gym !!! ) A deal was done and stu planned to ride the GS on the road

However insurance costs proved prohibitive and for a while Stu was unsure of what to do with the bike. It was put to stu that Drag racing it may be a viable alternative and Shaun offered his services along with workshop space to aid the transition.

Both bike,s ( purple haze and the newly christened Predator bike ) were tuned/painted and thoroughly fettled for an assault on the 9.90 seconds and 10.90 seconds ACU race classes – It was 1991.  

PREDATOR

The two bikes competed at both Santa Pod and long marston (AVON PARK) and proved to be better than most of us could have hoped for. The awesome power of Den,s turbo bike coupled with a fearless inability to close the throttle when the wheel went skyward made Den a formidable opponent , while the reliability and ability to run close to the class indexes for stewart, meant that trophies were soon piling up for both riders.

In 1992 and 1993 the two bikes and riders continued apace with the development of their respective rides with all the work being carried out at the workshop of crewcheif shaun howard.

In 1994  Shaun  purchased the TARMAC TERROR turbo bike of Richard Chun ( retiring after a road based motorcycle accident )

The plan being to transplant the motor from it into Stewart,s bike and use the remaining rolling chassis as a basis for a road bike – Now we had two Turbo-charged drag bikes to play with – PREDATOR II  was born

                                     Tarmac terror                                                                 Predator II                                                                   

Whilst Den was enjoying the notoriety of casually qualifying no 1 and then blowing the class index away, Stu found the transition to having all the extra power a bit more difficult – relying instead on the high terminal speeds the bike could produce to win many more races over the next couple of years

1996 saw Den Avenell regularly dropping into the low nine second bracket ( on a 9.90 second index ) but financially unable to make the huge leap into superstreet bike he reluctantly decided to call it quits

At the same time Stewart was getting to grips with the power available to him and was starting to become very confident and competitive – until , at a demonstration event at ( of all places WROUGHTON airfield ) PREDATOR II came to an untimely end – crashing at high speed effectively ending that incarnation of our bike.

After resting off the effects of the crash, the decision was taken to make the jump into competition bike ( a class allowing the use of slick tyre's and wheelie bars ) an ex pro-stock chassis was purchased from PAUL WILLIS at TVR power in Coventry and our turbo motor was shoe-horned in. This bike was debut at the world finals meeting in 1996 and promptly shot off across both lanes – we had some more learning to do.

This bike was campaigned successfully and resulted in the team best result in 1999 when we achieved the runner up position in the national championships after a tough battle with Steve French.

The urge to go faster still meant the team was prepared to then start thinking about a move into funnybike. An un-used JOHN CLIFT chassis was located and purchased and in the following two years the painstaking and expensive process of researching and building was undertaken.

The bike eventually made its first pass down a racetrack mid-season 2002 and very soon impressed with its stability and a very serious top end charge ( 184 mph )

With much to learn about the set up and operation of these thoroughbred  race vehicles, with on board computers – electronically controlled injection and –semi automatic gearboxes – those early days seem a very distant memory.

          Predator Racing 2006      
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