The 2006 Main Event, FIA Drag Racing Series Round 1,
Report for Friday 26th May 2006
from Santa Pod Raceway
Report and pictures by Richard Stirling © 2006
The official start of the FIA European Drag Racing Series was heralded over the Whitsun bank holiday weekend at Santa Pod Raceway. The weather doom-mongerers had been predicting a complete washout over the weekend, not dissimilar to the test weekend so it was with one eye on the skies that the meeting got underway on Friday with Sportsman qualifying. The track needed a little drying and grooming before racing got underway just after 12.
The areas of particular interest on Friday were Håkan Nilsson in his top Fueler and Ray White & Sami Saapola in Pro Mod, all of which needed to complete licensing passes before taking any further part in the Main Event programme. At around half past three, Håkan came out for his first attempt. I couldn't help thinking, after a quick peak at my watch, that this would be the penultimate of two passes that he would be able to make on Friday and, if he was unable to produce a representative pass on either run, he'd be out of the proceedings. His tyres shook almost immediately and he gave up on the run after giving it a second stab. Ray White followed on in his black & devilish Pro-Mod, which was slated for a half pass. Ray obliged and delivered a picture-perfect run. At around five, Sami Saapola appeared in his gorgeous Chevy Business Coupe. He was up for a full pass and delighted the onlookers with a storming burnout. At the green, he shook his tyres, pedalled it, went this way, slapped it again, went that way, stood on it and got to the stripe in a little over 9.5 seconds. He deserved his license for the car control, if nothing else. Come Six O'clock, Håkan returned for another licensing pass. Again, he didn't get more than forty feet before those big black hides started wobbling and shaking; Håkaan stabbed it again and to my surprise (probably because he couldn't see anything!), he gave up on the run. "Uh Oh" I thought; "That'll be the last we see of Håkan this weekend". Oh ye of little faith....
At around Seven, Nick Davies came back out in the indescribably gorgeous Havoc altered. Nick mercilessly boiled his hides way past the tree and completely blotted out the landscape with a generous helping of fluffy white clouds of rubber smoke. On his run, however, Nick gave himself a bit of a shock by overshooting the end of the track and discovering, first-hand, exactly what the field looks like when you can't stop in time. He and the car were fine.
To my amazement, at just before 8pm, Håkan returned for an unexpected third licensing pass of the day. In view of the hour and the importance of this run, I sensed that all in the team were feeling, shall we say, a little 'puckered'. A storming burnout was followed by him staging as you would expect. Before the tree ran down, Håkan seemed to hit the throttle momentarily then stop. I was perplexed and lowered my camera in disappointment. I shan't do that ever again, as after a second or so, Håkan punched the throttle and ran for a no-shake, no rattle run and got to the stripe in 5.94 seconds which includes the time he 'paused' on the line. Darren Prentice had no hesitation in awarding Håkan his license which was surely the shot in the arm that the team deserved after all their efforts at the test session and during the week when the weather and tyre-shake made every effort to thwart their licensing attempts. I wearily trudged to my car and to set off home to Derby, as I had promised to take out Mrs. Topnitro for the luxurious prospect of a half of lager and a bag of chips; a treat that she had, no doubt, been looking forward, to for weeks..
Take a look at Friday's picture gallery and see what you think.
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