TEAM GRIDLOCK rolled out its new car for the first testing session of 2012 – but it did not go well for last year’s champions.

The Little Dunmow drag racing outfit’s team principal Dexter Price said: “We had made several major changes to the car but we were less than successful overall.”

The launches were considerably better, knocking just over 0.1 seconds off of the 60ft time, however on the first pass the car veered violently and driver Adam Price had to back off recording a 9.4 second quarter mile. Problems with the air shifting for the transmission wrecked the second run.

The last two runs of the day gave the team more data to go on, but with the car being very unstable at the 1000 ft mark they decided to end the days testing and work on the information that they had gleaned and where to go from there.

“Not the best of days testing but at least we are finding out what does not work, so we can eliminate it from the equation,” explained Price.

“With just only three more potential test days which means probably a maximum of a mere two and a half minutes of testing time on the track we are really going to have to be on the ball ready for our first elimination race at Santa Pod’s, Easter Thunderball.”