Shooting Speed on S200

A few months ago I bought at S200, and im very happy with it, just as my personal camera. However my roomates and I went out clubbing and when ever we tried to take pictures the strobes and other lighting effects would confuse the camera and it would take a long time to shoot, or not shoot at all. Is there any way to disable its processing? I'd rather get a sub-par image instead of no image at all or one taken 15 seconds later. For example a simple throw away camera just fires the flash and gets ok results. Any way to dumb the camera down for this enviroment? Also when im shooting race cars, I'd like it to take instantly without processing..so a way to just set a median setting would be nice here too.

Ive read through the manual, and all i see is turning off auto focus. Which may help, but I would think with the strobe lights etc, its more of a light metering problem which I am unsure how to fix (disable) and if this what this will cause to my images.

Thanks

Tim

read up in your manual about using a fixed/set exposure and focal length.

when u hold the shutter release half way the camera does it's processing, make sure it's set to use a normal flash (not red eye or auto) hold the shutter half way and when the orange light is on, push up on the directional buttons to set a fixed exposure. the flash will fire but no pic will be taken. you'll notice the "FEL" icon on the screen. the exposure will remain fixed until u either turn off the camera, push the up button again or change modes.

and for the pictures of the cars, you can do the same as above(with the flash on or off) and then also set the focal lenght by pushing the left directional button which will make the "AFL" icon appear indicating a set focal lenght. With both exposure and focusing fixed the shutter response time is quite quick.