Red Ken goes Pro Stock Bike. 31st August: Paul Watson of Eurodragster.com Home and News sponsor Dynospeed Developments has announced that his Pro Stock Bike will be in action at next week's FIA European Finals with Ken Cooper in the saddle. "When I was speaking to Ken Cooper after his weekend at Shakespeare County Raceway he told me of his motor damage on his Funny Bike so he had no ride for the Finals", says Grumpy. "So I offered my PSB and Ken will be riding in Pro Stock for the first time. I will be helping as much as I can. We hope that all will be well and that we qualify with a reasonable time. The combination of Ken and our new 1640 4v should go 7.3s but maybe not this time. ©Eurodragster.com "The bike is still for sale with a choice of motors, four- or two-valve, anyone interested will be more than welcome to come and see us at Santa Pod. "I would like to take this opportunity to congratulate Mark Watkins on his Super Street Bike running a new Personal Best of 7.80, number one qualifier, and a top speed of 194 mph at Shakespeare County Raceway, and Brad O�Connor who ran 8.1 on his sixty inch SSB." Tombola, Super Gas and Junior Dragster. 31st August: UK Super Gas and Junior Dragster team Panther Racing UK have been invited to be the main attraction at the first annual fete of the Thorpe Life Skills Centre in Northamptonshire. If you can't make the event then you can still help to raise funds for the Centre by bidding for a family ticket to Santa Pod's Flame and Thunder Show. "We'll be taking both Open Sport Nationals-winning cars, the Super Gas Firebird and Anna's Junior Modified Dragster", says team PR Wayne Corbitt. "There will of course be other attractions for the kids including food stalls, bouncy castle, barbecue, refreshments, cakes, plants, books, tombola and of course the obligatory raffle. "The team will also be presenting a cheque to Thorpe Life Management to help with the future purchase of equipment for the centre along with the occasional trip to drag racing events at both Shakespeare County Raceway and Santa Pod Raceway. The cheque will comprise funds raised from the extremely generous crew and spectator cash collections at Shakespeare County and Santa Pod along with donations from our sponsors Mobil1, MotorOn Services, Mer Products, Teng Tools, Borla Performance Industries and Freestyle Signs and Graphics. ©Eurodragster.com "Thanks to Caroline Day and Darren Prentice of Santa Pod Raceway we are also able to auction a family ticket for the Flame and Thunder Show on 3rd November. This ticket will admit two adults and up to six children. Please send bids to [email protected] by midnight on Friday 14th September. "The fete takes place at Thorpe Life Skills Centre, Irchester Road, Knuston Spinney, Northamptonshire NN29 7EY (map) between 12:00 noon and 4:00 pm on Sunday 16th September. It promises to be a good day out and is a most worthwhile cause, and we're looking for drag racing fans to come along and help make this a regular event." You can find out more at www.schealthcare.co.uk. Swift snippets. 31st August: Santa Pod Racers Club Secretary Paula Marshall has asked us to remind racers that next Friday (7th September) is the official closing date for the UK National Finals, which takes place at Santa Pod Raceway on 29th-30th September. You can download the entry forms from the SPRC web site at www.eurodragster.com/sprc. Mark and Claire Ramplee of Electromec Services have asked us to wish the UK's Giles and Hartley Super Pro ET team continued success after their Open Sport Nationals win with the new fuel and datalogger systems recently installed by Electromec at their Southampton workshop. "We would also like to wish Good Luck to all our customers especially Chris Johnson and Paul Spiers", says Mark. "Electromec racing are now near completion of their Sierra Cosworth and look forward to getting back on track." Lawrie Gatehouse tells us that US Nostalgia Top Fuel racer Jim Murphy is to sell his five-second slingshot dragster at the end of this season. Jim would prefer to sell the car turnkey. It has all the best parts money can buy and in his words "Someone would be getting a very competitive race car from the get-go". If you are interested then drop us a line at [email protected]. Help a depressed Super Gas racer. 31st August: Stuart Peck has been in touch to ask us to wish the very best to Peter Lane who is in hospital after an accident at home. "Peter was working under his new motorhome at the weekend when a jack stand slipped and he got himself a rather nasty crush injury to his pelvic area and chest", says Stuart. "He is currently in hospital in Tooting, reasonably comfortable, and annoying all the doctors and nurses whilst they check him over and estimate what needs to be done. Meanwhile Jean, his better half, is at home holding the fort. When Helen and I saw Peter last night he was more interested in the motorhome and his new race car than getting himself better! "Anyway fingers crossed and we all hope he gets better quickly. If anyone wants to send him a card or whatever they can think of (within reason!) then his address in hospital is: ©Eurodragster.com Peter Lane Side Ward A Holdsworth Ward St. James Building St. George's Hospital Blackshaw Road Tooting London SW17 0QT Our very best wishes to Pete for a rapid recovery - come back to us soon. ...and one for luck. 31st August: UK Pro ET racer Paul Baynton tells us that the Open Sport Nationals was one of the best racing weekends he could have hoped for. It seems that Paul's success is all down to an incontinent pigeon. "On Saturday I had to laugh", says Paul. "Whilst I was waiting to run, a pigeon wandered over from under Neil Hunter's camper, stood by my car for a second, crapped, then walked off. Mandy said "That's lucky". How right she was! On our second qualifier we dialled in 10.99 and ran 10.991 to take the number one slot. Having left a gap of 0.001 at the 2006 European Finals only to have it taken away by a perfect run, I wasn't sure whether the same might happen again. Fortunately it didn't. This gave me a bye in the first round on Sunday afternoon, we dialled 10.99 and ran a PB of 10.945. ©Eurodragster.com "On Monday we were paired against Dave Cherrett for round two. We ran 10.98 on a 10.95 dial-in but Dave redlit. The next round we had a close run with Dan Page which I won by 0.001 at the finish line (too close for comfort!!). The semi final was a double breakout with Ian Brown, Ian got there first but broke out by a fraction more than me. The final was a race with Chris Hodgkins in the 587racing.com dragster. I cut an 0.03 light and ran a PB of 10.915 on a 10.97 dial-in. Chris unfortunately redlit away his chances but I believe he also ran a Personal Best of 9.674 on his 9.69 dial-in. "Number one qualifier, event winner and a PB of 10.915 - what more could you ask for. I would like to say a big thank you to all the racers for the support and encouragement they gave us and to Neil Hunter and his family for making it an enjoyable weekend (hope you get the axle fixed Neil), and to Bob and Tracy Doyle for staying for the Final and helping Mandy push the car. Thanks also to my daughter Laura for looking after me with cold drinks and ice lollies during the hot weekend. And special thanks to Mandy for being the best Crew Chief, without her help none of this would have been possible. Finally thank you to all the guys and girls at Shakespeare County Raceway who put in so much effort at the weekend to make the meeting a success. "Now to get ready for the European Finals...where's that bloody pigeon gone!" Indian Harley Summer. 31st August: The weather at last came good for the Open Sports Nationals and it turned into a fantastic weekend of drag racing and family entertainment, says Top Fuel Bike racer Ian Turburville: Shakespeare County Raceway was still reeling from the impact of the Bulldog Bash and the Global Gathering but a lot of hard work from the APIRA and SCR staff made the event happen against all odds. A bumper entry meant that pitting was a matter of 'making do' and getting on with it for a lot of classes as the fields were not usable. Team Turbo Ville was no exception as circumstances left us with no crew at all for this Championship round but we just had to make it happen somehow so went anyway hoping that some one would come to our rescue. With no crew and no tow-bike I knew this was going to be was going to be stressful! Bruno helped out with logistics all weekend and fellow TF racer Steve 'Scarey' came to the rescue and loaned me Bob the Blacksmith, who turned out to be a very quick study, and proved my salvation. I can't thank Bob enough, he was great. Running a Fuel bike is no easy operation as you have to follow a very strict routine and put in a lot of hard work between rounds to make it happen. There are no short cuts with nitro, but Bob proved his worth and we soon had the control tower shaking with the power of Mr Spokehead as we warmed the bike up. To make things worse I was determined to test run the new on-board film system before the European Finals so things got very complicated. I ran a record 198 mph lap at the Bulldog and guessed the track would be in a similar state to start off with so left that tune-up in the bike. First run was a doozey and the bike carried the wheel a foot in the air for most of the track on a cushion of nitro flames but at 1000 foot the rear wheel started spinning, sending me sideways, so I had to click it. It's great when your only problem is making too much power! I took some fuel out of it for the next round and it hooked up nicely all the way for a clean 7.5 run but with a very soft sixty foot time. Our problem, as always, is that with no transmission you have to compromise between the launch and the top-end charge, still working on that balance. The bike, camera, and virgin crew were coming together nicely but is was just too much work and we had to miss a round of qualifying. The weather was just unbelievable, you could have sworn you were in California, just perfect, as was the whole atmosphere during the event. Bruno had a good hold on the track and Ian Marshall was getting good results overseeing it all. Rene had come from Holland and was still sorting out lots of little bugs but with Phil Baimbridge's help I know he will get there. That just left Steve Carey, Steve Woollatt and myself to battle it out as usual and it was a great competition and great fun. The Pumas had me outclassed by 200+ horsepower but I gave it my best and tried to cut some good trees although the new found top-end performance meant I had to learn to steer the bike in a new way to avoid careening off the timing equipment on some runs as the front wheel was coming down on the finish line, fantastic! The semi final against Scarey was the closest race I have ever had and just so enjoyable, .089 of a second in it at the stripe (twenty feet and one inch - Ed). One of the nice things about being stuck out behind the wall was that I actually got to see some racing between my rounds and it was absolutely fantastic all weekend! Every class seemed to be excelling from Junior Dragster to Fuel Altered and there was a good crowd taking it all in! Rush rode down on the Sunday for a bit of help and support, which saved my sanity somewhat, and Barry Sheavills helped out by looking after me in the evenings with some great sunset barbecues. He knows that the needs of the rider/driver are just as important as those of the machine! A variety of people helped me get back from the top-end, although it still involved a fair amount of pushing, and although we didn't win I feel we triumphed in the face of adversity and that is what it is all about. All in all a fantastic weekend of sport and a great prelude to the UEM Finals at Santa Pod next weekend. Thanks to everyone who helped me through an impossible situation: fellow racers, staff, crews, supporters, everyone, you are the best. Man I love this sport, how can anyone not? On-board films will be posted soon on my web site at www.turboville.com. The first ones are a bit 'Shakey'...get it? Mr Spokehead appeared from behind the wall courtesy of Custom Chrome Europe, Red Line Oil, Gates Belts, Arias Pistons, Simpson, S&S Cycle, Jims, Curbishley Automotive, Rush Racing, Zodiac, Sprint Dampers, Rst Wheels, Fast Lane Racing, King Racing, A&A Business Supplies Ltd, Innovate Dataloggers, Bentec Transmissions and www.timtime.co.uk. ©Eurodragster.com Sportsman ET, the growth class. 31st August: UK Sportsman ET racer Nick Gay has been in touch with his thoughts on Sportsman ET after the Open Sport Nationals, at which he was runner-up: Firstly congratulations to John Parker on his win. I will be looking for revenge next week if I can convince my gearbox to give me all four gears on every run. All in all my car ran great most of the weekend - except the three-gear final, doh! - and would have been ultra consistent if it hadn't been for the changeable wind speed and direction. Looking forward to the European Finals my car is entered as the Willans SSPW1 and I am very pleased that Willans have supported my racing efforts over the last few years. This meeting will be the first with my harness uprated to a six-point as recommended by the scrutineers. If there is anyone out there looking for a new harness I can recommend Willans products ehich meet FIA and SFI specifications. Thanks also to my other supporters LUK clutches, Quaife Differentials, Owslebury Crankshafts, Regal Autosport, Viking Garages, Kingston's and especially Jim Parker at SSPW. ©Eurodragster.com Talking to various people in the pits over the weekend it seems that Sportsman ET should see several new cars in 2008 so we all look forward to more intense competition. Also new in 2008 will be a class web site to be maintained by Nigel Holland. This will have all the information which newcomers may need to start racing, race reports and racer profiles. So with this in mind Nigel will be giving all the Sportsman ET racers at the European Finals an information sheet to fill out so that they can be included on the site. Also if any companies would like to help with sponsorship of the site they can contact Nigel via his web site www.nigelholland.co.uk. Finally good luck to the two racers who broke this weekend, Jon Turner (push rods and rockers) and Stephen Gilmour (back axle). Both are entered next week so let's hope they get fixed. More generosity at the race track. 31st August: APIRA and Shakespeare County Raceway track marshal Steve Hill has been in touch to let us know about the collection in aid of the Myton Hospices at the weekend�s Open Sport Nationals: On behalf of the Hill and McGonigle families, I would like to take this opportunity to thank the owners and management of Shakespeare County Raceway for their support of the local community by promoting an appeals and collection weekend raising £200.20 in aid of Myton Hospices. For those who haven't heard of Myton Hospices, they are one of a very few facilities in England which specialise in the care of people, mainly with terminal cancer. They rely on fund-raising events such as those at the Raceway as a major part of their income. They have over the past ten years given valued support to both of our families on numerous occasions and this has been our way of showing our gratitude. I would also like to thank the spectators, racers and their families for their tremendous support during the weekend as well as Danny and Lynne Sanderson-Brown and Bob Mooney who generously gave their time to walk the grandstands with the collection buckets. Thank you. ©Eurodragster.com Web site updates. 31st August: Our good friend Alan Currans has updated his Acceleration Archive web site with pictures of Sunday's action at last weekend's Open Sport Nationals at Shakespeare County Raceway. You can check out Alan's excellent shots at www.theaccelerationarchive.co.uk/alan_currans/2007/2007_02.html">. Also updating from the Open Sport Nationals is our Reserve Photographer Peter Donaldson whose several hundred pictures you can find on his Fotopic gallery at peterdonaldson5305.fotopic.net. ©Eurodragster.com Jerry Cookson tells us that the BBC Coventry and Warwickshire web site has been updated with a report, photos and a video clip from last the Open Sport Nationals. You can view the BBC feature by clicking here. Mathias Wienand has updated his web site at www.competitionpix.de part two of his NitrolympX shots as well as a special folder with 1950s and 1970s pin-up shoots with a supercharged '32 Ford Coupe and a notchback 1967 Plymouth Barracuda. The official web site of the UK's Showtime Fuel Funny Car has been updated with a report of the team's recent appearance at the NitrolympX at Hockenheim. You can check it out at www.showtimeracinguk.com. Interview: Victor Bray. 30th August: For the latest in our occasional series of Features in association with John Woolfe Racing Simon caught up with Australian Top Doorslammer legend Victor Bray during his visit to the Veidec Festival at Mantorp Park in Sweden. ©Eurodragster.com Victor spoke to Simon about the European and Australian racing scenes, his own racing operation, and the possibility of an international Pro Mod Championship. You can read our interview with Victor Bray by clicking here or by clicking on the Features, Interviews, Tributes link on the left-hand side of any Eurodragster.com page. Bike Weekend entry list. 30th August: Many thanks to Santa Pod Racers Club Secretary Paula Marshall for forwarding us Version 1 of the official entry list for the Extreme Performance Bike Weekend which takes place at Santa Pod Raceway on 15th-16th September. ©Eurodragster.com You can view the Bike Weekend entry list by clicking here. If you have any queries then you can contact Paula Marshall at [email protected] or call 01933 313625. Editor's note: Only a short news update because the E-Mail forwarded to your News Editor's day job with all of today's news has not arrived. All of the outstanding news will be posted tomorrow. Tony Baker's funeral. 29th August: Many thanks to Keith Ridley and Jemma Harrison for passing on the details of Tony Baker's funeral. Tony's funeral will take place at 10:20 am this Friday, 31st August, at: South Chapel Garston Crematorium (also known as West Herts Crematorium) High Elms Lane Garston Herts WD25 0JS Click here for map All are welcome. If you would like to send flowers then please send them to the Crematorium at the above address. Jemma tells us that if anyone from the Northampton area would like to attend Tony's funeral then she would be pleased to give them a lift. You can contact Jemma at [email protected]. Tributes to Tony Baker. 29th August: We have now set up the promised tribute page for Tony Baker, which you can view by clicking here or by clicking on the Features, Interviews, Tributes link on the left-hand side of any Eurodragster.com page. If you would like to send your own tribute to Tony then please E-Mail [email protected] and we will add it to the page. Maybe the 6.7? 29th August: Swedish Pro Stock racer Michael Malmgren says that, given the conditions, European drag racing history could be made at next week's FIA European Finals. "I predict the first run in the 6.7 zone if conditions are right", says Michael. "Our new Jerry Bickel-built GTO has turned out to be a real fast car. It works extemely well and the Bob Ingles bullet has more power the anything else out there!" ©Eurodragster.com Michael has a simple plan for the FIA European Finals. "I want to run awesomely fast and then win the race", he says. "Whether that will be enough to win the Championship is another story. Unfortunately we had a technical problem in the first round at Mantorp Park where the start rpm switch broke which made the car leave 1000 rpm higher than it should. That made the car go out of control, I tried to bring it back but I felt that it could go either way - work out or crash - and so I lifted and maybe saved the car from crashing. "With both the FIA Main Event and FHRA Nitro Nationals rained out it is all down to the Veidec Festival and the FIA European Finals, and losing the first round at the Veidec Festival will hurt us bad. But it's not over until Sunday night of the Finals so let's pray for good weather and some sunshine the whole weekend. I can guarantee we will see some real good racing in every class as it's so tight - several racers have a shot at the title in most FIA classes." Schöfer on the air. 29th August: German Top Methanol Dragster racer Peter Schöfer has been getting a lot of good media coverage for the team and the sport, says team member Gittli Koller: A camera team from the Bavarian TV network got in touch as they were interested in shooting a documentary about Peter and the team. It was decided that they should accompany us during our demonstration at the NitrOlympX at Hockenheim. The film crew arrived at the Schöfers' workshop to film the entire operation being loaded up. It caused us some extra sweat when putting the dragster in the trailer as some takes had to be repeated. They filmed us on our way to Hockenheim driving on the Autobahn and so on. During the NitrOlympX the camera team was ever-present to film more or less every aspect of drag racing, from feeding the mechanics and packing the chutes to deciding the set-up and getting the car ready to go racing. ©Eurodragster.com The resulting documentary is going to be broadcast on Bavarian TV as part of the programme Schwaben und Altbayern between 18:05 and 18.45 this Sunday. We followed the TV experience with a live appearance last Thursday on the night show of the locally well-known presenter Ali Khan of Munich radio station Charivari. Ali spent two hours asking Peter and I questions about drag racing in general and Peter Schöfer Racing in particular, which was really exciting (right). At last! 29th August: After three attempts, UK Top Methanol Dragster racer Derek Flynn of Eurodragster.com News sponsor Gold RV clocked his first 200 mph run in the Gold RV lane at Shakespeare County Raceway. In fact Derek overdid it somewhat as he ran 220 mph, his best-ever speed, twice. "After a couple of abortive efforts due to fuel problems, we were given the last slot of the day on Sunday", says Derek. "I could hear the commentators giving us a big build-up so I was praying for a decent run this time. I was relieved as after a slight stutter at the line the car just hooked up and flew. Unlike our last run at Mantorp I managed to nail both shifts spot on and kept the car in the groove and 6.26 seconds later we had achieved another goal, which we backed up on the Monday with another 220 mph run. ©Eurodragster.com "Thanks to my crew and especially my stand-in Crew Chief Vladimir, who is already ribbing Gary he is the fastest Crew Chief! We are really looking forward to the FIA European Finals, where my team think I have an outside chance of losing the ponytail as I stupidly said to my crew that I did not think we would get into the fives this year and if we did then they could cut off the tail! "I would like to thank all those involved in prepping a great track at Shakespeare County Raceway and thanks to Ian Marshall and all the rest of the SCR crew who helped to make it a great event! I know us racers are sometimes so quick to jump on the negatives, but when things go well so little seems to be said. Even though there were a few incidents on the track I felt they were cleaned up as quick as possible and the event was finished bang on time. Again well done to all the SCR crew." Swift snippets. 29th August: Our good buddy Hanski of the Finnish Hot Rod Association has forwarded us the official entry list for this weekend's DEFA Finals at Alastaro which is also the final round of the 2007 Nordic Drag Racing Series. You can check out the entry list (PDF format) by clicking here, and you can find out more about the event on the FHRA web site at www.fhra.fi. UK blown-alcohol altered racer Neil Townson declared himself "Made up" with his weekend at the Open Sport Nationals. "My Personal Best is a 7.6, and I ran a 7.7 shutting off early", said Neil. "We've got lots of new stuff and we're only just setting it up." UK Super Street Bike racer Ivan Birch has asked us to thank the safety teams who came to his aid after he came off his bike at the Open Sport Nationals. "They were all excellent, and it is reassuring to know that they are there ready and waiting should their services be called upon", says Ivan. "The bike ran fine for the rest of the weekend, after a bit of repair work, and has now been described as looking 'hard', although I'd call it 'distressed'! We netted both ends of our Personal Best at the weekend, and despite falling off it was the first meeting of the year that we haven't had to take the motor out!" Having had uncomfortable experiences trying to agree lane choice at the Open Sport Nationals, UK Super Pro ET racer Chris Orthodoxou asks that Sportsman racers read the UK rule book regarding the subject. "Many Sportsman racers still think that first round lane choice goes to the higher qualifier, and that in subsequent rounds lane choice goes to the racer who was nearer to his dial-in in the previous round", says Chris. "According to the rule book, it's down to a gentlemens' agreement, and then if not agreed, the toss of a coin." If you fancy spending a weekend with a Top Fuel Dragster team then UK TF racer Andy Carter has a few spaces left for his Inside Top Fuel package at next week's FIA European Finals. For more details check out Andy's official web site at www.andycarter.net/the-insider.php. ©Eurodragster.com Benny Edvardsson tells us that the guys from Tireshake.com will be selling their great T-Shirts and caps from the Leanders Brothers Top Methanol FC pit at next week's FIA European Finals. "In cooperation with the Leanders Bros Team, we will be throwing some tireshake.com T-Shirts to the crowd after every round they run", says Benny, "so stay close to the team!" Liz Cosgrove, Events and Community Fundraiser for the disability charity Enham, has asked us to remind readers that they can show their cars at or visit their third American, Custom and British Classic Car Show at Thruxton Circuit this, Sunday 2nd September. For more details check out our news item All invited to Charity show of 23rd August. During Event Coverage weekends we quite often receive E-Mails about the units we use for weather conditions. At the Open Sport Nationals for example we used Fahrenheit for air and track temperatures and inches for air pressure. We could swap to degrees centigrade and millibars although track temperatures in C would mean a small amount of extra work on our part. If anyone has an opinion on which units they would like us to use in next week's FIA European Finals coverage then please drop us an E-Mail at [email protected] and we will go with the majority. Bumper bonus for Pro ET #1. 29th August: The UK Pro ET sponsorship scheme promises a big bonus for the number one qualifier at next week's FIA European Finals, says Scheme Co-ordinator Carl Burton. "The number one qualifier will receive £200 in cash, £160 in vouchers, an MER Ultimate Car Care product package, and a trophy", says Carl. "It is not too late to join the Sponsorship Scheme, see www.pro-et.co.uk for details. ©Eurodragster.com "Thanks to our sponsors Hauser Race Cars, Black Bear Harley Davidson, WASP, Alleyjax, Inkwell Printing, Toxico Clothing, A1 Motor Stores, Penn Autos, Real Steel, Motorshack, Sandy Scooters, Metamorphosis Finance, and MER Car Products. You can find their links on the web site. "Good luck to all those in the Scheme." Web site updates. 29th August: Sue Whyte of drag racing sponsor Motorshack has updated her Fotopic gallery with pictures from Monday's action at the Open Sport Nationals. You can check out Sue's pictures at suewhyte.fotopic.net. ©Eurodragster.com Also updated from the Open Sport Nationals is the Shakespeare County Racers web site which you can find at www.shakespearecountyracers.com. Open Sport Nationals results. 28th August: Congratulations to the winners at this weekend's Open Sport Nationals at Shakespeare County Raceway: Super Modified: Andy Kirk 7.804/180.46 def. Tim Garlick 7.949/171.91 Super Pro ET: Barry Giles (7.74) 7.704/171.59 def. John Everitt (7.94) 10.054/99.21 red Pro ET: Paul Baynton (10.97) 10.975/122.85 def. Chris Hodgkins (9.67) 9.674/138.21 Sportsman ET: John Parker (13.50) 14.634/76.53 def. Nick Gay (14.10) 16.727/74.85 Super Comp: Paul Knight 8.913/157.56 def. Belinda Bull 8.895/156.92 Super Gas: Conrad Stanley 9.915/162.39 def. Dave Catton 10.004/130.33 red Super Street: Bob Lees 10.872/120.36 def. Martyn Sanger 10.815/117.77 Junior Dragster: Anna Stanley (9.10) 9.135/70.20 def. Peter Walters (8.48) 8.500/77.32 Real Steel Street Eliminator: Steve Nash 8.167/178.62 def. Jason Weir 9.027/153.41 Nostalgia Fuel Altered Association: Frank Bennett 7.018/193.18 def. Clayton Round 7.249/192.55 Outlaw Anglia: Pete Ashworth 8.759/154.42 bye, Paul Wright no show VW Sportsman: Paul Herbert (13.30) 13.367/94.23 def. Martin Ayton (14.80) 14.505/88.03 Outlaw Flat Four: Frank Hoffmann 12.732/108.31 def. Bernard Newbury 15.905/53.37 Wild Bunch: Roy Wilding (11.24) 11.308/116.92 def. Terry Clifford (10.20) 10.333/123.38 ©Eurodragster.com Top Fuel Bike: Steve Woollatt 6.747/216.26 def. Steve Carey 7.606/184.42 Funny Bike: Stu Chamberlain 7.788/173.42 def. Neil Midgley 14.255/43.93 Pro Stock Bike: Dave Beck 7.490/176.10 def. Richard Gipp 7.809/176.71 Comp Bike: Kev Charman 7.684/170.73 def. Phil Leamon 8.449/155.59 Super Street Bike: Dave Smith 7.680/189.53 def. Gary Bowe broke 9.50 Bike: Andy Burfitt 9.600/148.64 def. Julian Harris 9.631/139.68 Supertwin Gas: Chris Stebbings 9.841/132.37 def. Les Harris 9.802/130.07 Supertwin ET: John Hackney (10.00) 10.160/110.82 def. Dan Baldwin (15.54) 16.057/82.16 Junior Drag Bike: Tyler Clutterbuck (10.95) 11.011/57.11 def. Scott Collier (13.20) 13.245/46.39 Subject to official ratification the following records were set: Street Eliminator ET: 7.876 seconds, Andy Frost Street Eliminator speed: 188.53 mph, Andy Frost Pro ET racer Rich Davis won the Eurodragster.com/Speedflow Perfect Light Award with a 0.000 reaction time in qualifying. Two racers recorded perfect ETs over the weekend but were not carrying the mandatory LA Racing Parts/Eurodragster.com decals and so did not win the money. Click here to view our American Car Imports-sponsored Open Sport Nationals coverage, or click on the Event Coverage link on the left-hand side of any Eurodragster.com page and select the Open Sport Nationals. SPR still seeking demo vehicles. 28th August: Santa Pod Raceway still have room for vehicles to take part in the pre-FIA European Finals Parade of Power which will be taking place through the streets of Wellingborough this Friday evening, 31st August. The FIA European Finals Press Day is now fully-subscribed. The Parade of Power consists of a procession around the one-way system in Wellingborough followed by a static display and meet and greet with the public. If you are interested in taking part then please send an E-Mail to Jo Harris at [email protected] with the following information: A picture of the vehicle; Some details about the vehicle including the class you will be contesting at the European Finals; Your contact details. Swift snippets. 28th August: UK Fuel legend Gary Page will be a guest on Santa Pod Raceway's own radio station Nitro FM on the Saturday evening of the FIA European Finals (8th September). Gary will be interviewed and will also be pleased to take questions from fans which can be texted on the night or E-Mailed in advance. If you would like to send Gary a question for his interview on Nitro FM then please send it to us at [email protected] and we'll pass it to Nitro FM. ©Eurodragster.com Norwegian Top Methanol FC racer Arvid Grødem has withdrawn from the FIA European Finals after breaking a crank into four pieces, damaging the block beyond repair and breaking all the pistons, rods and a cylinder head at Hockenheim. "I will build a new engine over the winter and will most likely be back in business next year", says Arvid. "It was not the way I wanted to end the season but it is expensive to be poor!" A very Happy Birthday for yesterday (Monday) to Joan Holland, mother of our good friend Jo Holland of Eurodragster.com News sponsor Motorsport News. Hope that you had a good day Joan. Web site updates. 28th August: Gwynn Clark has updated his Slimboy Fat photo site with pictures of Saturday's action from the Open Sport Nationals. You can check out Gwynn's excellent shots at www.pbase.com/slimboyfat/open_sports_nationals&page=all. ©Eurodragster.com Rhianne Holgate. 26th August: Martin Holgate and Janice Mcguirke of the UK's Team Paranoia have shocked us with the sad news of the sudden loss of their cherished daughter Rhianne: As people who know us understand, our life and racing efforts revolved around Rhianne. We have many happy memories of good times at the drags, most recently the Bulldog Bash. Life just won't be the same now. To Martin and Janice we can only extend our very deepest condolences; we can't begin to think what you must be going through. If you would like to send a tribute to Rhianne then please drop us a line at [email protected]. Remembering Pat. 26th August: Pat Ginn's sister Liza has been in touch to assure racers that Pat will be with them this weekend: Its been just eight weeks and two days since I lost my wonderful sister. Our lives have changed forever now she is not around. The sun doesn't shine so much and the rain seems to be falling just like tears. But we all still go on and try to do as she asked, "Smile and not be sad". Pat�s funeral turned out to be more than she could have hoped for. Pat and I had planned the day for many months and to see not just her family supporting each other, but all her friends there to say goodbye was a fantastic tribute to a wonderful lady. Now many of you will be at the meet and you must be missing her laughter and bacon sarnies. Those of you racing will know she will be looking down and keeping you safe. I ask you all a small favour, on the 23rd of each month (the day Pat passed) no matter where you are or what you arr doing, or how bad your day may be going, just think of a time you were with Pat and smile. In this small way we continue to do as she asked and we keep those wonderful memories alive. Be safe, have fun and smile for Pat. FIA European Finals update. 25th August: Many thanks to Santa Pod Racers Club Secretary Paula Marshall for forwarding us the final version of the official FIA European Finals entry list, together with the provisional running orders for all four days of the event. ©Eurodragster.com You can check out the entry list and running orders by clicking here, or by clicking on the Event Coverage link on the left-hand side of any Eurodragster.com page and selecting the FIA European Finals. Please note that as ever the running orders are provisional and are subject to change due to weather or track conditions or for any other reason deemed necessary by race officials. Swift snippets. 25th August: Paul Watson of Eurodragster.com Home and News sponsor DynoSpeed Developments has been in touch to ask us to wish a big Happy Birthday to his partner and Crew Chief Pixie. No sooner said than done, have a great day Kim. ©Eurodragster.com Tony Baker. 24th August: We are very sorry to report that UK Jet Funny Car pilot Tony Baker has died. Tony was recently best-known for piloting Martin Hill's Fireforce 1 Jet FC, one of the most popular exhibition vehicles in Europe, to six-second passes at over 230 mph. But his rides over the years also included an Outlaw Anglia and a Top Methanol Funny Car both named Torque Of The Devil, attended to by a loyal crew known as the Bakerlites. In our experience Tony was a quiet yet very friendly guy, ready to smile and always ready to talk to fans in the pits about the Jet FC. Tony also had that calm quality peculiar to Jet pilots: last November he showed everyone just how unflappable he was when his first action after climbing out of the burning Fireforce 1 was to go and have a cigarette. We would like to extend our deepest sympathies to Tony's family and friends and we're sure that all of our readers will want to do the same. We will publish a fuller tribute in due course but if you would like to send your own thoughts then drop us a line at [email protected]. Fil's growing team. 24th August: Greece's Filippos Papafilippou has in the past been a regular contributor to the pages of Eurodragster.com, but family and business commitments have kept him away from us until now. Fil has been in touch with a catch-up on what he has been up to recently: Our third daughter arrived on 10th July. So that's three girls, two more and I will be able to establish a womens' volleyball team. We also moved house which took two years to finish, and our shipping business is booming. I own four drag racing cars at the moment. I have a Pro Outlaw/Pro Mod '67 Chevy Camaro which I keep permanently in the United States, having established a whole team over there. From time to time I fly over and race. My last event on US soil was in Tulsa in April 2007, the Clash of the Titans. I qualified seventh and managed to get into the sixes, improving on every lap, with a Personal Best of 6.48/212. I also entered the World Street Nationals at Orlando Speedway last October, which was an amazing experience for me. I am already set to go again this year with lots of friends and people from Greece, so it will be something like an organised excursion to the States. Ten people have already booked tickets to come. In October 2006 I also bought an amazing car from the States, which won two consecutive NSCA Championships from the day it was built. It's a 'Vette from ProCar, NY, with a very tricky 615" Profiler Raptor Donovan and only one NOS fogger stage and has been in the sixes with an automatic Powerglide. ©Eurodragster.com In May I established a doorslammer record for Greece at Polikastro drag strip, on a slippery track, which was prepped up to the eight for the first time ever in Greece. I ran 7.2/309 kmh (video). The prep was rather average due to the fact that it was the first race there. But every beginning is tough, at the next race in September the track will be stickier. The run was with very small pills so the car looks really promising to be able to make the first six-second run in Greece on a car wash strip. Even at Serres strip in North Greece our team managed to set the car up so well for the awful slippery Greek conditions that we did a 1.06 sixty feet. For your info Serres strip is prepped with LC6 for only sixty feet, then it's everyday tarmac. JJ and Polikastro strip gets prepped with LC6 up to the eighth mile. That�s why national records fell in almost every class in Polikastro. Then I have my Nova SS '66 and a Tydo Racecars Street Z28 Camaro which my chief mechanic Nikos Sideris races in a Street class. Open Sport Nationals update. 24th August: Cindy Newbury of Psycle Workz, Pro Stock Bike trophy sponsor at the Open Sport Nationals, has been in touch to wish PSB competitors good luck at Shakespeare County Raceway this weekend. "Negotiations are underway to sponsor Pro Stock Bike and Top Fuel Bike for the 2008 season, and we are also launching a Racer Assist Programme", says Cindy. "Details will be available soon at www.psycleworkz.com. I am sorry that we will not be there, work commitments as usual, but have a great weekend's racing!". Eurodragster.com will be posting coverage of the Open Sport Nationals live from Shakespeare County Raceway in association with American Car Imports. Our coverage will as usual consist of frequently-updated reports on the on-track action and a photo gallery at the end of each day. The Webster Race Engineering/MPM Oil webcam will be on-line all weekend and will be scheduled to post a picture every sixty seconds. We will not be able to post pit notes this weekend as Simon has to miss the event for family reasons. ©Eurodragster.com We will post a direct Home Page link to our coverage as soon as it commences tomorrow, but in the meantime you can check out the event index page, which includes the official entry list and Saturday's provisional running order, by clicking here or by clicking on the Event Coverage link on the left-hand side of any Eurodragster.com page and selecting the Open Sport Nationals. Web site updates. 24th August: Brainless Raceway Park is a new one on us but UK Pro ET racer Carla Pittau has updated the Heaven & Hell Racing web site with an amusing report and pictures of the latest event at the 1/24 scale model drag strip. Check it out at www.heavenhellracing.com/pages/brainless.htm. ©Eurodragster.com In the latest entry in his exclusive Racer Blog, Dutch Top Fuel Dragster racer Lex Joon recounts a very enjoyable weekend at the NitrolympX at Hockenheim.You can read Lex's Blog by clicking here or by clicking on the Racer Blog link on the left-hand side of any Eurodragster.com page. Paul Lister has updated his Drag Racing Anon fan site with a second set of pictures from the SPRC Summernationals at Santa Pod Raceway. You can check out Paul's pictures by following the Summernationals 2 link at www.dragcaranon.co.uk. SCR pit plan changed. 23rd August: Beth Satchell has been in touch to ask us to inform racers that the pit plan has had to be changed for this weekend's Open Sport Nationals. "Due to the Global Gathering, closely followed by the Bulldog Bash, all mixed together with copious amounts of rain the site is not usable in some areas", says Beth. "We are doing the best we can but it means that there will be some strange pitting arrangements this weekend. We can only apologise but time is not on our side. I hope that everyone will grin and bear it as we have endeavoured to make sure that everyone has the chance of a bit of hard standing." ©Eurodragster.com You can check out the updated Open Sport Nationals pit plan by clicking here. Support from GreekDragster.info. 23rd August: We are very pleased to welcome web site GreekDragster.info as a sponsor of Eurodragster.com News. GreekDragster.info is a newly-established web site which covers the Greek drag racing scene. The web site is updated on a regular basis and covers race events, RWYB, news, rumours, features, classified advertisements, multimedia, tuning, exhibitions, shows and more. The web site has a well-designed forum and chat room. The team which works to keep this site going consists mainly of racers and their team members and members of the Committee of the LENOE or in English the Greek Drag Racing Association (GDRA). In the fortnight since GreekDragster.info went on the air, numerous good wishes have been posted in the forum. President of LENOE Andreas Papadopoulos wrote "Through these lines I would like to express my warmest congratulations as the least I could do to show my appreciation for the work you have already done and will continue to do in the future for the good of our sport. Knowing the enormous services which the internet can offer these days, I invite you to assist drag racing in Greece with your experience and methods you have shown through the years in order to bring our beloved sport to the highest ranks of motorsports. ©Eurodragster.com "As the president of LENOE, which beats strongly and healthily in the heart of every Greek racer, I wish you good luck, good future development and good reviews for all of us." The Cheetah Drag Racing Team, who compete in the strong Auto Open Class, add their wishes for "Maturity, co-operation and implementation within the standards and morals under which this web site was ordered to be constructed, morals and standards defined by the people behind the scenes or on the podium, but always beside their beloved motorsport. We�ve been educated in recent years that this sport belongs to no one but to all of us, the racers and their teams who have competed since the day it was born in Greece". As part of the deal between ourselves and GreekDragster.info we will be sharing news, which you have probably already noticed this week, and which will continue tomorrow with a round-up on what Filippos Papafilippou has been up to in the last twelve months in addition to extending his family. We are very grateful to the staff of GreekDragster.info and the Committee of LENOE for their support, and we look forward to a continued friendly and fruitful working relationship. Everyone gets a go. 23rd August: UK Pro ET racer Paul Baynton left home at the unearthly hour of 05:45 last Friday in order to get to Santa Pod Raceway good and early for the Peak Performance Day. Paul had a lot to look out for on Friday, hence the early start, and by the end of Saturday the whole family had had a turn: I wanted to get there early to try out the new transmission in the Capri, and we had also booked Santa Pod's Junior Dragster for my ten year old daughter Laura, so didn't want to risk being late for that especially as we have to travel from just south of Gatwick. We arrived at Santa Pod just before the gates opened, did a few checks on the Capri then attempted the first run. The shifts didn't feel right and on return to the pits I found I only had one forward gear and park. We checked all the cable adjustments and noticed the selector lever was very sloppy! Neil Hunter turned up at midday and duly phoned John Sleath for me. He suggested that the nut on the inside of the selector lever had probably come loose. We dropped the pan and he was right. This was rectified and after a brief run-up we finally hit the track again at 16:15. We had limited time so went for three runs before the track closed at 17:00. These runs were 10.991, 11.01 and another 10.991, all quicker than the car had run at the Pod before. I would like to say a big thank you to Bob Doyle, Neil Hunter and John Sleath for their help and advice and of course Gino and his crew for, as usual taking the pee. ©Eurodragster.com During the day I had to try to find time to watch Laura in the Junior Dragster (right, click on picture for large version). Her first run was 16.006/38.20 and during the day her best run was 15.236/39.20. I had a few concerns beforehand but Laura did a marvellous job. I would like to say a big thank you to Santa Pod for a great day and for the excellent training and care Laura received from her instructor for the day. The downside is that she enjoyed it so much she now wants a car of her own (Don't they always - Ed). On Saturday, just to make sure the whole family had a go, my partner/Crew Chief Mandy took to the wheel of the Capri. I'm not sure who was more nervous. Again thanks to the SPR crew for allowing Mandy to do a solo run. Much to my relief she just took a steady drive up the track to see how she felt. Due to the queue and the weather we decided not to make another run, but Mandy will have another go in the future. Thanks again to all concerned, and we are now getting ready for SCR this weekend. A first for Europe? 23rd August: Our good buddy Benni Voss has been in touch to tell us about the winner of this year's Public Race class at the NitrolympX, Gerhard 'Doldi' Dold. "Doldi has been running a '78 Corvette with 5.7 litre motor and four double-throat downdraft Dell'ortos for five years now", says Benni. "Big deal? Well, he is on four wheels all the time, since he sits in a wheelchair. Doldi does his tuning with a special rig in his home garage which enables him to reach down into the engine bay. He controls throttle and brake with hand levers. "At the trophy presentation, all the teams were gathered in the VIP tent and and Doldi rolled forward to collect his cup. The other international and Pro teams only realised then what was happening, since everybody is busy on raceday and no-one pays much attention to local Public Racers. Doldi got a big round of applause. ©Eurodragster.com "My question is: is Doldi the first European handicapped drag racer to win his class?" If you can answer Benni's question then drop us a line at [email protected] and we'll post it here. Open Sport Nationals update. 23rd August: Shakespeare County Raceway's Jerry Cookson has been in touch to let us know that further to Top Fuel Bike racer Steve Woollatt's recent appearance on Channel M's The Biker Show, available on Sky 203, the producers of the Show have confirmed that there will be a three-person camera crew attending this weekend's Open Sport Nationals to film segments of eliminations for broadcast in October. ©Eurodragster.com Jerry adds that there are a number of event trophy sponsorship opportunities left for the Open Sport Nationals. "The initial response has been really good and the following classes are available for trophy titles", says Jerry: VW Sportsman Supertwin Top Fuel Bike Supertwin Top Gas Bike "If you want to get your company involved with the OSN Trophy Sponsorship scheme, please get in touch with me on 01789 720180." Going for Gold at SCR. 23rd August: Top Methanol Dragster racer Derek Flynn of Eurodragster.com News sponsor Gold RV says that he and the Gold RV crew have been working hard to make this weekend's Open Sports Nationals where Derek hopes to make his first 200 mph pass in demonstration passes at Shakespeare County Raceway. ©Eurodragster.com "After a fairly successful trip to Sweden we had a few minor issues to sort out on the race car plus the usual between meeting maintenance", says Derek. "The tow car also needed a bit of TLC as we lost second gear on our return from Sweden, and I would like to thank all my team for their efforts again and let's hope we are rewarded with some great runs and, for once this year, some good weather. Thanks also to Richard Alder of Alders Automatics for performing an excellent job on our Silverado's gearbox rebuild and also for getting it done within a tight time frame. Anyone looking for a gearbox rebuild should look no further than Alders Automatics, they were great to deal with and they support drag racing. Also thanks again to Andy Robinson and his team for all their efforts and assistance in helping us to improve our car, despite my Crew Chief Gary teasing Andy that we were quicker than a certain Pro Mod in Sweden (Well, TMDs are meant to be quicker than PMs y'know - Ed)! "As well as sponsoring a lane at Shakespeare County Raceway, Gold RV are also sponsoring the Super Pro ET trophies and we would like to wish good luck to all of our Super Pro friends. There is a great show of cars for this weekend, so why not come along and watch what promises to be some great racing action!" Open Sport Nationals Perfect Awards. 23rd August: This weekend's Open Sport Nationals at Shakespeare County Raceway is the latest eligible event for the Eurodragster.com Perfect Awards Scheme. A total of £250 is up for grabs with a whopping £200 of that prize fund potentially available to an index or dial-in racer. The Eurodragster.com/Speedflow Perfect Light Award has been reset to £50 after it was won by Top Methanol Dragster racer Timo Habermann at the Veidec Festival which as far as we know was the first-ever 0.000 Reaction Time by a European Pro racer. The money will be awarded to the first racer this weekend to record a perfect Reaction Time of 0.000. The Award is open to all classes and is available during qualifying or eliminations, but will only be awarded for the first Perfect Light of the weekend. The Perfect Light Award is jointly presented by Eurodragster.com and high-performance hose and fitting manufacturer Speedflow whose web site you can find at www.speedflow.co.uk. ©Eurodragster.com The Eurodragster.com/LA Racing Parts Perfect ET Award has been increased again to £100 after it went unclaimed at the Bug Jam and then the Veidec Festival. The money will be awarded to the first racer to run to the thousandth on their index or dial-in. The Award is open to all ET classes, all Super classes, Junior Dragster (eliminations only), 9.50 Bike, the Wild Bunch, VWDRC classes, NAST Supertwin ET and Junior Drag Bike. The Award is available during qualifying or eliminations, but will only be awarded for the first Perfect ET of the weekend. The Perfect ET Award is jointly presented by Eurodragster.com and performance supplier LA Racing Parts whose web site you can find at www.laracingparts.com. Should the winner of the Perfect ET Award go on to win the event then a bonus of £100 will be paid by LA Racing Parts. Eurodragster.com/LA Racing Parts decals must be carried on both sides of the vehicle to qualify for the Perfect ET Award and the event win bonus. As with other contingency schemes the decals will be available from the signing-on office at SCR as soon as it opens on Saturday morning. More ups and downs for Olstad. 23rd August: Norwegian Supertwin racer Hans Olav Olstad says that it was a weekend of ups and downs at Sweden's Sundsvall Raceway last weekend: There were eight Supertwin Top Fuel bikes on the start line. The track was excellent and in very good condition. The shutdown area is almost too long and boring. There were absolutely no humps or bumps, and I strongly recommend this track as a substitute for the Mantorp FIA and UEM event in Sweden. There are still some guardrails to be built at the top end but the organiser tells us that they will be in place, hopefully within the next year. I would rather go the long distance to have this track condition, instead of the conditions we have to fight at Mantorp. Sorry Mantorp but that's true. This was a planned test weekend for the new clutch plates, and the clutch surprised us the wrong way. We had a good set-up, but this clutch was too slippery for us. It didn't lock up at all. I managed to lift the front wheel off the ground after a hundred metres. We gave it more weight all the time, but with no answer. In the last qualifying run we managed to run a lazy 7.01 and we were in as number one qualifier. We had nice speeds of 332, 342 and 395 km/h. We also logged a nice speed at the eighth mile of 320 kmh. It's nice to read this numbers, but we sadly know two of them can't be true. We probably tripped the first photocell with the back wheel and the second cell with the front wheel. We were ready to meet Greger Johansson in the first quarter final. Greger had some problems, and was number eight qualifier. We helped him out with our lathe - it's always nice to help somebody, and do the fighting on the track. This time Greger was the lucky one. We left a bit harder and ran a 4.64 at the eighth mike, but the bike drifted hard to the right and forced me to let off the throttle. I almost came off the bike to steer it back in, and I gave the public some nice sparks and smoke when the frame scraped the ground. I used up too much time to straighten up the bike and Greger passed me with his best ET this year and won the race. That's racing. In the semi final Greger had to shut down on the start line because oil was coming out of the breather tank. Vidar Ravnsborg was also in the semi finals but had to watch Fredrik Solheim in front for the whole run. Fredrik was the most consistent this weekend and ran a Personal Best of 7.10 with his old Fastcat engine and high gear. In to the final with Fredrik and Tore Svensson, and it was no surprise that Fredrik was the first to cross the finish line. Congratulations to Fredrik, who has raced for over twenty years. We can't catch the ferry to England if we race the last round in the Nordic series as planed, so for us the next race will be at Mosten on 1st-2nd September, and from there we go directly to UEM finals at Santa Pod Raceway. ©Eurodragster.com Swift snippets. 23rd August: Santa Pod Raceway have been in touch to remind us that advance ticket bookings for the forthcoming FIA European Finals close next Friday, 31st August. On-line booking at www.santapodshop.co.uk closes at 17:00 and phone booking on 01234 782828 (outside the UK +44 1234 782828) closes at 17:30. A special deal is also available offering a half-price UK National Finals ticket for each FIA European Finals ticket purchased. More information at www.santapod.com. ©Eurodragster.com All invited to Charity show. 23rd August: Liz Cosgrove, Events and Community Fundraiser for the disability charity Enham, has been in touch to invite readers to show their cars at, or visit anyway, their third American, Custom and British Classic Car Show at Thruxton Circuit on Sunday 2nd September. ©Eurodragster.com "We�ll have loads of fantastic cars and bikes, live music on stage all day from the Alistair Goodwin Band, John James Newman, Mesh 29, Stream and Vincent Teacey", says Liz. "There'll be lots to eat, plus a beer tent, bouncy castles for the kids, quad bikes, trade stands and lots more for all the family. Look out for the Harley Davidsons roaring up together at around 11.30 am. Entry to the show is £3.50 per adult and £2 for children. A family ticket (two adults and two children is just £8. Concessions £2. "It's £5 to show your car on the day and that includes entry for the car and two passengers. Please print out an entry form from www.enham.org.uk, or for more information call me on 01264 345848 or E-Mail [email protected]." Web site updates. 23rd August: Mathias Wienand has posted the first set (of two) of his pictures from the weekend's NitrolympX at Hockenheim, which you can find at www.competitionpix.de. The site has also been updated with pictures from this year's FIA Main Event and the first round of German Street Eliminator. ©Eurodragster.com Run a Funny Car, see the world... 22nd August: Carbon By Design Fuel team owner Knut Söderquist says that it was particularly pleasurable to return to Hockenheim at the weekend with a Fuel Funny Car since that is where he started: Firstly I want to say Well Done to John Spuffard. 3-0 on the kid, more or less what I expected as it is Patrik Pers' first year in a Funny Car and those cars have a mind of their own. However my car was running like clockwork tuned by Alan Jackson and I was very pleased with the performance. This was the first time in many years that the crowd saw two Nitro Funny Cars going down track door to door, even promoter Rico Anthes was very pleased with the performance. I have put my heart into working with Funny Cars. Right now I am finishing my second car which I have been working on for a long time. The car will have more or less the same set-up as Patrik's car, with setback blower and so on. I am hoping that this car will be running in Dubai and Bahrain but we are still working on the final deal. ©Eurodragster.com The good news is that I can see maybe two more cars moving from methanol to Fuel here in Sweden. They were both methanol cars when they were in the USA. I don't really know why the interest is so great in Nitro cars now as they disappeared in Sweden after Lee Anders Hasselström's accident. On the big question: Roy Phelps and what are we up to. Roy and I got together and of course we started to talk about Nitro Funny Cars. I told Roy that I was working with some promoters to run a Funny Car series next year. If there is anyone who knows anything about Fuel Funny Cars it is Roy Phelps. Right now there is a lot left to put together but we are not sitting around doing nothing. We plan to call the series the World Funny Car Series 2008, big words but why not think big. It will be very interesting for the races as we plan to run the cars in a few different countries. We will have our own web site which I will announce very soon. ELPA round 4 beckons. 22nd August: Our friends at GreekDragster.info tell us that the fourth Greek Championship ELPA race (ELPA is the official FIA agent in Greece) is to take place at Polikastro Drag Strip on 1st-2nd September. Polikastro hosted the second Championship race end of May, a race which proved to be the best drag race ever held in Greece, since National records and Personal Bests improved in most classes due to good track preparation and increased traction up to the eighth mile. LENOE, the Greek Drag Racing Association, is the organizer of the fourth Championship race guaranteeing a 100% successful and professional outcome. LENOE has been organising races in Greece for more than seven years and is trusted racers across the continent. LENOE has more than 350 members and an elected committee of seven which has proven to be the Dream Team for drag racing in Greece. More than 150 entries are expected for this event with great battles taking place in Moto Open 6 and Auto Open class. Moto Open 6 might have an entry of sixteen with more than ten of the latest spec Pro Stockers (Stavros Svrachnos, Mpampis Mpousinis of Moto Michaniki Team, Antonis Zafiriadis of Gabriel Team, Michalis Tsoutsidis of Moto Harris Team, etc.) racing against the nitrous and turbo Pro Mods of Kostas Premetis, Kostas Michailidis and others. On the car side all eyes are focused on Vaggelis Katsafados who competes with ex-Ströbel Top Methanol Dragster. Vaggelis is the fastest racer on Greek soil with a 7.0/312 kmh at the last Polikastro event. Very close to him and with the quickest and fastest-ever Doorslammer run at 7.2/309 kmh is Filippos Papafilippou with his Chevy Corvette C5 Y2K. You can stay in touch with and review the results of this Championship race and check out multimedia at www.greekdragster.info. Meanwhile if you would like a taste of the last Polikastro race visit www.dragster.gr/gallery/categories.php?cat_id=42. ©Eurodragster.com Swift snippets. 22nd August: Our good friend Gittli Koller of Peter Schöfer Racing has been in touch to ask if anyone could help her with a lift from Stansted Airport for the FIA European Finals. Gittli arrives at Stansted at 17:00 on Wednesday 5th September. If you can help then please drop Gittli a line at [email protected]. "Of course I will contribute to fuel costs", says Gittli. ©Eurodragster.com Seeking bike crew. 22nd August: If you fancy becoming involved in drag bike racing then two UK teams are each seeking an additional crew member. First up is Dave Newbery whose Top Fuel Bike was fired up for the first time recently. Dave is looking for a crew member preferably with knowledge of Top Fuel Bike. Dave is based in Gosport in Hampshire; if you would be interested in working with Dave then drop him a line at [email protected] or call him on 07799 410274. Dave fired up his bike on petrol and told Eurodragster.com that it sounded very strong. "The engine is all done now, just bits and bobs left to sort out which are on order", he said. "I have had a lot of help from Dave Friend, he has been here a lot recently". Dave added that he has sold his Comp Bike to former 9.50 Bike racer Liam Sheridan and that we should see Liam on track next year. ©Eurodragster.com Chris Hannam has been in touch looking for an additional crew member for Neil Midgley's Funny Bike. "We are looking for someone with a basic understanding of engines to do the between-round maintainance - changing oil, working on the clutch etc", says Cannon. "You will be an important member of the team and all training will be given. At this point you will only be needed at the track and you will be given entry to all the relavant meetings. If this sounds of interest then please either E-Mail me on [email protected] or call me on 07775 501371 or Neil on 07814 204971. We are at Shakespeare County Raceway this week should you wish to come along." NitrolympX 2007 press release. 22nd August: Many thanks to Heike Schroeder for sending us a translation of yesterday's press release about the weekend's NitrolympX at Hockenheim: "Speed, Power and Action" was the motto of the 22nd NitrolympX on 17th-19th August at the Hockenheimring in Baden-W�rttemberg, a slogan which could not have been more perfect for a weekend full of records, spectacular races and numerous breath-taking show and stunt acts. More than 50,000 spectators watched 183 teams in thirteen race classes presenting exciting motorsports and excellent entertainment for three days with their machines of up to 6,000 hp. Lots of spectators were already at the Ring on Friday and the day was as usual filled with exciting Sportsman qualifying rounds. The smooth flow of the programme and good weather left everyone, racing or watching, in a good mood. Racers reported that the track preparation was excellent and many were able to beat their personal bests. There was a spectacular 6.6-second side-by-side-run during free practice for the Nitro Bikes, when Swiss Lo Stäuble and German G�nther Sohn shot down the quarter mile in a formation flight. On Saturday most NitrolympX visitors waited, along with more qualifying and the first eliminations, mainly for the latest edition of the Nightshow. The two-hour programme offered everything a real drag racing fan could wish for: lots of action and high speed, smoking tyres, spraying sparks and metre-high flames, exciting stunts and most of all a really perfect show. The opening was a Hot Rod parade, very nice cars built in 1932, a tribute to the 75-year jubilee of the race track. After that the rate of the show visibly increased, with one attraction chasing the next. Various stunts with quads and motorcycles, the spark-spraying Wheelie Corvette of Ronnie Picardo from England and a jet-powered Bobby Car created the set-up for the spectacular outing of the Top Fuel Dragsters, the top class of drag racing. Having once experienced them, no-one will forget how these ten metre long monsters shoot into the dark, side by side, lit only by their three metre long exhaust flames, and how their 6,000 hp engines made the grandstands tremble! Nightshow visitors who thought this was the zenith of the show had something to learn, when France's Eric Teboul set an unbelievable bike world record. With his self-developed and unique rocket-bike he achieved a record time of 5.562 seconds for the quarter mile which topped his old best by 5/1000 sec. The bike, containing the steering jets of an Apollo Saturn 5 rocket, is powered by hydrogen peroxide. During the record run a top speed of 473.7 kmh was reached! Sunday was again totally filled by competition. The eliminations offered the enthusiastic visitors exciting duels in all race classes. Big applause also accompanied the appearance of a crew member of Finnish Top Fuel Dragster pilot Jari Halinen. Normally crew members do their work relatively free of spectator interest. Except if your name is Janne Ahonen, you are multiple ski jumping world champion, and the most successful ski jumper of your generation. Ahonen, an experienced drag racer, also did a motor warm-up on Sunday afternoon, when he presented his new Top Fuel Dragster to the press and the visitors of NitrolympX. The Top Fuel Challenge 2008 is on his list. A special attraction for the visitors was also the lottery "Ride of your Life", where you could win the most-wanted seat in Rico Anthes' one and only Top Fuel Taxi. Every visitor holding a weekend ticket could participate in the lottery. Around midday the happy winner was drawn, and so at 15:15 it got serious for 41-year-old Volker S. from Weiterstadt who had one of his biggest wishes fulfilled. With the unique ride along Hockenheim drag strip he experienced maybe the most unforgettable moment of his life! Because of the enthusiasm of the spectators and their numerous entries, organiser Rico Anthes decided spontaneously to repeat this lottery at the NitrolympX 2008. Detailed results of the whole weekend and pictures can be found on our web site www.dragster.de. ©Eurodragster.com Web site updates. 22nd August: Anders Envall has updated his Team Blackout Fullsize Racing web site with a very entertaining account of the Bilsport Action Meet at Mantorp Park where he managed to win his class despite suffering problems with his Impala. Check it out by following the News link at www.blackout.nu. ©Eurodragster.com The website of Andy Carter and the Lucas Oil Top Fuel drag racing team at www.andycarter.net has been updated with a report of the team's most recent promotional appearance at the AACI All Clubs rally. This weekend the team will have their 7000 hp dragster on display at the Open Sport Nationals at Shakespeare County Raceway. Open Sport Nationals racer update. 21st August: We are indebted to Julie Willcox and Beth Satchell for sending us the latest racer update about this weekend's Open Sport Nationals at Shakespeare County Raceway. As mentioned in Friday's update, entry to the Open Sport Nationals is now closed. You can view the official entry list by clicking here or by clicking on the Event Coverage link on the left-hand side of any Eurodragster.com page and selecting the Open Sport Nationals. ©Eurodragster.com This weekend's provisional pit plan is now available and can be viewed by clicking here. Please note the instructions at the bottom of the pit plan and please note that as mentioned on last Friday's update pitting will not commence until 12:00 midday this Friday although the facility will be open beforehand. Saturday's provisional running order is also now available and can be viewed by clicking here or by clicking on the Event Coverage link on the left-hand side of any Eurodragster.com page and selecting the Open Sport Nationals. Please remember that this running order is provisional and is subject to change due to weather or track conditions or for any other reason deemed neecssary by race officials. We tried for a three... 21st August: Sweden's Team Kendall Racing, with driver Mikael Lindahl at the wheel, were at Meca Raceway in Malmö for the Pro Mod Shootout this weekend this weekend, says team member Krister Petersen. "After all the rain this season Malmö offered good weather all weekend and that was just what the drag racers needed", says Krister. "We started little shaky in qualifying we were in fourth place with a 4.13 at 174 mph. Marc Meihuizen ran well and secured first place with a 4.09 at 176.71 mph. Roger Johansson took second spot with a 4.112 at 179.65 mph and Mikael Nord was on third place with a 4.123 at 174 mph. ©Eurodragster.com "In the semi-finals Mikael took the win over Marc Meihuizen with a 4.09 to Marc's 4.27 and in the other semi-final Mikael Nord won over Bert-Ove Olofsson with a 4.52 to Bert-Oves 4.89. Mikael L won the final with a 4.05 at 179 to Mikael N's 5.59. "After the final we tried to step up and make an attack on the first European eighth-mile run below 4.0 seconds for a Doorslammer. The Camaro left hard with a 0.991 sixty-foot time but then drifted toward the wall and Mikael clicked off. "We are now looking forward to the European Finals at Santa Pod in September." Swift snippets. 21st August: UK Super Pro ET racer Chris Orthodoxou has been in touch to express his team's sadness and shock at Lydia Meekins' death. "At every meeting I spent a while at Lydia and Amos' caravan nagging about the world", says Chris. "Only recently at the Main Event Angella and I spent a couple of hours with Lydia chatting while the rain fell. She was a smashing lady, very interesting to talk to and a devoted animal lover. What a sad loss. Please convey our thoughts to Amos and the rest of the family." Luke Bennett of UK blown-alcohol altered team Bennett Racing has been in touch to beg the loan of a set of 34.5" tyres to try out on their six-second. "We currently run 36" tyres and this is affecting our ETs", says Luke. "We would prefer them on wheels if possible for ease of change-over at the track. We would only use them for one run, with our usual small burnout". If you can help then drop Luke a line at [email protected]. Thanks to those who responded to Anders Envall's plea here on Eurodragster.com for stabling for his Impala after the FIA European Finals. Bostic is now sorted. ©Eurodragster.com Ian Turburville has been in touch to advise customers needing pit shoes, chicane shoes, Nitro Knuck gloves or Simpson helmets, shirts etc. a Shakespeare County Raceway this weekend to let him know as he will only be able to bring what is wanted, and not his full stock. "See www.turboville.co.uk/turbo-7/classifieds.htm for different types available", says Turbo. "I will also have a few of those neat LED mechanix lights which everyone wanted at the Bulldog Bash." Bike services on offer. 21st August: Paul Watson of Eurodragster.com Home and News sponsor DynoSpeed Developments has been in touch to let us know that DSD has MTC lock up clutches in stock for most models. "We now do a baseline service for those who wish to have a good start on the road for better sixty foot times", says Grumpy. "We also have the MSD Launchmaster in stock, as fitted to some of the DSD 9.50 bikes, and the MSD shift lights. "Many people have been asking about my Pro Stock Bike. There is a possibility that if the bike has not sold by the end of the year then we may look for someone to ride it next year. If anyone with a little cash is interested then contact us at DSD on 0208 500 5770 (outside the UK +22 208 500 5770). The bike is still for sale - serious enquiries only please." ©Eurodragster.com After destroying the engine of his Baldie's Gun III Katana Funny Bike at the Gardermoen UEM race, some things have really changed for Asko Määttä. "I've made a deal which means Baldie Racing is now importing and selling in Finland everything you can get for a motorcycle from the US, and some European products too - special thanks to Roger Lyrén at MotoSpeed, Sweden", says Baldie. "So now I'm busy with this business, I also have to do my everyday job and then there is another business about I hope to tell you about soon. "This all means that I've decided not to race at the FIA European Finals at Santa Pod. I'll be on track in the Finnish Finals at Alastaro in the first weekend of September on a rebuilt Funny Bike, and then most probably at the Winternationals at Meca Raceway in mid-September." A poignant return. 21st August: As reported on Eurodragster.com last Saturday, former track owner Roy Phelps� trip to Hockenheim was his first visit to a drag race meeting in sixteen years. Accompanying Roy was Sue Boden making a poignant first visit to the venue twenty years after husband Tony Boden�s fatal funny car accident at the German track, writes Ron Clark: Although sadness and emotion could have overwhelmed her weekend, Sue bore the visit with good spirit and brought with her many happy memories as well as sad ones. The warmth generated by several old and treasured friends after so many years helped to make Hockenheim 2007 a pleasurable weekend for Sue for which the highlight to her was witnessing the genuine affection shown by the drag racing fraternity towards longtime friend Roy Phelps. Sue would like to thank Rico Anthes for his kind hospitality at this year�s event and wishes both Rico and Cilla Anthes a long and happy retirement. Sue would also like to reaffirm her deep gratitude for all the kindness and help she received during that traumatic time from Rico and Cilla, The Stones racing team and many other visiting British race teams at that 1987 event along with Hockenheim�s doctor and ambulance personnel, the staff at Ludwigshafen Hospital, and the staff and race control team at the track. ©Eurodragster.com Pressemitteilung NitrolympX 2007. 21st August: "Speed, Power und Action" war das Motto der 22. NitrolympX vom 17.-19. August auf dem Hockenheimring Baden-W�rttemberg, eine Ansage, welche nach einem Wochenende voller Rekorde, spektakul�rer Rennen und zahlreichen atemberaubender Show- und Stuntacts kaum treffender formuliert h�tte werden k�nnen. 183 Teams in 13 Rennklassen boten den �ber 50.000 Zuschauern mit ihren bis zu 6000 PS starken Power-Maschinen drei Tage lang spannenden Motorsport und packende Unterhaltung der Extraklasse. Bereits der Freitag lockte zahlreiche Besucher an den Ring und stand wie immer ganz im Zeichen spannender Qualifikationsrunden in den Sportsman-Klassen. Ein reibungsloser Rennablauf und gutes Wetter sorgten f�r durchweg gute Stimmung bei den Aktiven und den Fans auf den Trib�nen. Die, nach Aussage der Racer, bereits am ersten Veranstaltungstag hervorragend pr�parierte Piste erm�glichte eine Vielzahl neuer pers�nlicher Bestzeiten, und einen spektakul�ren "6,6 Sek. Side-by-Side-Lauf" im freien Training der Nitro-Bikes, als der Schweizer Lo St�uble und der Deutsche G�nther Sohn im engen Formationsflug die Hockenheimer Quartermile hinunterjagten. Am Samstag lag das Hauptaugenmerk der NitrolympX-Besucher, neben weiteren Qualifikationsrunden und den ersten Ausscheidungs-L�ufen, nat�rlich auf der mit Spannung erwarteten Neu-Auflage der Nightshow. Das zweist�ndige Programm bot dann auch alles, was das Herz eines echten Drag-Racing-Fan begehrte: Viel Action und Highspeed, qualmende Reifen, spr�hende Funken und meterhohe Flammen, fesselnde Stunts und vor allem eine rundum gelungene Show. Den Anfang machte die Hot-Rod-Parade mit wundersch�nen Fahrzeugen des Baujahres 1932, eine Reminiszenz an das 75-j�hrige Jubil�um der badischen Traditions-Rennstrecke. Danach wurde die "Show-Drehzahl" deutlich erh�ht, und eine Attraktion jagte die N�chste: Verschiedene Stunts mit Quads und Motorr�dern, die funken spr�hende Wheelie-Corvette des Engl�nders Ronny Picardo und ein d�sengetriebenes Bobby-Car bildeten den Rahmen f�r den spektakul�ren Auftritt der Top Fuel Dragster, der absoluten K�nigsklasse im Drag-Racing. Wer einmal gesehen hat, wie sich zwei dieser �ber zehn Meter langen PS-Ungeheuer nebeneinander, nur vom Schein ihrer drei Meter Auspuffflammen beleuchtet, in die Dunkelheit st�rzen, w�hrend ihre 6.000 PS starken Motoren die Trib�nen erzittern lassen, der wird es nie wieder vergessen. Nightshow-Besucher, die glaubten, damit den Zenit erreicht zu haben, wurden eines besseren belehrt, als der franz�sische Dragster-Pilot Eric Teboul einen unglaublichen Bike-Weltrekord aufstellte. Mit seinem selbst entwickelten, und auf der Welt einzigartigen Raketen-Bike erzielte er eine Rekordzeit von 5.562 Sekunden �ber die Viertelmeile (402,33m). Damit verbesserte er seine alte Bestmarke um f�nfundsechzig Tausendstel. Das Bike, in dem Steuerd�sen einer Apollo Saturn 5-Rakete verbaut sind, wird mit Wasserstoff-Peroxyd angetrieben. Bei dem Rekordlauf wurde eine Spitzengeschwindigkeit von 473,7 Stundenkilometern erreicht. Der beim Publikum enorm beliebte Burnout-Contest, Jet-Dragster-Vorf�hrungen und das traditionelle grosse Abschluss-Feuerwerk gaben dieser bombastischen Nightshow einen w�rdigen Abschluss. Der Sonntag stand wieder ganz im Zeichen des sportlichen Wettkampfes. Die von strahlenden Sonnenschein und begeisterten Zuschauern begleiteten Eliminations-L�ufe boten spannende Duelle in allen Rennklassen. Von gro�em Applaus begleitet war auch der Auftritt eines Crew-Mitgliedes des finnischen Top Fuel Dragster Piloten Jari Halinen. Normalerweise verrichten die Crewmitglieder ihre Arbeit ziemlich unbemerkt vom Zuschauer-Interesse. Au�er man hei�t Jane Ahonen, ist mehrfacher Skiflugweltmeister, und erfolgreichster Skispringer seiner Generation. Ahonen, ein versierter Drag Racer, absolvierte am Sonntagnachmittag dann noch ein Motoren-Warm Up, bei dem er der Presse und den Besuchern der Nitrolympx seinen neuen Top Fuel Dragster vorstellte, mit dem ein Start bei der Top Fuel Challenge 2008 im Gespr�ch ist. Eine besondere Attraktion f�r das Publikum war zudem die Verlosung des "Ride of your Life", bei dem es um den begehrten Sitzplatz im einzigartigen Top Fuel Taxi von Rico Anthes ging. Jeder Besucher, der im Besitz eines Wochenend-Tickets war, konnte an der Aktion teilnehmen. Am Mittag stand der gl�ckliche Gewinner endlich fest und so wurde es gegen 15.15 Uhr f�r einen Mann dann richtig ernst. Der 41-J�hrige Volker S. aus Weiterstadt bekam einen seiner gr��ten W�nsche erf�llt und erlebte mit dieser einmaligen Fahrt �ber den Hockenheimring Dragstrip die wohl unvergesslichsten Minuten seines Lebens. Auf Grund der gro�en Begeisterung, und der regen Teilnahme des Publikums, beschloss Organisator Rico Anthes daher auch spontan, diese Aktion bei den NitrolympX 2008 zu wiederholen. Die detaillierten Ergebnisse des gesamten Wochenendes mit Bildgalerien finden Sie wie immer auf www.nitrolympx.de. ©Eurodragster.com Web site updates. 21st August: Our Reserve Photographer Peter Donaldson has updated his Fotopic gallery with pictures from last Friday's Peak Performance Day at Santa Pod Raceway. You can check out Peter's pictures at peterdonaldson5305.fotopic.net. A fifth page of Kelvin Fagan's pictures has been added to Alan Currans' excellent Acceleration Archive. "The page starts off with some shots of Pro Comp cars but the majority of the pictures are bikes", says Alan. "Rod Pallant's LA Hooker, Terry Revill's The Assassin and a superb collection of Brian Johnson's Imperial Wizard Pro Street Bike are included together with several more very interesting machines". You can check out Kelvin's pictures at www.theaccelerationarchive.co.uk/kelvin/fagan_05.html. ©Eurodragster.com Markus Münch has as promised posted his NitrolympX pictures on his Smugmug gallery at www.dragstripper.smugmug.com/gallery/3337266. Our good buddy Patrik Jacobsson has updated the Racebilder web site with pictures from the weekend's Sundsvall Raceway Nats. "This was the first time I've been to Sundsvall Raceway, and I enjoyed every single minute", says Patrik. "It's a really nice track in the middle of nowhere with lots of friendly and hardworking people". You can find Patrik's pictures at www.racebilder.nu. Lydia Meekins. 20th August: We are very sorry and saddened to report that Lydia Meekins passed away on the afternoon of Wednesday, 15th August. Paula Marshall writes: As you know Lydia was the beloved wife of Amos Meekins, our Chief MSA Scrutineer. She was born in Germany and it was when Amos lived there himself and was working for VW that they met and married and had been together for forty years. Whenever Amos was at the race track Lydia was always with him and as many of you know had the important job of sorting out the timing tickets for everyone. Even when she had felt unwell she was always determined to be at the track with Amos to help out. Her loves were drag racing and helping out sick animals. Lydia was a lovely, caring lady and we will all miss her happy smiling face. Our thoughts are with Amos and Lydia's family and friends at this sad time. Lydia's funeral is to be held this Thursday, 23rd August at 3.15 pm at Kettering Crematorium. If anyone would like to visit Lydia before the service they can do so at Norris' Funeral Directors, Edinburgh Road, Kettering. Amos and the family have requested that no flowers be sent. Lydia's favourite charity was the PDSA and people are requested to make donations to this charity if they wish to do so. Cheques are to be made payable to PDSA and can be sent to the Funeral Directors at the address above or to Douglas Meekins or can be forwarded to Santa Pod Racers Club who will ensure they are sent on for you. We would like to add our own very deepest sympathies to Amos and to all of Lydia's family and friends. Feature: Jus'4'Fun Racing. 20th August: For the latest in our occasional series of Features in association with John Woolfe Racing Peter interviewed Liz and Iain Malcolm of UK Pro ET team Jus'4'Fun Racing. Peter spoke to Liz and Iain about their racing history, their very neat dragster, racing in Pro ET and much more. ©Eurodragster.com Click here to check out our latest Feature, or click on the Features, Interviews, Tributes link on the left-hand side of any Eurodragster.com page. Perfect end to a perfect race. 20th August: Mathias Wienand says that the Nitrolympx at Hockenheim finished as it had started. "Perfect sunshine, and a great day of racing without any oildown problems or delays", says Mathias. "Peter Schöfer set a new Top Methanol track record with a 5.57. Norbert Kuno scored a personal best at 6.35 and Lex Joon ran into the 4.7s but lost in the final against Urs Erbacher. "Lo Stäuble took the Nitro Bike Thunder with a really wild ride but as always he stayed with it and everybody held their breath as he just avoided a highsider. Ian King was second after he did some 6.3 second bracket racing all weekend but his bike made some very expensive sounding noises. ©Eurodragster.com "Rob Turner took the Top Methanol Cannonball crown as Peter Schöfer left before the Tree. Has anybody seen him do that before? Altogether a great event which should put Hockenheim on the map of Europe's best drag races." You can check out the Nitrolympx results via the Race Results link at www.nitrolympics.de. Morrices count up the cash. 20th August: Collin Morrice has been in touch to let us know that the Morrice Boys Racing collection for Diabetes UK raised a total of £220. "Thank you again to all the racers who donated very generously", says Collin. "I've received a letter from Nick Winch, fund raising manager for Diabetes UK, who has asked me to pass this on: ©Eurodragster.com "On behalf of Diabetes UK I am writing to thank you very much for the £220 which you raised at Santa Pod Raceway. This is a fantastic amount of money, especially considering the weather and we are really grateful for your continued dedication and support of our work. Please pass on our thanks to your family, friends and fellow racers for their generosity. The money will make a real difference for the work we can do supporting people with diabetes and trying to find a cure." We would like to add our own pat on the back to everyone who contributed, and a big Well Done to Collin and the Morrice family for their hard work. Web site updates. 20th August: Hans Karlsson has updated his web site with pictures from the weekend's Malmö Drag Racing Festival at Meca Raceway which included Pro Mod and Pro Stock shootouts. You can check out Hasse's pictures at www.hassebilder.se. ©Eurodragster.com The UK Drag Bike Forum at www.ukdragbike.co.uk has been updated with features and themes which webmaster Dan tells us will make the site easier to use for those with poor eyesight. Still happy in Germany. 19th August: Mathias Wienand has again written from Germany to tell us that things are getting better and better at the Nitrolympx at Hockenheim. "We had another perfect day yesterday, very good organisation and even better weather with a fully packed stadium", says Mathias. "During the Night Show Eric Teboul set a new bike world record with a 5.56 on his Rocket Bike. Also a new world speed record for scooters were set with 114 kmh at the quarter mile, even if the eighth mile was already 136 kmh and that was with an 80 cc engine. "We have lots and lots of unique cars in all classes and a spectacular Saturday Night Show rounded it up. The Sportsman fields which were originally scheduled as eight-car fields today started eliminations yesterday in sixteen or thirty two fields as there was plenty of time left. Today is race day, let's see what happens there!" You can stay in touch with events at Hockenheim this weekend via the Race Results link at www.nitrolympics.de. Swift snippets. 19th August: Our good buddy Anders Envall is staying in the UK for three days after racing in Pro ET at next month's FIA European Finals and asks if anyone would be able to give garage or workshop space to his nine-second Impala from Monday 10th to Wednesday 12th, preferably near the Tilbury area. If you can help Bostic then please drop us a line at [email protected] and we'll put you in touch. ©Eurodragster.com Aldert Tjoeker of Fast Frisian Racing has been in touch to let us know that drag racing will not be taking place at The Netherlands' Drachten Airfield this year. "But you will be hearing from me next year", he adds. Smiles all round in Germany. 18th August: Mathias Wienand wrote from Germany to tell us that a sunny day, perfect conditions and an excellent track made everyone happy at the Nitrolympx at Hockenheim yesterday. "Two rounds of Sportsman qualifying, a few test runs of Top Methanol Funny Cars, Super Twin Top Fuel Bikes and Gary Page in Rico Anthes' Top Fueller pleased the crowd", says Mathias. "TMFC driver Danny Bellio smashed his personal best from a 6.3 to a 6.0, and a ton of further personal bests in all classes proved the track's great preparation - which wasn't always like this in the past. Gary Page made a short checkout pass with a very promising 0.86 sixty foot time, which promises a lot for the rest of the weekend!" ©Eurodragster.com In today's first Top Fuel session Urs Erbacher clocked 4.88 and Gary Page 5.07 whilst the other protagonists went up in smoke. Gittli Koller dropped us a text message to let us know that in the first Top Methanol Cannonball session Rob Turner clocked 5.61, Peter Schöfer 5.69, Timo Habermann a new PB of 5.69 - well done Timo! - Dezsoe Krivan 6.23, Jurgen Nagel 6.23, Urs Embacher 6.44, Arvid Grødem 7.02, Danny Bellio 7.36 and Ulf Leanders 8.58. Also spotted at Hockenheim today were Carbon By Design Fuel team owner Knut Söderquist and former Santa Pod Raceway promoter and fuel tuner Roy Phelps wearing T-Shirts reading Funny Car World Series 2008. We know we can rely upon regular news contributor Knut to let us know what that is all about... You can stay in touch with events at Hockenheim this weekend via the Race Results link at www.nitrolympics.de. Swift snippets. 18th August: Many thanks to Julie Willcox for forwarding us the latest version of the official Open Sport Nationals entry list which you can view by clicking here. "This is the last chance to enter as we have 249 entries and we will be closing on Monday", says Julie. You can get in touch with Julie either at the Track Office on 01789 720180 or on her mobile 07050 108043. ©Eurodragster.com Wendy and Dick Talbot have asked us to wish every health and happiness for the future to Hazel Mitchell, who works on the timing crew at Shakespeare County Raceway and Solemn Dee who also works at SCR as a marshal, who are due to be married at Warwick Castle today (Saturday). No sooner said than done, all the best to you Hazel and Sol. Halinen takes his turn. 17th August: Simo Patoharju and Finland's Mad Bomber Racing team have been crewing on the Top Fuel Dragster driven by Janne Ahonen so far this season. At this weekend's Nitrolympx at Hockenheim, Mad Bomber driver Jari Halinen gets his chance at the hot seat. "Jari will drive the same car which Janne has driven this season", says Simo. "We hope to have a succesful weekend after all the hard work Jari and the team have put in to the Top Fuel programme this season. ©Eurodragster.com "Ben Allum will be calling the tuning shots, with assistance from Eddie Corr who cannot make it this weekend. I will lead the MBR crew which consists of Henri Turunen, Kimmo Norring, Jarmo Roivas, Eric Shallenberger, Marko Huttunen and Erja Halinen, with additional support from Virve Pirinen, Riku Nieminen and Tomi Patoharju." You will be able to stay in touch with events at Hockenheim this weekend at www.nitrolympics.de. The UK's Showtime Fuel Funny Car team are also appearing at the Nitrolympx and you can read a preview on the team's official web site at www.showtimeracinguk.com. Lindelöw's bumpy arms. 17th August: Still on the subject of Top Fuel, Swedish former Top Fuel Dragster racer Pelle Lindelöw tells us that yesterday's Feature about Europe's first four-second Top Fuel pass brought a smile to his face. "I remember that race very well for several reasons", says Pelle. "I always considered Hockenheim the most spectacular event and the Night Show gives me goosebumps just thinking about it. ©Eurodragster.com "That weekend we were pitted next to the Peter Lantz Racing camp and experienced the total euphoria which met Kent when he was pulled back from the run. Over all the cheering and shouting you could hear Peter's address to everyone who didn't believe in the new injector "...and it's a real pity that this injector doesn't work". "The other reason I remember this race with a big smile on my face and goosebumps on my arms is that despite Kent's four second run I beat him in the Final with a slower ET. That's how it goes when you sleep on the start line..." Open Sport Nationals update. 17th August: We have had a number of updates about next weekend's next weekend's Open Sport Nationals at Shakespeare County Raceway, starting with important messages for racers from Julie Willcox: Scrutineering will start at 5:00 pm next Friday and carry on until 8:00 pm. On Friday scrutineering will be carried out for those who are ready. On Saturday scrutineering will be carried out as per the running order which will be published along with the pit plan here on Eurodragster.com early next week. The site will be open before Friday, but you will have to park up outside the pits until the pits are opened at midday on Friday. This is to stop advantage being taken of pit space. Ian Marshall will be Clerk of the Course for both MSA and ACU, with assistance from Paul Satchell (MSA) and Tony Smith (ACU). Additional Supplementary Regulations etc will be posted. Entry will be closed by Tuesday at the latest. If you are not on the entry list and think you should be then please contact Julie either at the Track Office on 01789 720180 or on her mobile 07050 108043. The Bank Holiday weekend at Shakespeare County Raceway will not only host top drag racing action on the strip, but also a blast of nostalgia with some eighth-mile flag-start drags on a nearby runway. This will be purely non-competitive, just-for-fun racing open to pre-1973 road vehicles. Unfortunately no race cars will be allowed but the event, organised by HotRod Gazette magazine in conjunction with Neal Reed at Retro Photo, is intended to attract a real flavour of the fifties. "Jeremy Cookson of SCR is working hard to have the runway in a good state for the cars to run on", says HotRod Gazette Editor Shaun Wilson. "We know that the nostalgia of staging this kind of show is very popular with the hot rodders and we're hoping that it will give an excellent balance with the serious racing on the track - for the public it will be a case of "This is where we came from and this is where we are now'"." For more details check out www.hotrodgazette.com. ©Eurodragster.com Shakespeare County Raceway is pleased to announce the continuation of the track's contingency scheme with Lucas Oil Products at next weekend's Open Sport Nationals, writes Marketing Manager Jerry Cookson. "Thanks again to the support of Lucas Oil UK MD Les Downey, class winners in Nostalgia Fuel Altered, Super Modified, Pro ET, Street Eliminator and Outlaw Anglia will be entitled to collect a case of 20/50 + racing oil, provided that they are displaying Lucas Oil shield stickers which will be available from the signing-on office. FIA European Top Fuel Dragster star and 2007 Championship contender Andy Carter will be on hand to for autographs and photo opportunities alongside the Lucas Oil Products Top Fuel dragster and at the same time promoting a great new range of Carter Motorsports/Lucas Oil merchandise. Jerry adds that there are several Trophy Sponsorship opportunities left for the Open Sport Nationals. "The initial response has been really good", says Jerry. "Right now trophy sponsorships are available for: Sportsman ET VW Sportsman Top Fuel Bike Funny Bike Comp Bike Junior Drag Bike Supertwin Top Fuel Supertwin Top Gas "If you want to get your company involved with the Open Sport Nationals Trophy Sponsorship scheme then please call me on 01789 720180 or E-Mail [email protected]. A full list of trophy sponsors will be published early next week." Extreme Performance Bike Weekend entry. 17th August: Bike racers are reminded that next Friday, 24th August, is the closing date for entry to the Extreme Performance Bike Weekend which takes place at Santa Pod Raceway on 15th-16th September and which is a UK and SPRC Championship round for Funny Bike, Pro Stock Bike, Super Street Bike, Comp Bike and 9.50 Bike and a Championship round for the National Association of Supertwins. ©Eurodragster.com You can download the official entry form from the Santa Pod Racers Club web site at www.eurodragster.com/sprc. Swift snippets. 17th August: Version 8 of the official FIA European Finals entry list is now available courtesy of Santa Pod Racers Club Secretary Paula Marshall and you can check it out by clicking here. Norwegian Supertwin racer Trond Alm has put his bike up for sale. You can get specs on the six-second bike and find out how to make Trond an offer on our Jeff Bull Race Engines and Performance Parts-sponsored Swap Meet. ©Eurodragster.com Rick Cuthbert has asked us to remind racers that there are just two Run What You Brungs and one Peak Performance Day before the FIA European Finals. "Racers needing the extra track time might be interested in getting along to Santa Pod for the RWYBs tomorrow, Saturday 18th, or Sunday 2nd September", says Rick. "The Peak Performance Day takes place on Saturday 1st September. For more information call Santa Pod Raceway on 01234 782828 (outside the UK +44 1234 782828) or check out www.rwyb.com.� Dirk Behlau's excellent book Speed Kings, which Street magazine in Germany described as "An absolute must-have book for greasers, drag racing fans and every octane maniac!", is now on general release. The book is available on Amazon and an autographed edition with a patch, postcard and stickers is available on the Filthy Rats web site. For more about the book check out www.speedkings-book.com. A very Happy Birthday for yesterday to our good friend Leah Hinchcliffe. Leah was twenty and when we last heard from her was enjoying a cocktail but was still compos mentis. Hope you had a great day Leah. Happy Birthday for today to Norwegian Top Methanol Funny Car racer and huge Eurodragster.com fan Arvid Grødem. We understand that Arvid is this morning recovering from a birthday party at Hockeheim. Have the best day Arvid. Web site updates. 17th August: If you are keeping up to speed with the development of Brian Taylor's forthcoming book Crazy Horses, which will chart the history and culture of UK drag racing, then you will be pleased to hear that Brian's latest Blog entry is now available on the Acceleration Archive web site at www.theaccelerationarchive.co.uk/crazy_horses/blog_01.html. ©Eurodragster.com Feature: Remembering the first Four. 16th August: Today (Thursday) is the tenth anniversary of Europe's first four-second Top Fuel Dragster pass, which took place during qualifying at the NitrolympX at Hockenheim on 16th August 1997. Kent Persson clocked 4.987 seconds in Peter Lantz's Top Fueller which was tuned by Peter and Morgan Svensson and which was equipped with the revolutionary Sharkfin injector. ©Eurodragster.com For the latest in our occasional series of Features in association with John Woolfe Racing we spoke to Peter Lantz, Kent Persson and Eddie Corr about their memories of the first four-second pass as well as Peter's thoughts about Top Fuel Dragster then and now. If you are a Top Fuel fan, or if you are interested in drag racing history, or indeed if you are a drag racing fan at all then it's the interview you will want to read, and you can check it out by clicking here, or by clicking on the Features, Interviews, Tributes link on the left-hand side of any Eurodragster.com page. Picture courtesy and ©Remco Scheelings Open Sport Nationals entry list. 15th August: Many thanks to Julie Willcox for forwarding us the official entry list for the Open Sport Nationals which takes place at Shakespeare County Raceway on 25th-27th August. ©Eurodragster.com You can check out the Open Sport Nationals entry list by clicking here. The time has come! 15th August: UK Pro Mod racer Ray White says that time spent on the European Tour crewing with fellow Pro Mod racer Gordon Appleton has left him more enthusiastic about his Lethal Z Zephyr than he has been all year. It sounds to us as if this is just as well since Doctor Evil was thinking about quitting. "Gordon's Crew Chief Adrian Spencer and I spent a lot of time deliberating over my fuel tune in Finland and Sweden", says Ray. "Spending that much time on a quality car like Gordon's you can only learn. "So I went back home and took the car to pieces - for a change, still I have managed one whole pass this season, thanks rain. I rebuilt the burnt Lenco and was it burnt, I couldn't tell what was clutch and what was steel and all burnt in under a second. These cars don't take prisoners. We put in two new clutch discs and a new floater, that's another grand bites the dust. ©Eurodragster.com "Adrian came over on Saturday. We installed our new fuel tune then pulled the car out of the garage and fired it up (sorry again neighbours). If it goes as well as it sounded then watch this space. We drained the oil afterwards and we had a surprise when oil came out and not our normal yoghurt...I'm gutted, we could have used it again. "After all the problems I've had this year and the weather I'm not far from calling it a day. To spend this much money for so little return doesn't justify all the effort so the European Finals is going to be do or die: if I don't run a six then the car will be going home in a body bag." SPR seek demo vehicles. 15th August: Jo Harris of Santa Pod Raceway has been in touch with the great news that the third pre-FIA European Finals Parade of Power will be taking place through the streets of Wellingborough on the evening of Friday 31st August. SPR are looking for race vehicles to join the cavalcade, and also for vehicles to take part in the FIA European Press Day at Santa Pod a few days later. "The Parade of Power takes place between 7:00 pm and 9:30 pm on Friday 31st", says Jo. "We would like to invite racers to volunteer their cars to take place in the procession around the one-way system in Wellingborough and then to form a static display for the general public to get close to the vehicles and ask questions. "If you have entered the FIA European Finals then we are also looking for cars and bikes to run at the European Finals Press Day on Wednesday 5th September." ©Eurodragster.com In both cases, if you are interested in taking part then please send an E-Mail Jo at [email protected] with the following information: Whether you are volunteering for the Parade of Power or the European Finals Press Day; A picture of the vehicle; Some details about the vehicle including the class you will be contesting at the European Finals; If volunteering for the Press Day, whether you are able to give passenger rides; Your contact details. Swift snippets. 15th August: The Nordic Drag Racing Series has its first Champions of 2007: congratulations to Jennifer Gustafsson (Super Street), Pontus Dantanus (Junior Dragster) and Ronnie Moe (Super Comp Bike). This is in fact Jennifer's third NDRS Championship since she won the Junior Dragster Championship in 2005 and 2006. Congratulations also to Christer Gustavsson, Pontus Dantanus and the JD Racing team for scooping two of the three titles already won. You can read more on the Svensk Dragracing web site at www.dragracing.se. Version 7 of the official FIA European Finals entry list is now available courtesy of Santa Pod Racers Club Secretary Paula Marshall and you can check it out by clicking here. We would like to wish a very Happy Birthday to our good friend Jo Holland of Eurodragster.com News sponsor Motorsport News. Hope you have a great day, Jo. ©Eurodragster.com Further to yesterday's news item about Rotorstock, Bob Roberts of Eurodragster.com Home and News sponsor Andy Robinson Race Cars tells us that you can see more of John Bradshaw's Skyline by following the Customer Cars link at www.robinson-race-cars.co.uk. Further to the above news item from Santa Pod, Eurodragster.com is seeking a volunteer to send a news item about the Parade of Power. We will need to receive the report and pictures that same evening for inclusion in the news update on Saturday 1st September. If you can work to such a tight deadline then please drop us a line at [email protected] with contact details including home address and daytime or mobile phone number. Web site updates. 15th August: Matthias Wienand tells us that he has finally got his photographic web site together at www.competitionpix.de. The site currently includes a number of drag racing galleries and will of course be updated after each event Matthias attends. We've checked the site out and Matthias' pictures are excellent and well worth a look. ©Eurodragster.com Growth in the Eight Second Club. 14th August: Rotorstock took place at Santa Pod Raceway at the weekend and some stunning racing took place in the HKS Drag Series, promising a great final round, says Rick Cuthbert: Everyone was talking about the three new members of the exclusive eight-second club, but what is even more amazing is they are not just dipping a toe into the eights, but taking a full-on plunge! Steve Whittaker, John Bradshaw and Dee Ireland (right, picture courtesy and ©Rick Cuthbert) are the new boys, and Leon Green improved on his first eight acheived at USC the previous weekend. The new PBs are as follows: Steve Whittaker, Supra Mk3: 8.207/169.89 John Bradshaw, Skyline GTS: 8.539/161.39 Dee Ireland, Supra Mk4: 8.672/159.05 Leon Green, Supra Mk4: 8.774/160.22 Steve Whittaker's Toyota Supra is a former Super Mod, but it's now going almost as quick now that the V8 is out and the Supra engine is back in! John Bradshaw's car is a collaboration between Nissan engine specialists GT-ART and Andy Robinson Race Cars, and drag fans can look forward to seeing this car at the National Finals - the first of the Jap drag racers to cross over into mainstream drag racing. Dee Ireland has been chasing eights for almost a year now, and has finally cracked them with the help of Jon Webster and a devastating tune-up. Leon Green's Supra is re-writing the drag racing rule book by being the first Supra into the eights still using the original Supra rear end and full weight unibody chassis. All four cars use the original Jap engines that belong with the body-type being used, and all are under three litres capacity. Throw into the mix Tim Webster's eight-second Skyline (out of action this weekend) and it all adds up to a JapShow Finale to look forward to in October. Congratulations to Steve Whittaker who defeated Steve Guirey (Impreza) in the Pro class, Adrian Smith (Celica) who defeated James Willday in his RX7 in the Street class, and Scott Whitelaw who went up against a broken Guy Chamberlain in the FWD class, both in Civic Type Rs. ©Eurodragster.com Swift snippets. 14th August: Many thanks to Yvonne Tramm for forwarding us the post-Bug Jam points in both the UK National and Santa Pod Racers Club Super Modified Championships. You can check out the Super Mod points on our Simpson Race Products-sponsored points standings page by clicking here or by clicking on the Points Standings link on the left-hand side of any Eurodragster.com page. ©Eurodragster.com Congratulations to Showtime Fuel Funny Car team member Paul Gibson and his partner Karen Richardson on the birth of their daughter Grace Ruby, who arrived at 2.55 am yesterday and weighed in at 7 lbs 11 oz. John Spuffard tells us that Karen, Grace and Paul are doing well. It came too late for yesterday's update but the Finnish Hot Rod Association crew asked us to say a big Happy Birthday for yesterday to FHRA President Tapio Väljä. Kaksi olutta, Tapsa maksaa. Web site updates. 14th August: UK Top Fuel Dragster racer Andy Carter's web site has been updated with a report of the Lucas Oil team's promotional appearance at the Ultimate Street Car event. In addition new photos have been added to the gallery including Andy with Big Brother star Aisleyne and Arsenal FC striker Emmanuel Adebayor towering over the car at the London Drag Racing Show. Check it out at www.andycarter.net. ©Eurodragster.com The latest news about the 2007 Supergaschamp Drag Racing Series is now available on its official web site at www.supergaschamp.com. The UK's Shockwave Fuel Funny Car team has a new web site at www.shockwavedragracing.com featuring news, car and team details, sponsors, photo gallery and more. A Fab new sponsor. 13th August: We are very pleased to welcome US header fabrication shop The Fab Shop as a sponsor of Eurodragster.com News. Tim Murphy, the owner of The Fab Shop has more than twenty years of experience in motorsport, fabrication, and machining "We are a short production/custom header fabricating shop which specialises in high-horsepower components", says Tim. "We build the fastest semi mass-produced dragster header in America. We also do a killer tube-chassis Pro Stock / Top Sportsman / Chassis Car headers. I would be willing to venture that we do more dyno testing than any other header company in the USA. We build about seventy five sets of upright pulling headers as well, for 650 ci, 1400 hp alky-injected killers. I am very fortunate to be in the position to dyno these monsters with my headers frequently. ©Eurodragster.com "Right now in the NHRA the three fastest single carb class racers run my competition headers. Our bracket headers / Super Comp units have the same large bend radius and construction methods as our competition stuff. We have some pretty elaborate fixturing which allows us to keep down the cost of our Super Comp-type dragster headers. We offer merge collectors and more cylinder head capabilities than anyone else." European Pro Stock teams including Glueharbor Racing are also customers of The Fab Shop. You can find out more at www.thefabshopheaders.com or by clicking on the logo at right. We would like to thank Tim Murphy very much for his support and we would like to thank Tomi Laine for his recommendation. We are sure that our readers will consider The Fab Shop when seeking exhaust systems. For the hug of a daughter... 13th August: It was Norwegian Supertwin racer Hans Olav Olstad's weekend at his home race at Gardermoen last week. Hans Olav's bike suffered almost no damage, the weather and track were good, he set new Personal Bests, and he found himself in the final against Lorenz Stäuble: We showed up at Gardemoen with the bike was in one piece. The bike seems to run pretty well at the moment, and it showed its power in the first qualifying run. The tyre spun for the first fifty metres before it hooked up and we had 297 kmh at the eighth and 338 kmh at the quarter mile. Both speeds were new Personal Bests, but the ET was only 7.23 and I was #7 on the ladder. The tyre went straight up in smoke in the second qualifying run, and I had tyre shake and a droped cylinder in the third. On the fourth run we broke all the bolts on the front belt pulley. I got no ET and dropped to #8 qualifier. With priority on the bikes this weekend, we got a fifth qualifying run. Suddenly we were out of the list when Petri Kaltonen ran a very strong 6.82. With our last try, we took out fuel and dropped the ignition to a low point. With a lazy launch we ran 6.94 and were back on the ladder in sixth place. Another surprise was that we ran a new personal speed record of 342 kmh on the quarter mile. On Saturday evening we helped Ton and Roel of the Zodiac team. I went with them to a workshop nearby. Roel was #3 qualifier and my first challenge the next day, so I needed him on the track. But sadly the night work didn't help, because camshaft problems kept the team in the pit when the eliminations started. I meet Greger Johansson, but his bike stopped after the burnout, so I got a solo run. In the semi final, Gunther Sohn launched before me, and raised the distance between us dramatically. When I launched, the bike went to the right guardrail, and kept me from giving it full throttle for the first 150 metres. When the bike was straight again, I gave it full throttle and the front wheel lifted in the air for the rest of the distance to the finish line. Gunther was far in front of me, but his bike started drift in to the centre line, and he also had to lift off the throttle to avoid crossing. I managed to pass Gunther ten metres before the finish line at a speed of 336 kmh with my front wheel high in the air. Then to the final against Lorenz. We both spun our tyres off the start line, I got into tyre shake and the bike drifted over towards the left guardrail. We were both in front several times, before I had to get off the throttle to avoid touching the rail. I tried to get on the throttle again after straightening the bike, but then I dropped a cylinder and Lorenz get the victory. They were two miserable runs, 7.2 and 7.5. All congratulations to Lorenz, who also seems about to win the European Championship. He was the quickest of the weekend with a 6.58. I think a hug from my daughter helped. We hope to put up a real fight for the next places in the Championship. There are only nine points between second and fourth spot at the moment. We are in fourth with 125 points, Gunther is thirs with 126 points, and Roel is in second with 134 points. Lorenz is in #1 spot with too many points! No competition, no fun. Before the European Finals at Santa Pod, we are going to race in the Nordic series at Sundsvall, and at a test weekend in Gardermoen, to find more settings on the bike. ©Eurodragster.com PMR tame the Destroyer. 13th August: Paul Marston Racing attended the Mopar EuroNats with just one race car this year, Steve Bolton's Dark Destroyer Pro ET Plymouth Scamp. It was a fruitful weekend for Steve and the guys, says Paul Marston: In a relaxed atmosphere under Steve and the team were there to iron out a few bugs and try some new stuff. Firstly I had lent Steve the King Demon Dominators from the Drag Race Engineering Super Modified Calibra to see how the 540 ci BBC liked them. There were also some tuning issues with the Plymouth Scamp that both Steve and Paul I keen to tackle outside of National Championship Competition. The greedy 540 ci BBC wanted more carburetion. Steve is reluctant to fit wheelie bars and with the King Demons it had all the carb it needed�how were we going to stop it going over backwards? The back bumper had led a charmed life up to now, it launched higher than before, was inconsistent up to eighth and had and other related issues. ©Eurodragster.com Well, the results spoke for themselves. I figured a way to stop the mighty Plymouth Scamp from standing on its rear bumper despite the lack of wheelie bars. It still gets up there but no more than it did before. All the faults were found and solved. The Big Bad Plymouth went into the 1.20s to sixty feet for the first time, in fact every single run of Friday was in the 1.20s. The last run took the Scamp into yet more uncharted territory, a 9.25, again the quickest ever, by quite a margin at that. All in all a very productive weekend, roll the on the Open Sport Nationals at Shakespeare County Raceway, the Dark Destroyer is ready! Prior to that Paul Marston Racing will be making an appearance at Billing Aquadrome for the UK Cruisers annual PT Cruiser Convention, the Picnic in the Park. This is the beginning of a five-week swing which will be keeping Paul Marston Racing busy (Welcome to my world � Ed). With the PT Bruiser out of the game at the moment, Grumpy's Dodge will be the star of the show at Billing. It's a great weekend to catch up with fellow PT Cruiser owners, a lot of whom are ardent drag racing fans which is never a bad thing! With the informal atmosphere at Billing we all have the chance to enjoy the weekend. Web site updates. 13th August: The UK's Wild Child Super Comp team have launched a web site at www.wildchildracing.co.uk. The very nice new site features news, details on Andy Williams' current and previous race cars, crew page, sponsor page, race calendar and more. ©Eurodragster.com Bulldog Bash days 2 and 3 report. 12th August: Many thanks to Jerry Cookson for sending us the promised report of the remainder of the racing demonstrations at the Bulldog Bash at Shakespeare County Raceway: The twenty first anniversary running of the Bulldog Bash will certainly be etched into the minds of both Steve Carey and Ian Turburville as they scorched the already scalded quarter mile with times of 6.935/194.11 and 7.402/198.34 from their respective fuel-burning machines in yesterday's first session. Although the numbers were impressive it was heart-in-mouth time for The Guv, Paul Wright, when he got dangerously close to the left hand guardrail and still managed a 9.488/148.69. Also stepping up was Rob Stone's Born To Run '53 Anglia with a 9.265/142.32 as did Fearless Frank Griffin with an even quicker 8.783/159.73 to complement Friday's 8.695. Closing the lunch time show was Eric Teboul's Rocket Bike with another full-on propelled blast of 220.01 mph taking the SCR track record for rocket-assisted vehicles, which only took him 5.842 seconds. And if everyone thought that the blast from Eric's bike was spectacular then perennial crowd favourite Martin Hill certainly had everyone buzzing with another jet-assisted 6.126/265.05 from the Fireforce Funny Car. Up to this point, a staggering 2300 runs has been put down by the many bikers who have now invaded the Shakespeare County track to view the drag racing, ride the fairground attractions, view the Custom Show and dance to bands. With the closing acts at this year's Bulldog Bash taking centre stage, Frenchman Eric Teboul promised a number and he certainly delivered an impressive number with an out-of-this-world full quarter mile blast which resulted in a stunning 5.627 (His quickest-ever we believe - Ed) at 227.14 mph to make him the quickest rocketeer in the world today. Paul Wright was again at the centre of attention with the third seven of the weekend, a 7.689, to govern the Anglias. Steve Carey ran another fishtailing 7.383/191.98, Steve Woollatt carded a 6.553/208.86 and Turbo narrowly missed out on bookending his times of the weekend after the bike began to weave at the 1000 foot mark and he shut it off to a 7.606/176.42. From the category time trials, Shady Racing's Ady Lockley took the Japanese Unlimited non road-legal trophy with an 8.137/173.93 from the 1300cc Suzuki Hayabusa. Taking second was Sean Mills' Big CC Racing Busa with an 8.144/178.13 followed by last year's winner Phil Wood at 8.272/182.92. Closing yesterday's Bash action in the way he knows best was Martin Hill with another scorching 6.176/262 .57. A few of our demonstration racers remained behind to put in some last minute check out laps this morning. Martin Hill is one and he woke up the County and its neighbours by quite literally fogging out the start line and staging areas and then proceeding to run through his own jet smoke to the tune of 6.944/264.43. All we could see from Race Control was an orange glow from the jet pipe charging away from us. It all came together for Tim Blakemore with a 7.193 at 177.69 with the application of a new sticky Goodyear and a tried and tested set-up. But today's action was short-lived when a rain storm moved swiftly into the area closing us down for the day and ending the twenty first anniversary Bulldog Bash prematurely. ©Eurodragster.com Swift snippets. 12th August: Tezzii and Stanley of our colleagues EurodragsterNorth.com have been dealing with computer problems but now posted end-day reports from yesterday's qualifying at the Linde Open. You can check out the report and pictures from Lindesberg by clicking on Live at www.eurodragsternorth.com. We have a couple of birthdays today. First up is a very Happy 8th Birthday to Billy Everitt, son of UK Super Pro ET racer John Everitt. John tells us that Billy has a very special birthday present but we don't dare say what it is in case he has not yet found out about it. Next up is a Happy 50th Birthday to UK Super Comp/Super Gas racer Jon Morton. We understand that Mort held a party last night and that he is unlikely to be able to read small fonts today. Have a great day Mort and Billy. ©Eurodragster.com Further to yesterday's Snippet, Magnus Cato has kindly sent us a picture from yesterday's marriage to his wife Martina (click on picture for large version). "We had a great day, with the actual ceremony in full sun but to the sound of heavy thunder, and the dinner with pouring rain", says Magnus. "Just like the UK, but with only slight flooding around our feet!" Brian Taylor, who as regular readers will know is writing a history of UK drag racing, has been in touch with a plea on behalf of the Allard family, without whom a lot of this may well not have happened. "Alan and Gavin are trying to locate any models of either the first Allard Chrysler, the second Allard Chrysler, the Allard Dragoon Anglia or an Allard Dragon", says Brian. "As far as we know there were no commercial model kits available of any of these cars, but some enthusiast might have built one from scratch. If anyone has a model, or has seen one, then please let me know at [email protected]. Bulldog Bash day 1 report. 11th August: Many thanks to Jerry Cookson for sending us a report of the racing demonstrations at yesterday's first day of the Bulldog Bash at Shakespeare County Raceway: It's a very hot and sunny day for once at Shakespeare County Raceway and the twenty first anniversary Bulldog Bash. Topping the timing charts out of the ten Outlaw Anglias present is Paul Wright with the 555ci Alco Pop Ford at 7.781/176.30. However, the most entertaining drive of the session was Ray Guy's Reach For The Sky wheelstand with the Shorty's Hot Rod. Even though the run pressed him against the guardrail, Ray still managed to stay with it to register an 11.37. Clive Mechaell took the Hot Rod from Hell Fuel T to a 990-foot 7.11 at a wayward 159 mph. Another racer to step out away from the groove was 'Fearless Frank' Griffin. Since his escapade at last year's Bash the same very nearly occurred again as Frank headed towards the right hand guardrail followed by a short moment across the centreline to clip the eighth mile foam blocks. In the Bike categories, Ken Cooper gave team mate Kev Charman an excellent run for his money as Ken's Funny Bike leapt to a 7.669/170.99 to Kev's 7.696/169.12. But the most impressive run was left to The Dealer Steve Woollatt. Despite hazing the slick at the 220 foot mark, Steve still kept the power on to record a 6.587/206.17. Closing the first show was Martin Hill with the Santa Pod-bodied Chevy Lumina Funny Car with a 6.156/262.57. There were even more fireworks later in the day with the return of Eric Teboul's Rocket Bike. Looking for records this weekend, Eric has equipped the bike with an expanded fuel tank and with a test run of 5.790/207.01 to work from Eric has promised that his own SCR track record will fall for sure. Casualties from the day were Phil Toppin who completely took out the bottom end of his big inch Pro ET Ford Sierra and Funny Bike rider Chris Hall who peppered the last eighth in tiny shards of metal and oil. Once a wheelstander always a wheelstander as Ray Guy's Ford Pop yet again captured the moment with an even taller wheelstand than the first and still managed a 10.32. Even though ACU Top Fuel Bike champ Steve Carey was shut off at the start of his first run with a small leaky barrel valve, Steve more than made up for his earlier non appearance with a very dramatic fishtailing 7.167/184.40 while Ian Turburville took the Mr Spokehead Harley to a 7.444/195.10. Closing the day yet again, Martin Hill took the Fireforce Chevy to another crowd pleasing 6.124/263.64. ©Eurodragster.com FIA European Finals entry closed. 11th August: Santa Pod Racers Club Secretary Paula Marshall tells us that entry is now closed for the FIA European Finals, which takes place at Santa Pod Raceway on 6th-9th September. ©Eurodragster.com You can check out Version 6 of the official FIA European Finals entry list by clicking here. Pro ET, which has a massive forty six entries (We think the most ever for any class in the UK - Ed) will run a thirty two-car field. If you have any queries then you can contact Paula on 01933 313625 (outside the UK +44 1933 313625) or E-Mail [email protected]. Swift snippets. 11th August: If you have checked out the FIA European Finals entry list you will notice that UK Fuel legend Gary Page is listed to drive Kenneth Lorentzon's Dodge Avenger Fuel Funny Car. "I've been a busy boy recently!", Gary told Eurodragster.com. "It's good to be back in a Funny Car, it's where I like to be. Thanks to Kenneth for the chance". Gary will be working on Micke Kågered's Top Fuel Dragster as well as driving Kenneth's car. Darren Prentice of Santa Pod Raceway has been in touch to let us know that there are only a few places left for next Friday's (17th) Peak Performance Day at Santa Pod Raceway. For more details check out www.rwyb.com or to book your ticket visit www.santapodshop.co.uk. ©Eurodragster.com Our very best wishes for a long and happy life together to our good buddy Magnus Cato and his beloved Martina who are to be married today. "I haven't told anybody yet", said Magnus. So long as Martina knows, buddy. UK TV network ITV1 will be showing Robbie Coltrane's B-Road Britain starting at 21:00 next Wednesday, 15th August. There are three weekly episodes and one will feature Shakespeare County Raceway with Steve Murty's wheelie truck, Roy Wilding, and Gerry Cookson. Web site updates. 11th August: Bob Roberts has been in touch to let us know that he has updated the official web site of UK Top Methanol Dragster racer Dave Wilson with report, pictures and video of the Silverline Tools and Lucas Oil-backed team's successful weekend at the Veidec Festival at Mantorp Park as well as Grumpy's storming appearance at the Silverline Power Tools Drag Race. You can check it all out at www.silverlinedragracing.com. Bob adds that he has had to find a new host for his video clips of Dave Wilson and Andy Robinson since one of our plugs here on Eurodragster.com used up his entire month's bandwidth allocation in a single day. Sorry about that Bob, but if your video clips weren't so good... ©Eurodragster.com Lindesberg hosts three finals. 10th August: This weekend's 24th annual Linde Open is the biggest race in Lindesberg since 1984 and hosts the final rounds of three classes in the Nordic Drag Racing Series, says Carl Erik Kihlman of SHRA Lindesberg: In Junior Dragster Pontus Dantanus has an advantage of 56 points on last years NDRS-series runner-up Grete A Ingdal of Norway. It looks a lot, but as it seems to be a sixty four-car ladder, nothing is for certain. As a matter of fact, any of the top five may be the winner, and they are all participating this weekend. This class will end up with approximately 110 racers in the NDRS series. Pontus' teammate Jennifer Gustafsson has a better outlook in Super Street. Just by showing up and making a qualifying run she seems to be the winner of NDRS 2007 (just an eight-car ladder as it looks now). She's the rookie who won Junior Dragster in 2005 and 2006. Halvor Överby, who made his first ever trip to Santa Pod this spring, can now see the full consequences of the rainout that time. ©Eurodragster.com Ronnie Moe looks like an NDRS winner in Super Comp Bike since the 82 point advantage is untouchable in an eight-bike ladder. Of course, he has to qualify. This race is also a part of Toyo Scandinavian Dragracing Series (North Division) and Nordtrafik Bracket Cup. It's also the last but one race in the Swedish Junior Dragster Championship with the final round at the Winternationals at Meca. Magnus Larsson's beatiful front-engined dragster will make some sixty-foot passes on Saturday, and Kenneth Söderström in his Grand Am Pro Stocker on Sunday. You can find the SHRA Lindesberg web site at www.shra.nu. You can find the full NDRS points standings on the Svensk Dragracing web site at www.dragracing.se. Peter Frost of Svensk Dragracing has drawn our attention to NDRS Comp Eliminator which has four racers only eight points apart with the Finals scheduled at Alastaro at the end of this month. Peter adds that Svensk Dragracing would like to get in touch with certain racers whose names you can find on the web site. Mosten Race Day 14. 10th August: For many years Mosten Race Day has attracted drag racers from Denmark, the Scandinavian countries and many other European countries to participate in sprint in many different motorcycle classes. The British/American-based Danish club is now ready with the fourteenth edition of the event which takes place from 30th August to 2nd September. "Last year we unfortunately had an accident in which the Norwegian Supertwin racer Svein Gottenberg was killed", says Hans Jørgen Hitz of Mosten Raceday. "Although the track security was OK and the track approved by the Danish Motorcycle Organization the DMU, we have this year decided to optimize the security by making the track one metre wider on each side. Also we have extended the crash barrier considerably, all in order to improve the safety for the riders." A month before deadline nearly ninety riders have enrolled for the races in the ten different motorcycle classes. The track in Mosten has proved to be very fast. During last year's Race Day in Mosten, former European Top Fuel Champion Kim Reymond of Denmark drove the eighth-mile in 3.24 seconds and 338 kmh in Andersen Racing's Top Fuel Dragster. This year's event will also include a Top Fuel show by Danish drivers Stig Neergaard and Rene Hersland. Mosten Race Day usually attracts around seven thousand bikers for a weekend which besides the races also includes lots of music, party and various exhibitions of cars and motorcycles. Find more information at www.mosten-mc.dk - Race Day. ©Eurodragster.com Swift snippets. 10th August: Santa Pod Raceway are again offering racers the hire of private portable toilets for the FIA European Finals. The portable toilets, which will be serviced over the weekend, can be hired for £100 plus VAT. To book yours contact Darren at [email protected] or call him on 01234 782828 (outside the UK +44 1234 782828). ©Eurodragster.com Also on the subject of the FIA European Finals, today (Friday) is the official closing date for the event. Entry after today, if accepted, will be subject to a late entry fee of up to 100%. You can download the FIA European Finals entry forms from the SPRC web site at www.eurodragster.com/sprc. If you have any queries then please call Paula on 01933 313625 (outside the UK +44 1933 313625) or E-Mail [email protected]. Despite pleas to the contrary we are still receiving Birthday greetings too late to be posted on the appropriate day (It's not like it's a last-minute surprise - Ed) so belated birthday greetings for yesterday to Smax Smith and Becky Parker. Hope that you had good days, guys. A display of power. 10th August: The first dedicated Silverline Power Tool Drag Race was held at Haynes International Motor Museum last Sunday and attracted considerable interest from both competitors and spectators. Power tool drag racing requires competitors to take a hand-held power tool, turn it into a mean machine and race it down a seventy five-foot track. A wide variety of specially constructed machinery took part and competition was fierce. Declan Hicks, the UK Drifting champion, and his team Little Wonder entered a spectacular ride-on vehicle based on garden blowers. In the same 'ride-on' class there were two machines powered by eight chainsaws and twelve chainsaws respectively. A motorised wheelbarrow was one of the favourites with the crowd (albeit slow), you couldn't help but think that you were on a scene from a Carry On film. Other ingenious creations included a belt sander-driven toaster - complete with toast! "Power tool drag racing is great fun for both competitors and spectators", said Darrell Morris, Director of Silverline. "It's already big in the States, and launching it in the UK proved such a success that we are already working on the plans for an even bigger event next year." It was an action-packed day, thousands of spectators were entertained by demonstrations of drifting, with some people lucky enough to have white-knuckle rides alongside the skilled drivers. There were also passenger rides in some of the exotic supercars from the Haynes International Motor Museum collection including a Jaguar XJ220, Dodge Viper Ferrari Boxer and Ford Mustang plus autograph sessions with Seat British Touring Car Champion Jason Plato, interviews with drivers and a parade by the National Street Rod Association. The Silverline-sponsored Buzzi Bullet III powerboat was on display prior to competing in the Powerboat P1 World Championship, the P1 British Grand Prix of the Sea, at Cowes over the August Bank Holiday weekend. A particular highlight of the day was the Silverline dragster with four time FIA Champion driver, Dave Wilson. With in excess of 3,000 horsepower, a top speed of 270 mph and capable of running a quarter mile in 5.386 seconds, the noise and spectacle of the demonstration runs had the crowds cheering. For a break from the outdoor action and the glorious weather, spectators toured the world famous Haynes International Motor Museum, the UK's largest exhibition of the greatest cars from around the world. It boasts more than 350 cars and bikes, dating from 1886 to the present day, eleven huge display halls, the world famous red room and one of the UK's largest speedway collections. ©Eurodragster.com NitrolympX press release. 10th August: Gittli Koller and Andrea Kloss both kindly got in touch with translations of yesterday's German-language press release from the NitrolympX: Janne Ahonen, King of the Skyflyers, will be presenting his new 6000 horsepower Top Fuel Dragster to the German public exclusively at the NitrOlympx which will take place on 17th-19th August. A warm-up session is planned with Ahonen, who has already announced his participation in Top Fuel for the 2008 NitrOlympX. Multiple World Champion Janne Ahonen is the most successful ski-jumper of his generation and among other achievements has already secured his place in the all-time list of the best ski-jumpers after winning the Four Hills Tournament four times. As well as his successful ski-jumping career Ahonen is always seeking even greater challenges for the ultimate adrenaline kick. That is why he has successfully committed himself to the fastest motorsport in the world, drag racing. During his first outing in Sweden, Ahonen drove 450kmh. At the Top Fuel Challenge this year in Hockenheim, the six fastest drivers from Europe will encounter one another. Swiss Champion Urs Erbacher and Lex Joon from Holland have announced that the European terminal speed record of 512.4 kmh will be beaten at the NitrOlympX. Further information: www.nitrolympx.de. Ticket hotline: 0049-6205-950 222 ©Eurodragster.com Web site updates. 10th August: Many thanks to Andy Marrs of TSI Timers Europe for sending us an updated list of European Bests including Tom Tinndahn's Pro Stock Bike ET record set at Gardermoen. You can check out the list of European Bests by clicking here or by clicking on the European Bests link on the left-hand side of any Eurodragster.com page. ©Eurodragster.com Stefani Robinson has been in touch to announce the launch of a new web site for UK Pro Mod racer and Eurodragster.com Home and News sponsor Andy Robinson. "Ryan and I have been working very hard over the last couple of months setting up a web site which is dedicated to providing race reports to the fans and a more in-depth look at racing with a Pro Mod team", says Stefani. "We have lots of information about what's been happening between rounds, photos of each meeting, videos, crew profiles and a page for our sponsors". You can check out the excellent new Robinson Race Reports web site at www.robinson-race-reports.co.uk. Sue Whyte of UK drag racing sponsor Motorshack has updated her Fotopic site with pictures from the recent Mopar Euronats and Ultimate Street Car at Santa Pod Raceway. You can check out Sue's pictures at suewhyte.fotopic.net. Coming soon to Meca... 9th August: Martin Olsson of Malmö's Meca Raceway has been in touch with details of the next feature events at the eighth-mile track: The Street Xtreme Festival takes place from 12:00 to 22:00 on Saturday. This is our big street racing event of the year. and is a joint event with the tuning magazine Street Xtreme. We will have a Street Race on the track. Each car has to cruise into the town to get a sticker before it can run on the track, to show that it is actually a street car. There are prizes for the closest and for going below 12.00, 11.00, 10.00, 9.00, 8.00, 7.00, 6.00 and 5.00 seconds, and there will be exhibition runs by race cars. There is also drifting, party, beer tent and food, burnout competition, engine dyno and lots more. Last year this event was raineffected, still 1500 people and over 250 cars showed up. This year we hope for a real Street Race party. Amongst the cars which have been announced as coming are Limmet and his fast BMW, Mr Syclone with the world's fastest Street Syclone, and lots of Danish street monsters. More information at www.streetxtremefestival.se. ©Eurodragster.com From 18:00 to 23:00 on Wednesday 15th we have the regular Run What You Brung with lots of street and race cars. From 18:00 on Friday 17th through to Sunday 19th we have a Toyo Scandinavian Dragracing Series event sponsored by Agroma Maskiner Syd AB, distrubutor of New Holland agricultural equipment in Sweden. Two hundred teams are already scheduled to be running at this event. Breaking news: We will be running a Pro Mod Shootout with the fastest and baddest Pro Mod cars you can find which are coming to hunt that three-second run over the eighth mile. These include the European Champion Urban Johansson, Mickael Lindal who has the Low ET of 4.01 over the eighth, Roger Johansson and Micke Nord with their Nitrous monsters, and many more. Come and see the first three-second ET by a doorslammer in Europe, hopefully. To give the crowd even more of a real show for their money we have added a Pro Stock shootout. At least six Pro Stock cars will be battling it out over the eighth mile. Lots of fast racing side by side, the Pro Stock drivers have promised to put on a show that you will never forget. As usual Meca Raceway will supply superb traction for the teams. The pits have been widened even more for more room. We have a new beer tent with food service, live band and party. Grandstands are included in the entry fee. The event poster is at www.srif.se/images/Annons_FestivalRace_2007.jpg. For more information about Meca Raceway and the webcam visit www.srif.se. More and more Outlaws. 9th August: Dave McKenzie has been in touch to let us know how the Supercharged Outlaws fared at York Raceway last weekend. The plan was for a round robin with Dave's and Lee Gallimore's altereds up against Des Taylor in Mark Flavell's Super Pro ET dragster, but more cars ended up joining in the fun: On the Saturday in the first round of qualifying there was a bit of confusion in the pairing lanes. We were supposed to wait for the jet car to go but we were waved through and ended up running in the Wild Bunch slot. I had B'Sting alongside me and could not understand why, but it was too late to worry about it so I went through my routine and left on the green to pull my best sixty foot time yet in the car, a 1.2, and an eighth mile time of 6.1 seconds. Lee Gallimore followed on with a bye run and got wildly out of shape in the shutdown area with a severe case of bounce which pulled the butterfly wheel out of his hands. Lee said afterwards he really thought he was going to lose it but he managed to keep it on the track. Des Taylor followed up after the jet car with a strong solo pass with a low five-second eighth mile pass. In the second round of qualifying Lee and I went out side by side for the first time. Both cars pulled strong burnouts and Lee was away first at the lights but I chased hard and nearly pipped Lee on the line. Both drivers were on and off the throttle for a bit of a pedalfest and the crowed loved it, the margin at the line was only one hundredth of a second. That was a really good side by side race. Des Taylor then did a solo qualifying run with a strong burnout, a very strong run to put in the quickest run so far. Onto Sunday and we were scheduled to run one more qualifier and then the finals, but after a discussion with Steve Murty we put in an extra qualifier. This is where it started to get interesting because in the pits was Roy Wilding with the Hemi Hunter slingshot and Roy joined in the show to run a four car field on the Sunday. The first pair out on Sunday was a David and Goliath affair with me up against the big man himself Roy Wilding. Both cars pulled good burnouts and on the lights Roy was too keen and pulled a red light and I went chasing after him with a good run. The second pair was Des Taylor up against Lee Gallimore, Des proved to strong for Lee and took the win. In the second round only two cars made it to the line - I was up against Des Taylor. Des was too keen and pulled a red light leaving me to chase him up the track. It seems everyone wants to get away from the little Purple Altered - we must frighten the opposition into mistakes because the Altered was tending to use up a lot of the track. It was commented that "We did not know that dragsters did drifting!". ©Eurodragster.com The Final for the Outlaws was Lee and I, and Lee was on a mission. Both cars left at the same time but Lee was pulling away from me all the time to run a 5.8. On the other side I was having another wild ride with the car turning right on the hit but I managed to bring it back, but by then Lee was long gone. The final pair was Roy Wilding versus Des Taylor. Des wanted to try for the track record on this run and opted to run the quarter mile and Roy was going to do the eighth. Roy was away first and on a charge. By half track Des was past Roy and to the stripe in 7.9 seconds. Roy was out of it at the eighth. More news on the Outlaws front was that Brian Gandy was there débuting his brand new Altered (right) on Sunday. Brian just wanted to put in a couple of familiarisation passes to get used to the car and it looked real good, so Brian will be out with the Outlaws next year. Another car was débuted, Tony Smith's blown Topolino Altered called Faster Pussy Cat. Again all Tony wanted to do was to get used to the car. I was in the shutdown area when Tony came up the track and he was a very happy man. There was another blown car there, Ian Hanson's immaculate blown Corvette but sadly Ian had problems on Saturday - on his first burnout the car stopped. I believe it was due to a sticking valve so that put Ian out for the rest of the weekend. In all it was a really good weekend with seven blown cars in attendance and we would all like to thank Steve Murty and the York crew for a fantastic weekend. Pressemeldung NitrolympX. 9th August: Janne Ahonen, der K�nig der Skiflieger, wird anl�sslich der NitrolympX 2007 vom 17.-19.08.2007 in Hockenheim exklusiv seinen neuen 6000 PS starken Top Fuel Dragster dem deutschen Publikum vorstellen! Geplant ist eine Warm-up-Session mit Ahonen, der f�r die NitrolympX im Jahr 2008 seine Teilnahme in der Top Fuel Klasse bereits angek�ndigt hat. Der mehrfache Weltmeister Janne Ahonnen ist der erfolgreichste Skispringer seiner Generation, und hat sich unter anderem mit dem 4-fachen Sieg der Vierschanzen-Tournee in die ewige Bestenliste der Skispringer eingetragen. Ahonen sucht neben seiner erfolgreichen Karriere im Skisprungzirkus stets nach noch gr��eren Herausforderungen f�r den ultimativen Adrenalinkick. Deshalb hat er sich auch �u�erst erfolgreich dem schnellsten Motorsport der Welt, dem Drag Racing verschrieben. Bei seinem ersten Einsatz in Schweden fuhr Ahonnen bereits �ber 450 Stundenkilometer. Bei der Top Fuel Challenge in Hockenheim treffen in diesem Jahr die sechs schnellsten Fahrer aus Europa aufeinander. Der Champion Urs Erbacher aus der Schweiz und Lex Joon aus Holland haben angek�ndigt, dass der europ�ische Topspeed Rekord von 512,4 Stundenkilometern bei den NitrolympX fallen soll. Weitere Infos auf www.nitrolympx.de Ticket-Hotline : 06205 / 950 222 ©Eurodragster.com Swift snippets. 9th August: Swedish Pro Mod racer Mats Eriksson's fan club have something new for Mats at Mantorp every year, says Lena Perés. "Two years ago they mooned for us - on their backsides they had the same letters as they have on their shorts this year", says Lena. "Last year they came to the trailer singing all the way upstairs to celebrate my birthday. We also gave them special supporter shirts which I made so they look really outstanding. And this year this gang from Bjursås in Dalecarlia fixed themselves a new outfit (right, click on picture for large version). They're a really nice and funny gang - we just love them!" Many thanks to Santa Pod Racers Club Secretary Paula Marshall for forwarding Version 4 of the FIA European Finals entry list which you can view by clicking here. The official closing date for all classes Pro and Sportsman is tomorrow, 10th August, but entry may be closed early if numbers necessitate it. You can download the event entry forms from the SPRC web site at www.eurodragster.com/sprc. If you have any queries then please call Paula on 01933 313625 (outside the UK +44 1933 313625) or E-Mail [email protected]. ©Eurodragster.com With all the team members together for once but no testing opportunities, Carl Wadkin-Snaith and the UK's The Fang Supertwin team jumped at the chance to exhibit at the 2007 Honda Owners Club Festival held at the Gaydon Heritage Motor Museum in Warwickshire last Sunday. "On our arrival we were directed to a site opposite Honda UK's impressive stand which they had even painted to match The Fang!", says Carl. "A great day, with all of us answering endless questions until we were hoarse. Firing the bike up was a real highlight and certainly caused everyone to step back somewhat!". You can find more information and pictures at www.thefang.co.uk/news2007.htm. A very Happy 50th Birthday to UK Fuel legend Gary Page. Hope that you get in a good few rounds today, Gary; have a great day. Our best wishes to Andy Williamson of Nev Mottershead's Comp Eliminator team who is currently in hospital recovering from an operation. Here's to a rapid recovery Andy and we hope to see Sharon and yourself at the FIA European Finals if not before. NDRG Drag Challenge FIM/UEM review. 9th August: FIM/UEM European Drag Bike Championship Co-ordinator Lars Andersson has been in touch with his regular post-event review, this time from the weekend's NDRG Challenge at Gardermoen: Gardermoen is a very special place. It is one of the best tracks in Europe if not the best. Many of the people working there are very good and friendly. I have known several of them for many years. I am also missing some of my old Norwegian friends but that is an other story. I arrived on Thursday and did the track inspection. The easy part is to inspect the racing area. This is very good, some more guardrails on the right side will make the track even safer. But the hard thing is to inspect according to RR08.8.1 about facilities that must be in a paddock. The lack of toilets, showers and hard surface is the big problem here. Two more things before the report. Why do people not leave other people's things be. On the night between Saturday and Sunday someone took the computers in the secretariat so on Sunday the ladies that were working did not have any thing to work on. All entries and all documents regarding the race were gone. Also all access to internet and E-Mail was gone. This was the sad thing. One other thing to remember from this race was the ceremony for Svein Gottenberg and the establishment of a trophy in his honour. This new trophy went to Ton Pels' who have been in drag racing for a very long time and also helped Svein many times. The next positive thing is that we managed to finish the race. We could almost have finished it at 16:00 but due to an accident with a car which took some time to fix we finished around 18:30. The track team had to change guardrails on both sides after the impact of the car and this was a very big job, but they did it very well. Now to the racing. In Top Fuel bike things are starting to be very interesting. Peter Svensson was again the number one qualifier and Rikard Gustavsson managed to be the second. Ian King had big problems but in the end he managed to be number four qualifier just after Luigi Feretti. In the semi final it was the four top qualifiers. First was Peter Svensson against Ian King and Peter beat Ian in a close race. In the next pair it was Rikard against Luigi and Luigi took the win over Rikard who had some problems with his bike. So this gave us Peter against Luigi in the final. Peter left first but had problems and had to shut off giving the victory to Luigi. This was absolutely the best scenario for the Championship. Luigi has 139 points, Ian King 137 points and Rikard Gustavsson 134 points. So any one of them can win the Championship. And at Santa Pod will we have more fast bikes which can mess up the situation for all three riders. In Supertwin the situation is not the same. Lorenz Stäuble has managed to get a strong grip on the trophy. After qualifying number one and winning the race he is in a nice lead before Roel Koedam who had problems this weekend. But it all could have changed. In the first round Lorenz was up against Per Bengtsson who has worked a lot on his bike. Per made some big changes overnight and suddenly everything worked in a much better way. Per was before Lorentz all the way until 300 metres then shut off making Lorenz get the win. But the results were exciting for Per so now he might go to Santa Pod for the Finals. In the second pair was it Jaska against Petri. These two blown bikes are very strong , but it takes some time to understand everything. When the two Finnish guys manage to use all the power will they be hard to stop. In the third pair it was Gunther Sohn against Ulf 'Skutt' Nylen, Skutt is trying to learn how the bike handles. So sometimes everything looks okay and next time the bike drifts to the side. Gunther's win meant Hans Olav Olstad in the semi-final. Hans Olav should have raced Roel but he was standing in the paddock with a broken bike. Instead Greger made an attempt but he could not stop Olstad. Olstad also managed to win over Gunther so this gave us Olstad against Lorentz in the final. In a very tough race they changed places several times and struggled to handle the bikes but Lorenz took the win over Olstad. In Pro Stock Bike Tom Tinndahn showed how strong he is, setting a new record with a 7.165 and backing it up. This is very good. Tom met Kenneth Vik from Norway and in the next round it was time for Anders Larsson to meet him. Anders Larsson had taken out Örjan Gustavsson in the first round. Anders tried very hard but some small adjustments before made him catch a red light so it was Tom in the final. On the other side it was Anders Jacobson against Martin Bishop with an AJ win and in the other pair it was Anders Abrahamsson against Fredrik Fredlund from Åland. But as normal this gave us three Anders in the semi. AA against AJ should have been a nice race. AJ went into stage very fast and AA did his normal for a victory to AA. In the very tight final it was AA against Tinndahn. Anders managed to take the win just over Tom who had a very nice 309 kmh terminal speed. But this was good for the Championship. Tom has a thirteen point lead over Larsson and twenty five points to Jacobsson and twenty seven to Abrahamsson. So one Anders could still manage to beat Tom in the Finals in England. If we could fulfil the demands and have a sixteen-bike ladder it would be very nice. The quality of all of the Pro Stock Bikes here in Europe would make this very nice. We also had the final round for the Pro Stock Snowmobiles at Gardermoen, with six snowmobiles turning up it looked very good. Almost directly Urban Eriksson showed that he would be strong. Setting new records both for Top Speed and ET made him number one qualifier. This gave him a solo run to the semi final but since Fredrik Överbring was broken he had a straight way to the final against the leader Jonas Norlander who had had taken out Ove Eriksson in the first round and beat last year's Champion Christina Blomkvist in the semi. In the final Jonas was too fast and caught a red light giving the victory to Urban and also the whole victory in the UEM Challenge to Urban. A very happy Urban could then start the long trip home to the north of Sweden. This is my short report from Norway and Gardermoen. I do hope that the people at NDRG can find a way to organise a race next year at the same time. The track is good but the facilities must be updated. The club need to get some more people working in the line-up area and to find solutions for speeding up the cleaning of the track. Also must we have a solution about television. It is necessary that all rounds are on television. It is even worse when we do have very tight racing, new records and many other exciting things but then we don't have television on site to show it. If the sport is to continue to strengthen we can no longer accept that we can't find solutions before the race so that we can have television. ©Eurodragster.com You can find the latest FIM/UEM Championship and the final UEM Snowmobile Challenge points on our Simpson Race Products-sponsored points standings page by clicking here or by clicking on the Points Standings link on the left-hand side of any Eurodragster.com page. Web site updates. 9th August: Dutch Top Fuel Dragster racer, Veidec Festival Top Fuel winner and Eurodragster.com Blog contributor Lex Joon has updated his own web site at www.lexjoonracing.nl with a report and pictures from the Veidec Festival. The report is presented in both Dutch and English. Our good buddy Patrik Jacobsson has updated the Racebilder web site with pictures from the weekend's NDRG Drag Challenge at Gardermoen. You can check out Patrik's pictures at www.racebilder.nu. ©Eurodragster.com Richard Smith says that it was a fantastic weekend up at York Raceway for the UK Northern Nationals. "Along with the usual PDRC classes, in which Dave Rushforth and Ian Johnson claimed victory in the rounds of American Super Stock, there were also the National Street Car Challenge, The Wild Bunch and the Supercharged Outlaws providing the entertainment", says Richard. "The 30th annual Street Racer Championship on Saturday saw Nigel Parkin, in his John Sleath-built nine-second XJS, beat Moose in the finals to once again retain his title. You can check out Richard's large photo update at www.richardsmith.fotopic.net. Swift snippets. 8th August: Many thanks to Santa Pod Racers Club Secretary Paula Marshall for forwarding Version 3 of the FIA European Finals entry list which you can view by clicking here. The official closing date for all classes Pro and Sportsman is this Friday, 10th August, but entry may be closed early if numbers necessitate it. You can download the event entry forms from the SPRC web site at www.eurodragster.com/sprc. If you have any queries then please call Paula on 01933 313625 (outside the UK +44 1933 313625) or E-Mail [email protected]. Chris has been in touch from Frankfurt to ask if anyone knows about the Peel Trident shown running here, thought to be at Shakespeare County Raceway in 1982. "We can't believe that this would have been on a drag strip with its original engine", says Chris. "Does anyone know about the ET or speed?". If you know anything about this then please drop us a line at [email protected]. ©Eurodragster.com UK Supertwin Modified racer Barrie Gregory has acquired Les Harris' Tilly 2 and will be make his début as owner of the bike at the Bulldog Bash at Shakespeare County Raceway. "I am very pleased to announce that Annette Douglas of Compupay is providing sponsorship from this week and so Tilly 2 will still run as the Compupay Express", says Barrie. "Once again I would like to thank Netty and also I would like to add what a honour it is to have Stuart riding with us." Malmö's Meca Raceway is holding its weekly Run What You Brung from 18:00 this evening, says Martin Olsson. "We have lots of diffrent kind of cars from old Volvos to Pro Mod cars", says Martin. "We have awards for fastest street bike and street car, and for Best Looking Car and Bike. We have a nice mix of American, Japanese and domestic cars and today Michael Malmgren will make show runs in his Pro Stock. The Hot Rod diner is serving hamburgers, including our world famous Top Fuel burger with Jack Daniels BBQ sauce. The weather is really good today so it will be a really crowded event". If you can't make it then the webcam is on-line at srif.eurofrag.com/srif.html. The weekend's Ultimate Street Car at Santa Pod Raceway was a true scorcher of an event, says Rick Cuthbert. "Not only was it the largest event so far in 2007 - beating Bug Jam for the first time - but some truly entertaining track action took place", says Rick. "Drag strip highlights included Leon Green in his JPS Motorsport Toyota Supra running an 8.986/156, a quantum leap in performance from his three-litre turbocharged street car. Run What You Brung action was also frantic, with current World Touring Car and former British Touring Car superstar Robert Huff turning up in his seven litre Chevrolet Corvette road car and winning RWYB Class D! It just goes to prove that those roundy-roundy types like a bit of sheer power on the drag strip too". The full report and gallery can be found at www.ultimatestreetcar.co.uk. Editor's note: Only a brief news update today because of pressure of work in your News Editor's day job. Tomorrow's update includes news about Pro Mod racer Mats Eriksson's greatest fans, what the Supercharged Outlaws got up to at York Raceway, more upcoming attractions at Meca Raceway, and the FIM/UEM review from the NDRG Drag Challenge. Keep those news items coming to [email protected]. Billet Racing, the quickest. 7th August: Sören Svensson of Swedish Top Fuel Bike team Billet Racing has been in touch with a review of the team's weekend at the NDRG Drag Challenge at Gardermoen, at which Peter Svensson was runner-up at his first quarter mile race since his return: The weather forecast looked great for this race but unfortunately the weather and track were a bit too cold and made this race real tricky. Arriving late Thursday night after a week of different updates on the bike after the race at Mantorp Park, we were in the same situation as before last week's race, dealing with a totally new fuel system combination. On Friday morning we discovered problems with one of the Pointer boxes and fortunately Knut Söderqvist had one spare which he lent us, we would like to take the opportunity to give him a big Thank You for that. Once this was solved it was up to us to adjust the bike for the first run. The first qualifying run on Friday was only a planned half pass but still the bike managed to run 7.419/202 kmh leaving us in the number three qualifying spot. In the second qualifying round Peter had to shut off the bike in the starting area just before staging because of problems with nitro fumes inside his helmet. When we were back in the pits we discovered that a rear wheel bearing had been broken during the burnout so with this in mind it was a lucky thing that the run was aborted. Rickard Gustavsson kindly offered us two new bearings (many thanks Rickard) so that we were able to fix this problem. The third qualifying round on Saturday was planned to be a full pass which resulted in 6.35/305 after getting off the throttle at about 5.1 seconds, and we were number one qualifier. The fourth qualifying run, on Saturday, ended up in lost traction for Peter since we added some more fuel to see if the track could take it, but this was not the case. For the fifth qualifying run late on Saturday it was very cold and we chose not to run because of expected poor traction, which was shown as the other bikes ran down the track. Early on Sunday morning there was sun but just in time for our first elimination run the clouds were everywhere and the track temperature was going down with it. In the first run of elimination we met Shaun Branch, Peter won 6.587/306 to Shaun's 8.616/267. Peter had some problems with the cold track and had to go on and off the throttle once, whilst Shaun ran his best ET of the race. Ian King, fourth in qualifying, made a strong first run against Finn Asserbo, winning 6.563/320 to Finn's 7.671/301. Ian had some problems with the primary belt earlier in the qualifying session but now the problems were all gone. ©Eurodragster.com The semi final against Ian King was a great race, Peter won 6.306/338 to Ian King 6.442/330. Peter had some problems getting the rear tyre to stick to the cold track and got off the throttle at about 5.5 seconds, still resulting in the quickest run in Top Fuel Bike so far 2007. Ian ran a strong 6.44 and the spectators went wild watching two Top Fuel Bikes in a close side by side race. In the finals we met Luigi Ferretti who had a string of 6.8 passes during the eliminations on the other side of the ladder, so we had to keep our performance to be able to beat him. Unfortunately there was a long time delay due to a car crash in the left lane so we had to wait for almost two hours before the final. Both riders made strong burnouts. On the green light our bike lost traction at the starting line, Peter was on and off the throttle but it was too late, Luigi was the winner of the race running another strong 6.8 run. Congratulations Luigi, well done! This was our last planned race for this season but we will be back next year with more to come. Summary of the race: Number 1 qualifier Runner up in our first quarter mile race since 1998 Europe's quickest quarter mile Top Fuel Bike run so far in 2007 (6.305) Turners for Hockenheim. 7th August: UK Top Methanol Dragster team Turner Motorsport are pleased to announce that they will be appearing in the Top Methanol Cannonball Shootout at the Nitrolympx at Hockenheim on 17th-19th August. "This will be the first time that we have been back to Germany since 2004", says Crew Chief and UK Championship driver Steve Turner. "We hope to return home as event Champions, as we did the last time we raced there. It's a fantastic venue and it's great to be going back." ©Eurodragster.com After a mixed season to date, the team are hoping for better luck than at Mantorp Park where in the first round run against Arto Höylä they spun a bearing and broke a rod, and missed the semi-final as they ran out of time to turn the car around. "Where's ten minutes' rain or an oil down when you need it", joked Steve. "But that's racing, you move on and learn from it. Thanks also to John and Sarah for their help in trying to make the call, we were just sorry we couldn't make it for everyone. "In Finland we were beaten by the weather. We had a real good feeling in the camp, as we did in Sweden, about our chances of progressing rounds. But we now move on to Germany, as a replacement round for us for Norway, and a chance to get a few more runs on this year's set-up. "Thanks to our sponsors for their continued support this season." Swift snippets. 7th August: Many thanks to Santa Pod Racers Club Secretary Paula Marshall for forwarding Version 2 of the FIA European Finals entry list which you can view by clicking here. The official closing date for all classes Pro and Sportsman is this Friday, 10th August, but entry may be closed early if numbers necessitate it. You can download the event entry forms from the SPRC web site at www.eurodragster.com/sprc. If you have any queries then please call Paula on 01933 313625 (outside the UK +44 1933 313625) or E-Mail [email protected]. ©Eurodragster.com Also on the subject of FIA European Finals entry, when submitting their entry racers should be sure to indicate whether they require single or three phase electrical supply in their pit. Stuart Meads' Mini got back into the nines at Ultimate Street Car at Santa Pod Raceway at the weekend with a 9.91/140. "I would like to thank Andy Frost for spending countless hours fixing my gearbox to make sure that I could make the event", says Stuart. Web site updates. 7th August: In the latest entry in his exclusive Racer Blog, Dutch Top Fuel Dragster racer Lex Joon expresses his admiration for Tommi Haapanen and Anita Mäkelä as well as comments on the quality of the competition in Top Fuel and the track surface at Mantorp Park. Lex also finds space to comment on his forthcoming appearance at the Nitrolympx at Hockenheim. You can read Lex's Blog by clicking here or by clicking on the Racer Blog link on the left-hand side of any Eurodragster.com page. ©Eurodragster.com VP Racing Fuels press release. 7th August: Eurodragster.com Home and News sponsor VP Racing Fuels, world leader in racing fuels and other performance products, today introduced Q16, its newest fuel targeted at racers on a budget. "Q16 will provide exceptional performance in any drag racing or circle track application where there are no fuel rule restrictions", said Steve Burns, VP's President and CEO. "Q16 compares favorably with our popular C16 racing fuel, and in most applications will make a better choice. "Q16 is highly oxygenated which, for bracket racers, will significantly expand the range of air/fuel ratio acceptability. Due to its high oxygenation, performance will be more consistent and won't vary as dramatically with altitude or density changes. The oxygenation requires a six per cent increase in fuel flow, which will contribute to making three to five per cent more power as well as effectively increase Q16's octane by six to eight numbers over its standard ASTM rating, providing better protection against detonation. "Q16 provides cheap horsepower - 30-50 hp increases on a 1000-1400 hp engine. In a 1200 hp dragster in the eighth mile, we changed three or four jets and saw gains of 0.03-0.04 in ET and a 1-2 mph increase. Racers will spend at least $6 per gallon on the cheapest race gas, so if Q16 costs about $5 more per gallon, they'll spend less than $5 per pass to substantially improve their ET. In the grand scheme of things, that's meaningless. There aren't many performance parts that offer a 0.03-0.04 improvement in eighth mile ET for under $5. "We've been doing lots of work with the motorcycle industry - Factory Honda, Yamaha, Kawasaki, Suzuki - designing fuels to fit their new engines and technology. Q16 combines the latest technology from these factory motorcycle fuels with technology involving oxygenates that we've developed for the European market. "Q16 is recommended for any drag racing or circle track application ,naturally aspirated or nitrous. Racers who currently run C16 but aren't subject to fuel rule restrictions should consider trying this fuel. Given that it's priced the same as C16 and less than our NO2 fuel, but will outperform both (and any competitive fuel manufacturer's fuel), Q16 is the best gas you can use in drag racing if you're not bound by any fuel rules." Technical questions on application and use of Q16 can be directed to the VP Racing Fuels Technical Department at +1 812-878-2025 or to [email protected]. Questions regarding purchase and delivery of Q16 can be directed to the appropriate VP regional distribution centre, each of which is listed with contact information on VP's web site at www.vpracingfuels.com. ©Eurodragster.com Hone on the rise. 6th August: For a man who was "Only going to do a few rounds to use up the engine", UK Super Modified racer Andy 'Fred' Hone is having a solid season, says Graham Ellis of multiple SM Championship-holding team Ellis Racing, who is working with Fred this season. "You may have noticed a sharp increase in Fred's performance and that his reaction times have improved a lot", says Graham. "He has the quickest sixty foot time of any Super Modified clutch car at 1.1017 - this includes myself and Danny Cockerill. "Fred has a new engine ready to go into the car, but as a team we feel that a change now could be disaster, as it would take time to learn the tune-up the motor likes: with Fred's "old nail" we know which stick to beat it with. I am happy to help Fred and feel proud he has asked me to help and that my input has got very good results. ©Eurodragster.com "I have to say that Fred has a great car and it's easy to work with. Mick Coombs has done a great job setting it up and it leaves like a Pro Stock car...wonder why. Smiley Steve Rawlings is doing a great job as Crew Chief, also Andy - I don't know your other name - and the late-rising Girl. And I don't know the names of anyone who does the general duties around the car, but they are all really useful crew members - it's great to have good crew. "Fred hasn't won an event since 2004 and now hopefully and with a lot of luck he may be in a position to win his second Championship. This year will be a three horse race with Fred, Andy Kirk and Tim Garlick; whatever happens it will be the most exciting finish to the year for a long time. I can't wait." A bit of RNR. 6th August: UK Supertwin Gas racer Ric Naylor has been in touch to let us know how he is getting on with his new Team RNR STG bike which is currently under construction. ©Eurodragster.com "The new bike is slowly coming together and all the major ingredients are now there", says Ric. "I've got a chassis made by PsycleWorkz (right), the body is done courtesy of Melton Fibreglass and I have a motor with from Dave Beck to source parts. I'm now working on the tricky bit - bolting it all together and getting it running! I hope to have it on the track this year to make sure it runs and goes straight ready for a full season in Supertwin Top Gas next year. "Hopefully I can put my last couple of seasons' experience crewing on Dave's Pro Stock Bike to good use, even though his bike has more cylinders, valves and strokes than I'm used to!" Official: Pro ET is wicked. 6th August: Leading the race car demonstrations at a hot and dry Ultimate Street Car at Santa Pod Raceway were Pro ET racers Carl Burton and Charlie Chivers. Carl dropped us a line to let us know how they got on: The much younger crowd were very impressed with the quality of the cars - or I think that was what they meant by "These cars are fat mental man" and "That's a wicked motor ya got in there guv". Charlie was getting to grips with a new set of Toyo tyres and we were playing with the gas looking for a nine. ©Eurodragster.com Whilst Charlie was happy getting more consistent times with his new tyres, we were having some niggling problems and not getting full track on the gas, resulting in a 10.1 at a Personal Best speed of 130 mph. But I was happy with some strong launches, 1.32 to sixty feet, god I love nitrous. Thanks have to go to Paul Webster and Ian Bishop who kept an eye on us and our NOS problem, and we still have a motor in one piece. Waking up Sunday morning after what little sleep we got through the drum and bass rave, and thinking the pod had been hit by a nuclear litter bomb, we both headed home to the sounds of three-minute K-Tel tracks on our stereos rather than a three-hour West Side mix. Swift snippets. 6th August: Our good buddy and honorary Eurodragster.com staff member Erik Zettervall and son Carl checked in from the Bilsport Action Meet which took place at Mantorp Park at the weekend. "It was an action-packed meeting with car show, drifting and RWYB", says Erik. "There were a lot of both spectators and racers. One of the more unusual cars was an old Willys pick-up which after a crowd-pleasing burnout and a wheelie off the line went eleven seconds flat with a rather brave Norwegian driving." Also checking in from the action meet was Anders Envall who told us that his street-legal Impala took FTD in the V8 class with what he says was a troubled 10.14 featuring "No traction, no transbrake and a slipping first gear". ©Eurodragster.com A big Happy Birthday to our good friend Lynda Hearn. Although not a race fan, Lynda provides a lot of moral support and is thus one of the essential cogs in the wheel. Hope you have a great day Lynda. RC drags at Shakespeare County. 6th August: Radio controlled car fans will be interested to hear that an RC speed event is to be held at Shakespeare County Raceway on on Sunday 23rd September. Organiser A J Lovering got in touch to tell us all about it: This event will be supported by Schumacher Cars and be a warm-up for a Worlds Fastest RC Car event which will take place in 2008. We plan to run a pre-event in May 2008 to iron out all the bugs and then the main event possibly in September. This event will be linked to two other events in the USA, one being held at the California Raceway near Los Angeles supported by Remote Control Car Action Magazine and one on the East Coast. ©Eurodragster.com The event will be for the fastest top speed in a number of classes. The track will be a full quarter mile run-up with about a third of a mile slow down. I have just attended the last event at the California Raceway and saw a number of RC dragsters attending with guys such as Jim Schuer and others reaching around 106 mph. The final top speed measured was 127.4 mph by Nic Case. I took the IC fastest at 88 mph with a very short run up and then destroyed my car before I could re-run (video clip). For more details get in touch with A J at [email protected]. A web site and forum will be launched shortly. Web site updates. 6th August: UK Pro Mod racer and Eurodragster.com Home and News sponsor Andy Robinson's web site has been updated with pictures and a great on-board video clip from the Veidec Festival at Mantorp Park. Check out the way Gus stands on the brakes after his second shot at the burnout by following the Racing - Current link at www.robinson-race-cars.co.uk. ©Eurodragster.com NDRG Drag Challenge coverage. 5th August: Tezzii and Big Stan of EurodragsterNorth.com are in place at Amcar International Raceway at Gardermoen to bring you all the news from this weekend's NDRG Drag Challenge which is a round of the FIM/UEM European Drag Bike and Snowmobile Championships as well as the Toyo Scandinavian Dragracing Series. ©Eurodragster.com You will be able to stay in touch with the news from Gardermoen by clicking on Live at www.eurodragsternorth.com. Page pounds pavement again. 5th August: UK Fuel legend Gary Page is to drive one of Rico Anthes' Top Fuel Dragsters at the forthcoming Nitrolympx at Hockenheim. Gary told Eurodragster.com that he got the invitation after a US racer had to withdraw. ©Eurodragster.com "Brady Kalivoda can't make it so Rico called me", said Gary. "I'm very sorry for Brady of course but I am grateful to Rico for thinking of me. Rico told me that he expected me to run a 4.7 or a 4.8 at 520 kmh but I told him he had to talk to Rune Fjeld about that! It's a very nice car indeed and I am looking forward to getting behind the wheel. My Personal Bests are 5.01 and 298 mph so it would be nice to get into the fours and over three hundred." You can find out more about the Nitrolympx including ticket prices at www.nitrolympx.de. Swift snippets. 5th August: We would like to say a very Happy Birthday to our good friend Libby Mottershead. By an amazing coincidence it is also the birthday of Libby's mum Beatrice, aka Betty, so happy birthday to Betty too. We hope that you both have a great day and that Nev is looking after you. ©Eurodragster.com Open Sport Nationals entry. 4th August: Racers planning on entering the Open Sport Nationals, which takes place at Shakespeare County Raceway on 25th-27th August, are reminded that it is still not too late to make an entry for the fifth round of the UK National Championships, writes Julie Willcox. For all entries received so far racers will be receiving their tickets, passes and final instructions in the post next week. Any entry received after 20th August will be automatically left on the gate. Racers are also reminded that entry into the race track will not be possible until after 12:00 midday on Friday 24th when you will be shown to your respective pit space. A pit plan will be published in the week leading up to the event. All enquiries should now be directed to the track office on 01789 720180 or 07050 108043 or to [email protected] or [email protected]. Entry forms can be downloaded from the APIRA web site at www.apira.org.uk. Shakespeare County Raceway's Marketing Manager Jerry Cookson has also been in touch to let us know about sponsorship opportunities for class winner and runner-up trophies at the Open Sport Nationals. "If anyone wishes to get their company name across to the fans and general public alike we can provide a very cost-effective way of doing this", says Jerry. "£25 will buy you two class trophies of your choice with winners and runner-up plaques engraved with your name, together with three days' worth of PA advertising and a spot in the event programme. Everyone from corporate companies, race shops, magazines and even web sites are welcome to participate." To register your company's involvement with the Open Sport Nationals, call Jerry at the track office on 01789 720180 or E-Mail [email protected]. ©Eurodragster.com FIA European Finals entry. 4th August: Racers are also reminded that next Friday, 10th August, is the official closing date in all classes Pro and Sportsman for the FIA European Finals which takes place at Santa Pod Raceway on 6th-9th September. Entry after this date, if accepted, will be subject to a late entry fee of up to 100%. "We will be keeping a close eye on the overall number of entries, and if we feel we have reached the maximum limit - even if it falls before the official deadline - then we will stop accepting entries" says Santa Pod Racers Club Secretary Paula Marshall. ©Eurodragster.com You can view Version 1 of the FIA European Finals entry list by clicking here. ©Eurodragster.com You can download the FIA European Finals entry forms via the Entry Forms link of the Santa Pod Racers Club web site at www.eurodragster.com/sprc. If you have any queries then you can call Paula on 01933 313625 (outside the UK +44 1933 313625) or E-Mail [email protected]. Flynn's weekend in short. 4th August: UK Top Methanol Dragster racer and Eurodragster.com News sponsor Derek Flynn of Gold RV has been in touch with what he describes as the short version of his first TMD race outside the UK, last week's Veidec Festival at Mantorp Park. "It was an eventful Veidec Festival", says Derek. "Personal best straight off the trailer and then disqualified, then a new Personal Best and on the bump spot, oil down on the towdown for the third and final qualifier with a very nervous wait to see if we made the field, which I am pleased to say we did. Then it was a first-round match up with the god knows how many times European Champion and one of my mentors Dave Wilson where we only just got beaten by 0.09 of a second, but we also now know why they call him Grumpy. So it was on the trailer for us. "On our return to the UK we had to endure Force Nine gale winds on the ship and then when we eventually arrived back we were not allowed back in the country and were trapped at customs until the next day when immigration are back, then to top it all off during the night I was rushed to off to hospital by paramedics whilst still stranded in no man's land. I am just fine now and I promise a full version soon for those that are interested! "A huge thanks to my team and all the Veidec Festival staff, track crew and all those involved in making this event such a success. We shall be back for sure, it was great. Thanks also to the doctors and staff at the Princess Diana Hospital in Grimsby." Swift snippets. 4th August: Photo-journalist and graphic designer Mark Gredzinski has forwarded us his latest piece of artwork, which will hopefully appeal to those with an awareness of the history of the sport and like Mark have a penchant for 1970s Funny Cars (right, click on picture for large version). "This may be familiar to some as it depicts the Jungle Jim Funny Car of 1973", says Mark. "The twist is that he never ran a '73 Plymouth Satellite! I'm always messing around with things with wheels and never like common sense to get in the way of a good concept. Inspired by a comment from an American fan, this is how Jungle's car would have looked had it been built." ©Eurodragster.com Hans-Jørgen Hitz tells us that this year's Mosten Race Days event which takes place on 30th August-2nd September. "We have a new strip in Allingåbro in Denmark", says Hans-Jörgen. "It is eight metres wide and seven hundred metres long so is OK for an eighth-mile sprint race". You can check out the flyer for the race (PDF format) by clicking here, and you can read more at www.mosten-mc.dk. UK Super Pro ET racer Mark Flavell has an easy weekend at the UK Northern Nationals at York Raceway. "We're looking forward to running with the Supercharged Outlaws", says Mark. "Steve Saunders will be there in his bad-ass Zephyr for all you Ford fans (Brian Huxley and Steve's mum). The weather looks good, which will make pleasant change. I've lost my E-Mail address book, and there were a couple of guys that I'd talked to regarding the car for sale. Come along to York this weekend and have a closer look. If you're serious bring a licence and sign on and give her a run out. Des Taylor will be handling the racing duties so I'll have plenty of time to answer any questions. The bar and the barbies will be smoking all weekend so enjoy the warm Yorkshire welcome, beer and burgers." Wild about York. 4th August: Also up at York Raceway this weekend are the UK's Wild Bunch who are making their annual trip. Class Co-ordinator Claire Meaddows has been in touch with a preview of the weekend: This will be the fifth round of the Wild Bunch Series, the eighth round of sponsor the Real Steel Series, and the third round of the Roy Wilding Nostalgia Race Cars Series. There are about a dozen teams making the trip up north, with some from as far as Tonypandy and Southampton. Many of the teams will be meeting up for a convoy from the Tamworth Services. ©Eurodragster.com Tony Smith and Dave Williams are currently leading the Wild Bunch Series with the popular Cunning Plan Minivan altered (yes, again!). York local boy Ant Harris in the dayglo Frantic altered is in hot pursuit. The current leader of the Real Steel Series is Darryl Howells in the Chemical Reaction slingshot, with Chris Hartnell's Backdraft right behind. With six of the top ten racers making the trip, there is sure to be some close competition, and we're all hoping for some sun! We would like to say an advance Thank You to the Pennine Drag Racing Club and all marshals and officials at York Raceway, as we are all really looking forward to the event, which promises to be a great one. If you're in the area over the weekend, come on down to the drags! Magazine update. 4th August: There's an air of drag racing heaven in the pages of this month's Ultra VW magazine as editor Paul Knight devotes ten pages to the first European Bug-In, writes Jerry Cookson. ©Eurodragster.com Held on a public road near the town of Chimay in Belgium, the event was an unqualified success with many of the top names from the Outlaw Flat Fours representing the UK scene making the trip across to the event with staff writer Keith Seume, the UK's leading authority within the VW culture. And that's not all folks, whilst in Belgium the magazine editors spotted a couple of retro gassers the first of which, the Otto Brothers Dangerine oval Bug, receives the front cover treatment along with the Hebmuller gasser. Also, there's a look at Bad Camberg, Europe's ultimate vintage meet, as well as an interview with former VW racer and show organiser Brett Hawksbee about his latest book Bug Jam and all that.... Ultra VW is available now from all leading magazine outlets priced at £3.75. Web site updates. 4th August: Roger has a Veidec Festival report and pictures currently showing on the US Competition Plus web site at www.competitionplus.com. ©Eurodragster.com Our Reserve Photographer Peter Donaldson has updated his Fotopic site with pictures from Wednesday's private test at Santa Pod Raceway, which was organised by UK Super Street Bike racer Graham Dance. You can check out Peter's shots at peterdonaldson5305.fotopic.net. Carter's part in a historic race. 3rd August: The Veidec Festival 2007 will go down in European drag racing history as one of the best meetings ever held over a quarter mile writes Dan Welberry, PR of UK/Danish Top Fuel Dragster team Lucas Oil/Carter Motorsport/Andersen Racing: With only one Top Fuel car outside the four second bracket in an eight-car field and the entire Pro Stock qualifying field in the sixes, this event truly was one to remember. For the Lucas Oil/Carter Motorsport/Andersen Racing team, it will go down as a series of incredible highs and lows. With the rain having played such a major part in the season to date, it was important to all teams to stamp their authority on this meeting, so the pressure was really on the Championship front runners. I don't think I'm speaking out of turn when I say there are now no easy rides in Top Fuel with all the competition having raised the game to an exceptionally high level. Qualifying was a real testament to this with personal bests from a number of our competitors. After a disappointing first session, where our burst panel let go, we were well aware of the requirement to lay down a good number in Q2. 4.73 seconds and 305 mph later (a new Mantorp Park track record and PB for Andy Carter), the Lucas Oil team were a great deal happier and sitting on top of the pile as number one qualifier. We were also one run away from a new European record if we could back up the ET. After Q3, Andy had successfully taken back the European ET record having posted another stunning 4.73 with an awesome 314.53 mph, another track record! He was also heading the quickest field in European Top Fuel history, just as he'd done at with the previous fastest field in 2004. Round one saw us pair off with Jöran Persåker who had posted a great 5.07 in qualifying but still found himself on the bump spot! The Lucas Oil bracket car ripped off another cracking 4.74 to put Jöran on the trailer and at this point expectation was running very high. Per and Karsten Andersen had done an amazing job in setting up the car. Running three 4.7 second passes like that is no easy task and going into the semis we really believed the event win was ours for the taking. Thomas Nataas was our opponent for this one and another 4.7 would have done the job nicely. Sadly, the burst panel had other ideas on the burn out and our Swedish adventure was over for another year. I remember sitting in the pit after the race trying to write the update for our web site. I just did not know what to say! We were all gutted, but on reflection it hadn't been a bad weekend overall. Yes, there were lows but the highs included: Number 1 qualifier Heading the quickest European Top Fuel field in history Resetting our own track record at 4.73 Setting a new European record at 4.73 Setting a new track speed record at 314 mph Going into the European Finals, we are second in the Championship behind Lex Joon. It's going to be a tough task to get round him but it's not impossible. After all, we've been here before right? We look forward to meeting up with our UK fans at the track where we'll have our new hero cards available. If the Veidec Festival 2007 is anything to go by, the European Finals is going to be awesome! Our next static display with the show car will be at this weekend's Ultimate Street Car at Santa Pod. Visit www.andycarter.net to keep up to date with all the Lucas Oil/Carter Motorsport/Andersen Racing dates. ©Eurodragster.com PMR go heads-up. 3rd August: Paul Marston Racing's naturally-aspirated Drag Race Engineering and CTM-backed Super Modified Calibra made its début at Bug Jam 21 at Santa Pod Raceway. Paul Marston takes up the story of the team's first entry into a heads-up class: In true heads-up/whatever it takes style I finished assembling the 555 ci Big Block Chevy at around 9.00 pm Thursday night and fired it up. We went through the usual loose and leaks checks, took her up to temp, shut it off, finished off, rang DRE proprietor Gary Springford to let him know how it worked out and what issues we still had, then went home to bed. Many thanks to Mark at DRE who stayed late so I could finish up and locked up after me. Gary Springford assured me on the phone that everything would be done when I arrived back Friday morning and it was, that's teamwork. On Friday morning I loaded up and set off for the Bug Jam. We watched it rain for two days, all of Friday and most of Saturday, but hey we are in England after all! The Friday RWYB would have helped us get all the small stuff out of the way so the Saturday qualifying runs couldenable us to begin to put a very basic motor tune together; realistically we needed ten passes. As you know, this never happened due to the weather, so the only qualifier Saturday evening produced a first for me. I pulled round into the water, spun the tyres, started my rolling burnout and then went for the brakes and there weren't any! Yes I could not stop, so I decided to get off the track as quickly as I could. Andy Chilton was in the other lane and I did not want to spoil his run, so I drove down the track to first exit, shut off, could not make the turn safely (still going too fast) so fired up again and went to the end exit, could not safely slow down to make the turn so I turned right and headed towards the farm along the farm track until the car eventually rolled to a halt. We then had to push the DRE Calibra all the way back to the pits, meanwhile the heavens opened and the whole crew got drenched doing so (sorry guys). The problem was a failed brake rod, our acting Crew Chief Sefton Whitlock took the bent item home and made a nice new straight one ready for Sunday, what a nice man! Sunday dawned and we spent our three allocated qualifiers doing what we wanted to do on Friday. At the first attempt I shut it off after the burnout, the Calibra was leaking fluid, Sefton cured a water leak and we managed to tag on the back of the class - what a great crew we have at Paul Marston Racing - and ran a planned eighth-mile checkout pass. With such a short turnaround, under an hour after being weighed and towed back, all we had time for was a valve lash check, then back out for second qualifier. This time a full pass which netted an 8.48/151 with a misfire from the eighth, 10 mph down on our PB but what I expected. Again a quick turnaround, plug check, timing check and rotor phasing with the crank trigger. With all this done we barely made the session, running nearly flat last, again all and full credit to the crew, it really was a great effort. A small improvement, 8.43/153 MPH, so a very small step in the right direction, still a misfire from the eighth. That was that for qualifying, now the first round of eliminations, a little more time, a whole hour! After discussing it with Sefton and the two Micks we decided a jet change would be a reasonable move. On consulting with our US-based BLP carburettor expert Tony Morris and Gary Springford of DRE we were all in agreement on what to try. Bizarrely it was not a performance improvement we were looking for, it was an attempt to isolate what was causing the misfire. This was successful as come first round against #2 qualifier Andy Kirk the problem was much worse, confirming the direction we needed to go. In summary, it was the beginning of our campaign in Super Modified, the DRE Calibra got down the track every time, nothing broke, we know which direction we need to be heading, we lost in exactly the round we knew we would - the first! Special thanks go out to the following people in no specific order: Gary Springford at DRE for all the help, support, hard work, friendship and belief; Charlie Mahoney at CTM who produces some of the best quality head work and development there is. Once we have the motor and chassis figured out, the performance will become apparent. The great sponsors, business associates and partners that we have, without you guys this could not happen. All the Paul Marston Racing super crew: acting Crew Chief Sefton Whitlock, Grumpy's Dodge shoe Mick Howling, Mick Pusey and Leigh Hemsil, plus of course DRE Proprietor Gary Springford and Tony Morris from BLP our American Fuel System and Carb Specialist. Last but not least Eurodragster.com for excellent Event Coverage (Thanks! - Ed) and Nigel, Julian and all the people at Nitro FM for keeping it positive in less than ideal conditions. ©Eurodragster.com Web site updates. 3rd August: German Pro Mod racer Norbert Kuno has relaunched his web site at www.kuno-racing.de. The very good-looking new site is presented in German and features news, race reports, calendar, pictures, driver and team bios, on-line shop and more. ©Eurodragster.com Markus Ek has updated his web site with a report and some great pictures from the weekend's Veidec Festival at Mantorp Park. You can check out Markus' work by following Pictures, 2007 and Veidec at www.mek.nu. Collier goes PSB. 2nd August: UK Supertwin Gas racer Jerry Collier is to race in Pro Stock Bike with a Suzuki motor and a TL1000R body on the formerly H2-powered Kosman frame which last ran in Comp Bike (right, click on picture for large version). "We had bought two engines off Martin Bishop to go back into Comp Bike, but after talking to a few people we decided that it should remain a Pro Stock Bike", says Sharron Collier. "Jerry has always wanted to race in this class but never thought he would get the chance. We have used the Kosman chassis which used to house the H2 motor, and Jerry has re-looped the frame to fit the Suzuki motor. Our crew man Baz went to see Dave Beck and bought us TL1000R bodywork as a surprise, what a top man. ©Eurodragster.com "Jerry has been in the garage every night working on the bike. His aim is to enter the UK National Finals if it is completed by then. We couldn't have got even this far without some top people, so thanks to Martin Bishop, Dave Beck and Ray Debben, also George and Lorrainne Laycock at GLS Engineering for their superb work, and not forgetting Baz. "We are really looking forward to racing in Pro Stock Bike; it is a huge new challenge. We will be out testing as soon as possible, not forgetting that we have a Junior Drag Bike to support too: Scott is currently leading the Junior Drag Bike Championships on his 50 cc Junior Storm." More Funny business for CBD. 2nd August: Carbon By Design Fuel team owner Knut Söderquist has been in touch with the latest from the CBD workshops: The Lithuania Drag Racing Festival ended up a huge surprise for me and even for the promoter. After helping to promote the race for a week in different shopping malls we went to the race track on the Thursday afternon. To our surprise there were already a lot of people at the track. There was also a stage for rock and roll bands and a couple of artists well-known to the crowd from Lithuanian television. They also prepared a track for drifting which is very popular there. I think it was a very smart idea to get people to come and see drag racing for more or less the first time. This was an old Russian airfield very similar to Wittstock but the track needs to be repaved. The owner of the airfield was very impressed with what he saw and with the promoters is now in the process of getting the track up to standard. The interest shown by the crowd was overwhelming and I see no problem in making this a big success. I think there were between 11,000 and 15,000 people. For all of Saturday there were three queues of cars waiting to get in. I think that this was well done as it was the first time they had run a large event. Not only that, but they provided all of the racers with free power for the whole weekend. I want to thank Andrus and Tommas for a great week and weekend, and we are ready for next year which I know will be even better. I am almost finished with my second Fuel Funny Car which is a 2004 Pontiac Firebird with a McKinney chassis. I have a couple of people interested in driving the car. Also my frend Jonny Nilsson just got the car which Frank Pedegron was driving for the Dunn family. The car has very few runs on it and looks very good. There are a few plans for that car and right now it looks to be a Danish driver. ©Eurodragster.com I know that there are very big fields at the two major tracks, Santa Pod and Mantorp Park, and I understand that right now there is no need for our Funny Cars, but I know that one day people will get tired seeing the same movie. There has been big interest shown between the Funny Car owners and tracks in Sweden, Germany, Lithuania and Norway to run a Championship next year. In all here in Sweden and Norway we have six nitro Funny Cars and we ar not garage racers. We will be out there and hopefully come back to Santa Pod, the Mecca of Funny Car racing. We are now preparing Patrik Pers' car for this weekend's race at Gardermoen and we are really looking forward to this race as there will be four Funny Cars running. I will be interested to see Thomas Naates in the former Showtime Mustang. Thomas' cars always turn out to look fantastic and I am sure that Rune will have that car running well after a couple of passes. Kenneth Lorentzon is starting to get his car running nicely after a couple of things went wrong. Leif Helander looked good at Sundsvall and will run steady numbers at Gardermoen. After this weekend Patrik's car will go to my shop in Astorp to be prepared for Hockenheim, and after Hockenhim we will prepare the car for the Middle East. Right now I am working to put a deal together to return for three or four races in Bahrain and Dubai but at this point I do not know exactly what will happen. The plan is to ship my truck and trailer roll on roll off to Dubai where I have three teams interested in running a Top Fuel car. I have the cars sitting ready for shipment which I think will happen at the end of August. I have been in contact with four NHRA drivers for Bahrain and when I have finalised the deal I will come back with more information about. Who will drive fron Europe I don't know right now. I will also take a couple of Funny Cars which will give them a surprise - two nitro Funny Cars at night at the most beautiful race track in the world, I can't wait to see it. As a guarantee of success I have already called Harlan Thompson to drive one of them. Finally the good fortune. 2nd August: Regular readers will know that Norwegian Supertwin racer Hans Olav Olstad has had a bit of a season of it so far with mechanical problems hitting not just his six-second bike but his bus amongst other troubles. But it started to come together for Hans Olav at the Veidec Festival at the weekend: We showed up at Mantorp Park early Thursday morning. All of the parts were repaired, the crank was ground, and the head welded and machined. At 4.00 on Friday morning the bike was ready to fire up, but we decide to wait another four hours as we were not alone in the camp, and we also needed some sleep. At 8.30 we started the bike and everything worked fine, but we had to wait the whole day because of rain. At 17.00 we were called to the line up, but a tight time schedule had us sent back to the pits with no sound of Supertwin bikes that evening. On Saturday we were promised three runs. On the first run we broke the primary belt, and ended up outside the ladder. On the second run I slipped on the gas handle and couldn't give it full throttle, shame on me. We were still outside the ladder. On the third and the last try, we just had to go for it. We also had to run in the right lane, which had shown its dangerous side. Ulf Nylen (Skutt) went into the rail earlier in the day and the Swedish Top Fuel Bike rider Peter Ström also went in to the rail, fell off and crashed his bike. Lots of the bike riders had big problems in this lane, and it was definitely not safe. I launched pretty well but after sixty feet my bike also started to drift hard towards the right guardrail. I had to let off the gas handle after only three seconds, and was too close to the rail. Sparks were coming out under the bike because the frame was sliding on the ground. Everybody thought I hit the rail, but luckily I didn't, but it also looked bad for some seconds from my angle. Even after an early shut off, I ran 4.61 and in to sixth place in the ladders. We meet Acka Reimer in the first round. Skutt was running in the pair before us, and again he hit the rail again, badly. The bike took the punishment and Skutt was after all OK. We wanted to try running far to the left in the right lane to avoid the worst part of the track. I launched pretty well and was ahead of Acka at sixty feet. But sadly I was to much on the left side of the traction, and went up in smoke. There is no question about the bike, it ws moving. Acka lost when he redlit in the next round against Roel Koedam. Koedam got an easy win, and went into the final against Lorenz. It was a close race, and the winner was Koedam. That's very good for the whole UEM competition, as there are only six points between the two at the top. I am in fifth place. We are now ready for Gardermoen, and with no broken parts we are in a very good mood. ©Eurodragster.com Veidec Festival FIM/UEM review. 2nd August: FIM/UEM European Drag Bike Championship Co-ordinator Lars Andersson has been in touch with his regular post-event review, this time from the weekend's Veidec Festival at Mantorp Park: First of all a big thank you to everyone at Mantorp Park for making this race. Especially to Fredrik Ström and Fredrik Bernshed. As everyone knows the race was cancelled when the Swedish Federation decided that the length of the track was not enough. But after a lot of different things the Mantorp Park management decided to hold the race. And this was a very good decision. Both to race over the eighth mile and to have the race. I must also thank to all people who have supported this and a special thanks to Roger Lyrén and Anders Karling. Also to Keith Bartlett who solved the final questions. I do hope that in the future we will see a rebuilt Mantorp Park, but to that day will we be racing over the eighth mile. I do not think that anyone was against this decision in the end. The safety of riders is very important. But I do understand that it is strange to understand how a Top Fuel car can stop from 506 kmh but not a bike. But this is all down to the parachutes for braking. Also a very big Thank You to Kjell Pettersson and all the others in the track team who again managed to make a very good track out of nothing. At the Press Day on Wednesday many people were worried if there would be a track or not but when qualifying started the track was very good. And to manage to get the track back after all the rain that happened was very good work also. How P-O managed to get all of the classes to race on Sunday was very good work. To keep order in all classes and manage to get all to a final was very good. To run the last qualifier on Saturday after 21:00 was also something special. But everyone liked it and especially the grandstands. To see people sitting in the grandstand looking at bikes at 21:30 is something special. And the show with the flames from the Supertwins and Top Fuel Bikes was very special. But riders must remember to always have a clear visor with them. One general thing more to say is that this is the first race this year that we have managed to finish. In Pro Stock Bike there were sixteen qualifiers and eleven of them were on seven-second runs. We had two racers from Greece and one of them did qualified. Tom Tindahn ended up as the number one qualifier and Anders Larsson made his best run of the weekend at last light on Saturday and was number two, but he had to make a new rear wheel after the bearings collapsed in the back. Örjan Gustavsson qualified as number three just before Anders Jakobsson. Anders Abrahamson had problems all the time starting with the tent blowing over the bus and the engine problems. In the elimination on Sunday it was very exciting. All races were close or something happened. But in the final it was Anders Larsson against Tom Tinndahn, but Tom's gearbox was broken so Anders Larsson had a solo run and is now leading the Championship. In Supertwin we were all waiting for the return of Anders Karling. We did see the bike but there was still one week of work before it would run. Charley did come with the bike to show it to all the people from Uddeholm, his sponsor who was at Mantorp, and also to show everyone else. So we all have to wait until England to see the return of Charley on his new bike. Ulf Nylen scared myself and everyone else when he hit the guardrail. And to do it twice in a race without any bigger problem just shows the importance of guardrails. Roel Koedam showed that he is a good rider in Supertwin. Dominating Top Fuel Bike and now going over to Super Twin on Ton Pels' bike, qualifying well as number two, and ending up as a winner of the event is very strong as was learning to ride the bike and handle it in this short time. Lorenz Stäuble showed that he is one of the strongest at the moment, he qualified as number one and ended up as runner up. Per Bengtsson also raced for the first time this year, his bike looks as before but it does not sound like before, the update of the ignition and fuel system has worked. It is amazing the difference between some years ago and today in the way all the bikes handle. The new ignition system makes it possible to race in a new way with a lot of more fuel. In Top Fuel we saw the return of Peter Svensson. Qualifying as number two and winning the race was very good. He also tried to get the record from Ian King but he was one hundredth on the wrong side. He was the quickest but did not manage to back it up.I do hope that he will continue now and come to the two last races. The other dominating name was Ian King. Setting new records in both ET and terminal speed is very good. Being runner up in the race is also good. But we had some more Top Fuellers at the race. Luigi Feretti had come all the way to Mantorp and Peter Ström was out again with his bike. Peter Ström had an accident and was taken to hospital for some observations but was released and could sleep in his own bed. To see him later on Sunday felt good. I do hope that he can fix the bike and also come back to the track because we need him. We also had some Funny Bikes and the most impressive was Rickard Gustavsson. But this was not his weekend. They were looking for some problems and found them but were not able to repair them in time for the semi finals. These are some short notes from Sweden and Mantorp Park. The next race is in Norway this weekend. It is nice to come back to Norway this year. I do hope that the track will be as good as it can be and also that rain will not come this year. And after that there is only the Finals at Santa Pod in England left. I do hope that the two last races will have more sun and no rain. ©Eurodragster.com Swift snippets. 2nd August: UK Top Fuel Dragster team McDonald Racing have announced sponsorship from Prolong and Smile Orange, and have moved to larger premises giving them a better working platform from which they can expand and establish and create new working partnerships. You can find out more on the team's new web site at www.mcdonaldracing.co.uk. "I would like to thank Dave and Jackie at Jem Computer and Multimedia Services Ltd for the hard work, long hours and professionalism in putting the web site together" says Team Manager Steve. UK Jet Funny Car pilot Roger Goring and the Firestorm FC will be appearing at this weekend's UK Northern Nationals at York Raceway. "The whole team is very much looking forward to the race", says Roger. "Be sure to come and say Hello in the pits." We are indebted to Mats Hansson of SHRA Luleå for forwarding us the official timing data from the recent Midnight Sun Internationals. Thanks also to Andy Marrs of TSI Timers Europe for sending us the official timing data from the Bug Jam. You can check out both sets of timing data by clicking here or by clicking on the Timing Data link on the left-hand side of any Eurodragster.com page. ©Eurodragster.com Thanks also to Andy Marrs for forwarding us an updated version of the European Bests sheet as well as a new table listing the quickest bump spots in FIA and FIM/UEM classes. You can check out the European bests by clicking here or by clicking on the European Bests link on the left-hand side of any Eurodragster.com page. Ex-pat UK Fuel racer Smax Smith has been in touch to let us know that he has a sponsor interested to help race Terry Haddock's brand new carbon fibre Monte Carlo at the IHRA event at Toronto Motorsport Park on 7th-9th September. "I'm hoping that Dave Bryant and Neil Titheridge (right, with Smax and Terry Haddock, click on picture for large version) will be back here to crew with us", says Smax. Dale Carline has been in touch to ask if any Eurodragster.com reader has pictures, video or information about late Wild Bunch racer Ian Roddy either in the Wild Bunch dragster or in the Heavy Breathin' Austin A40. Dale is putting together a memorial on CD for Ian's parents so if you can help with pictures, video, information or memories then please drop Dale a line at [email protected]. UK Super Street Bike racer Graham Dance has been in touch to say a big Thank You to Darren Prentice and the Santa Pod Raceway staff for a very successful private test day yesterday. "It went really well", says Graham. "Everyone I spoke to had a great day with plenty of track time, and there were lots of Personal Bests with a couple of bikes dipping into the sevens for the first time." Dirk Behlau says that the first trailer for the forthcoming Turtmann DVD is now on-line at www.turtmann-dvd.com. "The event was filmed in 16:9 with four state of the art HD cameras including a tower cam", says Dirk. "We have over thirty hours of material. Pin-up Starlet Zoe Scarlett did the moderation and a lot of interviews with the drivers in the pits and on track! The DVD will be available in September for €19.95". Pictures from Turtmann can be found at pixeleye.smugmug.com/gallery/3201024#176487151. Web site updates. 2nd August: Eurodragster.com Reserve Photographer Peter Donaldson has updated his Fotopic site with pictures from the weekend's Mopar Euronats at Santa Pod Raceway. You can check out Peter's shots at peterdonaldson5305.fotopic.net. ©Eurodragster.com Direct support for Eurodragster.com. 1st August: We are very pleased to welcome Direct Plastics as the latest sponsor of Eurodragster.com's Home and News pages. Direct Plastics specialise in supplying the full range of engineering plastics such as Nylon, PTFE, Acetal, Tufnol etc in rod, sheet or tube. The full range of engineering plastics offer customers endless possibilities and solutions to help produce all sorts of wear-resistant, lightweight and durable components for engineering and other similar applications. Direct Plastics also continue to supply most of the Lexan Margard used in the windows fitted to most of the current crop of race cars on the track. You can find Direct Plastics Limited at: ©Eurodragster.com Unit 7 Portland Business Park Richmond Park Road Sheffield South Yorkshire S13 8HS Web site: www.directplasticsonline.co.uk E-Mail: [email protected] Telephone: 0845 838 3318 Fax: 0114 256 0809 We are very grateful to Paul Woodhead of Direct Plastics for his support and we are sure that our readers will show their appreciation by using Direct Plastics for their needs. Veidec Festival Pro Mod review. 1st August: We are indebted to European Pro Mod Association Chair and Veidec Festival Pro Mod winner Micke Gullqvist for forwarding us the EPMA Veidec Festival review: There were twenty three cars at Mantorp ready for qualifying on Thursday evening, but only twenty two qualified on Friday. Owner of the Old 51 Chevy, Magnus Pettersson, explained "Our driver Niklas Andersson's partner is expecting a baby any minute, so we waited ready in the pits during the weekend should be be able to come". Among a few racers that was entered but missing was Danny Cockerill who hurt his engine in Finland and couldn't get parts in time. Patrick Wikström was back after sitting out last year. "It's really good to be back", he said. "We have been thrashing to get the car ready over the last months, but we did not have any time for testing". Patrick had problems early on when the cable to the fuel shut-off came loose and the engine went dry. "It blow the burst panel and we had some damage, but not so bad that we couldn't fix it in the evening." After qualifying was done Andy Robinson was on top with a new track record ET of 6.226 and with Hans Knuters on the new record bump spot of 6.671. Mikael Lindahl was running well with the new Kendall Camaro and was on second spot with a fine 6.266/367.72. The biggest surprise in qualifying was Seppo Saapola who ended up in third spot after a personal best 6.302/363.99. On his run, Saapola did not get the chutes out and flew over the sand trap to stop hard in the field behind it. He was taken to hospital with back pains, but was released next day and was seen jumping around in the pit. "When I asked my wife at the hospital how my run was, she told me I went a 6.30 flat at 363. I just told her that she must be wrong and it took a while for her to convince me", said a very satisfied Seppo on Sunday. "We will try hard to be back for the European finals." In Sunday's first round of eliminations the biggest upset was Roger Johansson pulling a 6.30 out of his sleeve against the shocked number two qualifier Mikael Lindahl. "When I saw Roger moving fast in his lane I got stressed and short-shifted it badly, throwing my chances away" said Micke after the race. In the following rounds of eliminations Andy Robinson and Micke Gullqvist looked most consistent and fast with Gullqvist resetting the track record to 6.211 against Bruno Bader's 6.499 in the semi finals. In the other semi, Robinson eliminated Mats Eriksson with a solid 6.289 to Mats' 6.350. The final was a great and close race with Gullqvist beating Robinson with a 6.247 to Robinson's 6.278. "We're very happy with this win, especially because it was also for the prestigious Swedish Championship", said Micke. "It seems that we always get it right whenever there's a Swedish Championship at stake, as this was my third gold medal here at Mantorp." Also on the grounds was the great Australian doorslammer hero Victor Bray who had taken a trip with his wife to check out the European drag racing scene. "We were honoured to have such a prominent guest here and it was great to meet him", said Micke Gullqvist. "His plan to bring a couple of cars and race here for a race or two next year sounds really exciting, making it more like a World Championship deal. I'm sure we could get some US racers over too if Victor came here.� ©Eurodragster.com Outlaws head North. 1st August: The UK's Supercharged Outlaws will be contesting their third round of 2007 at this weekend's Northern Nationals at York Dragway, says Dave McKenzie: The two campaigners from the first two rounds will be battling it out at York, they are myself with the McKenzie Windridge Racing blown small block 1933 Plymouth altered and Lee Gallimore with his Red Mist blown small block altered. The race will be run over the eighth mile and at the moment it will be a round robin affair with a third car, Mark Flavell who is running his Super Pro ET dragster. Although Mark is not a Supercharged Outlaw he is at York to be part of the show and Steve Murty asked if we would run against each other and we are well up for it. There may be a fourth blown car joining the ranks at the weekend but this is not yet confirmed. ©Eurodragster.com We hope to show what we can do with some nice big smoky side by side burnouts and some really good racing, and I know we will get a warm and friendly reception from York Dragway I know the Outlaws have been a bit sparse in numbers this year but I am confident that by next season we should have quite a few more cars on the track more events to run at. In fact we could even have a few cars making shakedown passes by the end of the season but more of that when I get more details. NSCC at the Mopars. 1st August: Seventeen cars signed on to contest the latest National Street Car Challenge round at the weekend's Mopar Euronationals at Santa Pod Raceway, writes Shaun Wilson: Despite a headwind on Saturday, qualifying saw Mark Todd in his '69 Pontiac fell the class record once again with a 9.575/140 from the twin turbo'd beast. Three other drivers followed him into the nines with the fastest field ever in the ten year history of the series. It wasn't good news for everybody though. Graham Bell's '67 Mustang Convertible ripped the propshaft out during Friday's RWYB and although the smashed UJ and damaged fuel lines were repaired, further damage meant that Graham could only stage and drive gingerly up the quarter to salvage some points. Al Williamson ate a pushrod in his 502ci Chevy truck, Simon Boot blew a head gasket on his 750hp Camaro before he'd even managed to get a qualifying run in and Mark Todd would drop a valve in round two on Sunday. Those who fared better were Barry Woodford and Nick Gunby, both running nitrous for the first time. Barry's 383 ci Pop ran an 11.6 and Nick's 347ci Mustang recorded an 11.55/118, so at least two drivers went away happy. The final race of the day was one that will go into the history books - Russ Pursley's 350ci Dutton against Nigel Parkin's 502ci Jaguar XJS. Russ cut a 0.2 light whilst Nige cut a 0.3 - and both cars rocketed down the quarter. The times? Get this - 9.68/133 against 9.67/140! Now that's close, Russ taking the win by virtue of his reaction time. For more information about the series see HotRod Gazette magazine or check out www.hotrodgazette.com. ©Eurodragster.com The pain of a good Chevy. 1st August: Another racer having a good time at the Mopar Euronationals was Super Pro ET racer Chris Orthodoxou's brother Frank who made his first-ever pass in his altered with a brand new 1350hp 632 ci Steve Schmidt Chevy - a word which it pains Chris to type: The five speed Liberty box and clutch took a lot of sorting on Saturday and Sunday including a late night mission to Sir Geof Hauser's workshop to remachine the clutch fingers and release bearing. Thanks very much for your time and efforts Geof. Frank finally made it onto the track at about 5.15 pm on Sunday. The engine sounded brutal - again, it pains me to admit it. ©Eurodragster.com After the whole start line crew had quite rightly given the long-unseen car the once over he made a gentle launch and full, yet very pedestrian-looking pass, resulting in an 8.74/159 ticket. Quite amazing for a first-ever run, considering he'd only finished nailing it together at home in his bedroom on Friday night. However, during the run the engine sounded terrible - missing and very rough. On play back of the RacePak data logger, the engine had done the whole run at 7000 rpm on the rev limiter - hence the ugly sound. Initial suggested clutch settings from the manufacturer were far too soft resulting in massive slippage. No doubt the glaze has been well worn off! So now Frank knows it all works OK. After some dabbling with the clutch this could potentially be an extremely quick car. Theoretically, with the 1700 lb weight and 1350 hp, this altered could tickle the six-second zone if it all comes together! Bloody hell, I'd better start saving up for a monster motor for my Viper (You could always get a 632 from Steve Schmidt - Ed). Swift snippets. 1st August: Here's a question for our readers in the USA: Sunday's first round Pro Stock race between Magnus Hansson and Micke Callin at Mantorp Park, which Magnus won, was decided by 0.000039 seconds which works out to 0.14 of an inch or 3.5 millimetres. Is this the closest Pro Stock race ever? If you know better then drop us a line at [email protected]. UK blown-alcohol altered racer Joe Bond tells us that the Nuthin' Fancy altered is up for sale on our Jeff Bull Race Engines and Performance Parts-sponsored Swap Meet. Joe tells us that the sale is due to a change in direction within the team but that they intend to remain in the NFAA. Also on the NFAA theme, Luke Bennett of Bennett Racing has asked us to say a big Thank You to Lawrie Gatehouse for the donation of an unused pair of slicks. "Our slicks were seven years old and very tired", says Luke. "Big thanks also to John Wright for meeting us at his trailer so that we could pick them up. We should hopefully be able to improve a little on our ETs with these tyres. The latest addition to our sponsors, N138, have updated their web site at www.n138.net with a news item about their support." ©Eurodragster.com Richard Nicholls of American Car World has been in touch to let us know of a late Mustang meet (1979 to present) is taking place at Santa Pod Raceway on 18th August. "Car owners from both the Mustang Owners Club and the UK Street Racers will be there for a bit of a display plus RWYB on the track", says Richard. "It will be a very informal gathering, no trophies etc, just a bit of fun and chance to see each other's cars and chat to friends or make new ones, and of course test your car. I will try to organise special space for owners to park up. If you want to run your car, it will be a regular RWYB that day. It will be £10 to get in and £20 to sign on." The latest round of France's DCR Engineering-sponsored Trophée Dragster, the first Velay Drag Race, takes place at the Aérodrome de Loudes (map) this Saturday and Sunday. You can find out more at www.francedrag.com. Gittli Koller has been in touch to ask us to wish a very Happy 50th Birthday to Swiss former Top Fuel Dragster racer Peter Beck. No sooner said than done, have a great day Peter. Crane Cams, who sponsor Dave Wilson's Top Methanol Dragster, have announced two new products: new cams and lifters for the Chrysler Hemi and special firing order cams. Click on the links for more details. Another one for our American readers; if you live in Illinois then maybe you can prevail upon Congressman Peter Roskam of the 6th District to stop sending unsolicited E-Mail to the Eurodragster.com News address. If the guy is not clever enough to realise what the "Euro" bit of Eurodragster.com means, ask yourself whether you really want him making decisions which affect you... Editor's note: We are still working through the backlog of news which built up whilst we were away in Sweden. Stay tuned for the latest news from the Carbon By Design Fuel team, Hans Olav Olstad's Veidec Festival report, more timing data and more, and racers please keep those news items coming to [email protected]. Web site updates. 1st August: German Supertwin racer Joachim Riemer has a great new web site at www.hd-service.net. The web site by Dirk Behlau of Pixeleye features news, team, gallery, race dates, sponsors and more. Chris George of the Roadzombie II Jet Dragster team has let us know that his son has put together a video of Ian Caseley in action in the 230 mph jet car. The video features a couple of on-board clips and is well worth a look at uk.youtube.com/watch?v=N5fFCfyYCfo. Don't forget that we have our own on-board Roadzombie II video which you can access via our John Woolfe Racing-sponsored Features, Interviews, Tributes page. ©Eurodragster.com Our good buddy Patrik Jacobsson has updated the Racebilder web site with pictures from the weekend's Veidec Festival. You can check out Patrik's excellent shots at www.racebilder.nu. Alan Currans had updated his excellent Acceleration Archive with an eighth page of Dragster pictures in the Alan Currans Collection. "There are thirty five pictures in all covering some well-known, and not so well-known, Senior, Middle and Junior Dragsters from the 1970s and 1980s", says Alan. "There are also some pictures of Scandinavian cars which include the first dragsters driven by such luminaries as Krister Johansson, Tony Dönges and Knut Söderqvist". Check it out at www.theaccelerationarchive.co.uk. ...and it's goodnight from him. 1st August: As you know the Eurodragster.com staff work long and hard to bring you live reports, pit notes and end-of-day photographs. The earliest night for the team in Sweden at the weekend was around 22:30, after which Roger and Andy Willsheer discovered that nowhere in the local town was open for a meal. The latest finish was 02:30, with a McDonald's takeaway well after midnight and bed somewhere around 03:30 for a couple of hours' sleep before starting all over again. ©Eurodragster.com This photo, courtesy and copyright Andy Willsheer (click for larger version), caused much comment and mirth and shows Roger using a bin-liner as cover to quell the end-of-event sunshine reflecting in his laptop screen in the media centre as he sorted the day's photos for the event coverage, a day which ended at around 23:00. Earlier news