Weather interrupted round #1 of the FIA European Drag Racing Championship

by **Admin** Tue May 27, 2014 6:58 pm

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Post n°1

Weather interrupted round #1 of the FIA European Drag Racing Championship

Post by Admin Tue May 27, 2014 6:58 pm

Thomas Nataas (near lane) and Anita Mäkelä - FIA Top Fuel Dragster
photo by Lena Perés

The first round included in the FIA European Drag Racing Championship 2014 came to an early ending after the race director at UK:s Santa Pod Raceway had to call the last race day of the event off due to continuous rain over the track area. Monday May 26th which is a bank holiday in the UK should have included all eliminations in the five FIA Championship categories.

The qualifications were completed in full for all championship classes before the event had to be cancelled and in the FIA Pro Stock it was eight times European Champion Jimmy Ålund from Sweden who impressed the most. The elapsed time 6.535 seconds over the 402.33 meters track distance (more often referred to as the ”quarter mile”) was only thousands of a second from a new European record. Jimmy said he ranked the track quality as an A+ and was content with the three runs that he got to run. A sponsor event and some testing of the car is on team Ålunds agenda before heading to Finland for round #2 of the championship.

In Top Methanol Funny Car, Johan Lindberg, also Sweden was low qualifier, with an elapsed time of 5.70 seconds. Brother Jonnie Lindberg who handles the tuning of the race car, won the championship in 2013, but his car is kept in the US this season where Jonnie will participate in a few NHRA events and while in Europe the Lindberg Bros team focus on Johan´s car and aim for the number one spot. And it looked promising before the weather interrupted the event.

In the fastest category, Top Fuel Dragster it was defending Champion Thomas Nataas from Norway who was in lead after the qualifications. The drama in the class before the event was that UK driver Chris Andrews who had planned for a full race season got injured and dislocated a shoulder while working to set up the teams pit area before the event. Finnish driver Jari Halinen was able to fly in from Finland to replace Chris on a short notice. Most of the drivers in the Top Fuel Dragster class participate in the full Championship over five events.

In FIA Pro Modified defending European Champion Michael Gullqvist, Sweden qualified second quickest at 5.99 seconds, while Marc Meihuizen from the Netherlands beat Gullqvists elapsed time with one hundreds of a second at 5.98 seconds. Even if it was raining most of the time, it was an interesting event for us as, said Michael Gullqvist. - We had worked intensively for the last couple of weeks to get the car ready for action. We did not have any time to go testing, so we used the qualifications to try figure some new stuff out. We ended up in second spot in qualifying with a 5.99.

In the Top Methanol Dragster category Timo Habermann, Germany impressed by performing a world class run at 5.24 seconds. Habermann took a year off in 2013 but have returned to the Championship this season together with brother Dennis and they operate a two car team in the same class supervised by dad Werner Habermann, who has a past in methanol racing as a driver himself and now in charge of the tuning. Timo and Dennis are up against tough competition, not least in form of the two Maltese drivers Chris Polidano and Monty Bugeja, who both had a year off FIA Championship racing 2013 and have returned now. Bugeja is the 2012 Champion.

Overall it was a good start to the season performance wise and it will be interesting to follow the action when round # 2 takes place at the newly repaved track at Alastaro Finland at the beginning of July.

Links to results qualifications: (the event was cancelled before the eliminations)
- Top Fuel Dragster
- Pro Stock
- Top Methanol Funny Car
- Pro Modified
- Top Methanol Dragster

courtesy of TSI Timers/Santa Pod Raceway