Eurodragster can always be relied up on for a great racing shot

Three years in the making, two gearboxes, a mystery squeal, a roadside repair and five days of drag-and-drive adventure. What could possibly go wrong?

Now the weather has taken a turn, motorsport is winding down and weekend events are getting fewer and further between, I thought it would be a good opportunity to catch up on some blog posts about what we've been up to this year.

And where better to start than Street Weekend 2026?

It's no secret that Street Weekend is our favourite event of the year. We competed in the very first one and we've been back for every event since.

The first year was in my own 1997 SN95 Mustang GT, back when it was very lightly modified. A set of wheels, coilovers and a few dress-up bits were about as far as I'd gone with it.

We had an amazing time and I'm sure anyone who knows me could have predicted what would happen next!

If you haven't already, check out our blog post covering that first year's adventure HERE.

Back then, the car ran a best of 15.38 seconds at Santa Pod and 10.39 at Melbourne Raceway. Not exactly setting the world alight, but that event, combined with following American drag-and-drive events like Sick Week and Hot Rod Drag Week, convinced me that I wanted to build a quick drag-and-drive car of my own.

And so the trouble began.

A Winter Refresh That Got Slightly Out of Hand

What started as a winter refresh, with the intention of being back on the road for summer 2024, escalated rather spectacularly.

Some of that was down to parts choices, some to the time spent waiting for parts to arrive, some to budget, and quite a lot to trying to fit the work in around running a busy workshop and looking after customer cars.

Consequently, Street Weekend 2024 and 2025 were both completed in my Holden Ute while the Mustang sat patiently waiting for its turn.

By the beginning of 2026, however, we were finally getting somewhere.

The specification for its return was:

Car: 1997 Ford Mustang GT SN95
Engine: Gen 2 5.0 Coyote V8
Billet oil pump gears and crankshaft sprocket
MMR cylinder head cooling modification
Boss 302 intake manifold
Speed Engineering long-tube headers
Transmission: Ford 6R80 six-speed automatic
Ford Performance Control Pack
Chromoly tubular K-member
BC Racing coilovers

Plenty of other little changes had gone into the build along the way, but those were the main ingredients.

The plan was to get the car running, MOT'd, tuned and tested in plenty of time for Street Weekend 2026.

Obviously, that isn't quite how it happened.

A coyote does fit but it wouldnt want to be much biger

Two Weeks to Go. Everything's Fine. Probably.

We were due to arrive at Santa Pod on Wednesday afternoon, ready for signing on and the start of the event on Thursday morning.

With two weeks to go, we thought we had loads of time. The Mustang was running, the MOT was booked and we were doing some final testing on the farm drive.

Then we cracked the windscreen.

Cue a frantic rush around the countryside, a lot of phone calls and a few favours being called in to get a replacement windscreen fitted in time.

With that sorted, we thought we were finally ready.

We weren't.

On the way to the MOT, the car started making a horrendous squealing noise and was struggling to run. We turned around and limped back to the workshop, fearing the worst.

After hours of hunting around, checking everything, draining the oil, checking again and plenty of head-scratching, we eventually concluded that the gearbox I'd bought off eBay must have been a dud.

So, we bit the bullet, tracked down another gearbox, fitted it and fired the car up.

All seemed well until, a short while later, the exact same deafening squeal returned.

This was late on Friday afternoon, just one week before Street Weekend. Time was rapidly running out.

I spent Saturday at the workshop on my own, methodically working through every possible cause.

While on the phone to a former colleague, with the engine running and the squeal in full swing, I happened to try removing the oil filler cap.

It wouldn't budge.

I actually had to put the phone down and grab a pair of mole grips to break the seal. The moment the cap came free, the squealing stopped.

We'd found it!

The culprit? A faulty PCV valve in an aftermarket oil catch can.

It had been creating so much vacuum in the crankcase that air was being sucked past the rear main seal, producing a horrendous whistle that echoed around the bellhousing and sounded exactly like a serious gearbox problem.

After two gearboxes, countless hours of investigation and a fair amount of stress, the solution was a cheap Amazon catch can from the parts bin.

And just like that, we were back on!

Good advice from Motion Raceworks, they make good catch cans!

Monday: MOT. Tuesday: Gearbox Out. Again.

With the car squeezed in for an MOT on Monday, we were finally good to go.

Or so we thought.

An advisory for an oil leak, which the tester informed us appeared to be coming from the bellhousing, brought us back to reality.

It turned out the excessive crankcase vacuum hadn't just caused the horrible noise. It had also damaged the rear main seal.

So Tuesday saw the gearbox coming out. Again.

With a new seal fitted and everything back together, I finally got to leave work in the Mustang for a proper drive.

Just me, the car, a laptop plugged in and a sunny evening cruising around the Cotswolds. I was bedding things in, checking everything over and making adjustments as I went, because we hadn't actually got as far as properly tuning it yet.

After three years of building the car, it felt pretty special to finally be driving it.

And it was starting to feel like all the effort might have been worth it.

Wednesday: We're Going to Street Weekend!

Wednesday morning should have been a quick check over, a tune revision and then off to Santa Pod.

Of course it wasn't.

An intermittent electrical fault was still causing a cylinder 7 misfire and an oxygen sensor fault. We'd spent time chasing it already, but it was proving difficult to pin down.

At this point we decided we'd have to carry on investigating as we went. We loaded up and headed for Santa Pod.

We made it about ten miles.

A custom-made radiator hose we'd bought a year earlier suddenly split, dumping the coolant all over the road.

Lee came out from the workshop armed with every vaguely suitable piece of hose he could find, a selection of clamps and plenty of water.

Some roadside improvisation later, we had a working cooling system again and were back on our way.

Amusingly, six months and several thousand miles later, that improvised hose is still on the car!

We had quite a team heading to Street Weekend this year. We were convoying with our friend Dave in his seriously quick VW Polo, while Daz and Oli were joining the fun in a support van.

Eventually, despite everything the Mustang had thrown at us, we arrived at Santa Pod.

We'd made it to the start line. Almost.

The mustang and Polo in convoy to a checkpoint. Pic obviously by the always great Mad Welshman photography

Thursday: Santa Pod and the First Runs

Thursday morning meant signing on and getting the event properly underway.

Every year Street Weekend has a novelty item that must be carried in the car throughout the event and included in all the checkpoint photos.

This year's item was a rugby ball.

Naturally, we drew a vampire face on ours and named him NOSferatu.

We were early into the pairing lanes, hoping to get a couple of runs in before heading north.

Unfortunately, the electrical gremlins were still causing problems.

We were effectively running on seven cylinders, and because the ECU was recognising a misfire, it was limiting the power we did have and softening the gearbox behaviour.

Not exactly ideal for drag racing.

We managed a 13.4-second pass, handed in the timing slip and got on the road.

There was at least one positive to take from it. Even with a misfire and far from a finished tune, the car was already around two seconds quicker than it had been before the rebuild.

Once we'd left, we heard through the event WhatsApp group that rain had set in at Santa Pod. The track had closed before enough competitors could complete their runs, so Thursday was declared a rain-off.

Nobody's times would count for day one.

Not the worst news for us, given how the car was running!

Always something to mess about with while your drag racing

Heading North

The first checkpoint was the National Motorcycle Museum, somewhere we'd been keen to visit.

It's well worth a look around, and I think I'll be heading back when I've got a bit more time to explore properly.

From there it was northbound to the Viking Café, near the Humber Bridge. Another great opportunity to catch up with other competitors, have a brew and admire some of the cars taking part.

Then it was the final stretch of the day's journey to Elvington, where we'd be racing on Friday.

Friday: Elvington, Seven Cylinders and a Breakthrough

Elvington is a former airfield, now used for various motorsport events, including top-speed runs.

It's also famously been identified as a potential emergency landing site for the Space Shuttle, which I think is mandatory to mention whenever discussing the place!

Originally, we'd been expecting to race over a quarter mile, but safety concerns raised by some competitors meant the distance was reduced to an eighth mile.

With our cylinder 7 gremlins still causing trouble, we were beginning to accept that we might just have to get some runs in and concentrate on finishing the event.

Elvington was certainly an interesting surface. There were plenty of cars seemingly managing to turn the entire eighth mile into one long burnout.

With the Mustang still pretty much on its base tune and no way to manually short-shift through the gears, things were tricky.

If I used full throttle, the gearbox wouldn't change up until around 7,000 rpm, which wasn't particularly helpful when traction was in short supply.

We managed a couple of runs, but with the weather closing in we decided to get packed up and give the car another thorough check.

It was during this that Oli, continuing his hunt through the wiring loom, spotted something.

A loose pin in an electrical connector.

A brand-new Ford wiring loom had been responsible for the misfire and the problems we'd been chasing for the first two days!

With the connector pulled apart and the pin sorted, we finally had a Mustang running consistently on all eight cylinders again.

Unfortunately, we'd found it too late to get back out for another run. The weather had beaten us.

We handed in our best slip of 9.18 seconds for the eighth mile and headed off.

At least now we had a properly running engine. That was a huge step forward.

Great burnout pic from Elvington by Paul Fishwick Photography

The Scenic Route to Melbourne

Saturday's racing would be at Melbourne Raceway.

For anyone familiar with the geography of North Yorkshire, you'll know Melbourne is only about fifteen minutes from Elvington.

Not via the Street Weekend checkpoints, though!

Our route took us from Elvington to Sutton Bank Country Park, then on to Billy Bob's Parlour for a milkshake.

It's a lovely area for a drive, with some great scenery, and a couple of hundred miles later we arrived back just up the road from where we'd started.

Pulling into Melbourne was a brilliant feeling.

There were already plenty of familiar faces there, along with people turning up ahead of Sunday's regular event. Spectators were clapping the cars in, a band was playing and the bar was open.

After the frustrations of the first two days, it was exactly the sort of atmosphere that reminds you why we love this event.

Saturday: Melbourne Raceway. Finally, Some Progress!

Saturday morning greeted us with a soaking wet track and some fairly threatening black clouds.

We all joined the lanes hoping something would happen, but it was very stop-start. For a while, only cars on treaded tyres were being allowed to run.

It felt like we were just delaying the inevitable rain-off.

But gradually the weather improved.

And so did the Mustang.

With the misfire finally resolved, we could start making some proper progress.

We kept running, making adjustments and trying again. Each run got a little quicker, and for the first time during the event we were actually beginning to see what the new combination was capable of.

Eventually the improvements levelled off and we handed in our best slip of 8.54 seconds over the eighth mile.

That was a significant improvement over Friday's 9.18, and the car was finally starting to behave itself.

It had taken three years of building, a fairly ridiculous final fortnight and two days of running on seven cylinders, but we were getting somewhere!

Back South to Santa Pod

By now we were properly into the swing of the event.

We had the cars packed up and ready to go straight after the final run, and it was time for the long journey back south to Santa Pod.

This time there was just one checkpoint, at Matlock Bath, followed by a stop at a nice country pub for a proper meal.

After several days of barbecues and race-track food, that was very welcome.

Returning to Santa Pod on Saturday evening always has a fantastic atmosphere.

There are people lining the entrance, clapping the cars back in, competitors wandering around the pits chatting and generally celebrating making it through another few days of racing and driving.

There are usually plenty of beers involved too.

That said, by Saturday night everyone is starting to feel the effects of several days on the road, late nights and early mornings.

Despite the party atmosphere when we arrived, things wound down a little earlier than you might have expected.

We still had one more day of racing to get through.

Sunday: The Final Push

By Sunday morning, everyone knows the drill.

The first race of the day is getting into the pairing lanes!

We managed to secure a decent early position, giving ourselves the chance to get a few runs in.

By this point, all the repairs, tweaks and little bits of tuning we'd been doing throughout the event had started to come together.

The car was running consistently, and the times were improving.

We got several passes in, with the best being 12.27 seconds over the quarter mile.

Considering where we'd been just a week earlier, and the fact we'd started the event with an intermittent misfire and a very unfinished tune, I was pretty happy with that.

More importantly, we'd made it through Street Weekend in a car that had spent the previous three years in pieces.

The Results

With Thursday declared a rain-off, our final result was calculated using Friday's eighth-mile run at Elvington, Saturday's eighth-mile run at Melbourne and Sunday's quarter-mile run at Santa Pod.

TrackBest submitted timeElvington, Friday9.18 seconds, ⅛ mileMelbourne, Saturday8.54 seconds, ⅛ mileSanta Pod, Sunday12.27 seconds, ¼ mileCombined time29.99 seconds

That put us 68th out of 168 starters, from an entry list of around 200 cars.

Not a bad result for a car that had barely been driven before the event and spent the first two days running on seven cylinders!

Was It Worth It?

Absolutely.

Looking back, it's quite amusing how much effort went into getting to this point.

What was supposed to be a winter refresh turned into a three-year build. We'd missed two Street Weekends in the Mustang, spent countless hours working on it and then, just when we thought we'd finished, found ourselves swapping gearboxes, fixing oil leaks, chasing electrical faults and repairing cooling hoses at the side of the road.

There were certainly moments in that final week when I wondered whether we'd actually make it.

But that's part of what makes Street Weekend such a brilliant event.

It's not just about running the quickest time. It's about building something, driving it hundreds of miles, racing it at different tracks, dealing with whatever problems come your way and sharing the whole experience with a great bunch of people.

We started the first Street Weekend with a lightly modified Mustang running 15-second quarter miles.

Three years of building later, we returned with a Coyote-powered car running 12.27 seconds, and there's clearly plenty more to come.

The best part is that we finished the event with a much better car than we'd started it with. The electrical issues were solved, the tune was improving and we were finally able to start enjoying the results of all that work.

A huge thanks to everyone at Modurstang who helped get the car ready, especially Lee, Oli and Daz, along with all the friends who lent a hand, offered advice or helped us find parts at ridiculously short notice.

And, of course, to everyone involved in organising Street Weekend and making it another fantastic event.

We'll definitely be back.

And now the Mustang is finally running, perhaps we can spend a little more time making it quicker and a little less time taking the gearbox out.

Although, knowing me, I wouldn't count on it!

Keep an eye out for the next update, because the Mustang's development certainly didn't stop at Street Weekend...

Street Weekend 2026: Brad's SN95 Mustang Finally Hits the Road!

A Winter Refresh That Got Slightly Out of Hand

Two Weeks to Go. Everything's Fine. Probably.

Monday: MOT. Tuesday: Gearbox Out. Again.

Wednesday: We're Going to Street Weekend!