POSTing with requestWriter but not wanting a response

[basil3legs]

I am using requestWriter to post to a website but as it takes ages for a response to come back, is there any way of sending the data and leaving it at that? I have tried removing the GetResponse parts but that doesn't seem to work. As the code stands (see below) it works fine but is too slow due to a delay at the web server.

strURL = "[URL unfurl="true"]http://the[/URL] relevent site and page.do"
        strPostData = "the POST data"
        webRequest = Net.WebRequest.Create(strURL)
        webRequest.Method = "POST"
        webRequest.ContentType = "application/x-[URL unfurl="true"]www-form-urlencoded"[/URL]

        'write the form values into the request message
        requestWriter = New IO.StreamWriter(webRequest.GetRequestStream)

        requestWriter.Write(strPostData)
        requestWriter.Close()

        'get the response from the server - which I don't need!
        responseReader = New IO.StreamReader(webRequest.GetResponse.GetResponseStream)
       
        Dim responseData As String
        Dim strData As String

        responseData = responseReader.ReadToEnd
        responseReader.Close()
        strData = responseData