Friday at the 2007 European Finals

The 2007 FIA European Finals meeting from Santa Pod, UK, 6th-9th September 2007

Friday morning’s weather started off quite promising, really. There was a hint of Sun and a little bit of warmth and the lighting conditions were perfect for shooting. To start the morning off, I rushed up into the pits and caught my first Nitro warm-up. In fact, if the truth be known, I had been home to Derby the night before and I arrived at the track later than I had wished. The bad news was that everyone had warmed up except 1 – Andy Carter. Thank goodness for that! At least I could ‘soil’ my gas mask – even if it was only once.. Andy didn’t disappoint and as Crew Chiefs Per and Karsten Andersen delivered a loud and smelly performance, I generously awarded a score of 9.75 out of 10.

I had to move quickly to get back to the start line before the action began and Professional qualifying was underway already with Pro Stock Bike. Next up were the Nitro Harleys and Ian ‘Turbo’ Turburville was looking good with a noisy and cackling burnout. I crossed to the spectator side to get pictures of Ian Launching. Away he went with his front wheel hiked, on what was looking like a great run… until Ian started to drift towards the centre line… drifting… drifting… then suddenly a reflector got launched to the heavens and Ian got the biggest ‘tank slapper’ of his life. We were all, indeed, glad to see him catch it and back off for another day. Top Fuel bike was next and it was just as Ian King shot off down the track on another low 6 second run that I realised – somebody had turned off that nice bit of sun and the whole of Santa Pod was overcast with a dreary drab sheen and the picture taking light had gone. Never mind! We pressed on regardless, hoping that we wouldn’t have to hand-finish every picture we took.

The first session of Pro-Stock showed that there were new Dogs in the classification and determined to be at the head of the food chain – especially Jimmy Ålund with a storming 6.80 second run. Michael Malmgren was right on his tail and Magnus Hansson, Eero Knihtilä and Jonus Dantanus were all in the six second zone as well. The potential for an all 6 second field was clearly there from the start.

The first round of Top Fuel qualifying didn’t produce any great shakes – oh, that is, if you ignore Andy Carter’s performance… Jöran Persåker finished up with a 5.17 second pass – getting perilously near to getting his first 4 second run. Urs Erbacher was in at number 3 with a disappointing 5.82 timing slip; Micke Kågered was next up with a 6 point something and all the rest didn’t get far down the track at all. Lex Joon was worth a mention, particularly after his regular 4.7 second passes at the Easter Thunderball. There certainly seemed to be something wrong in the clutch department, because he wildly blew the tyres off after he had barely moved. Andy Carter on the other hand just blew everyone away with a sensational flat 4.70 second pass at 270mph with Andy Clearly lifting well before the line. Later I talked with Karsten and he said Andy lifted 2 tenths before the line as he felt it nose over – it was only spitting out a plug – but still Andy lifted to save parts. Top man!

Top Alcohol Funny car was next up after top Fuel and I awarded another 9.75 out of 10 to Freddy Fagerström and the ex-Urs Erbacher Alcohol flopper for his incredible burnout – I thought he wouldn’t lift till he got to Dover! Freddie bagged a really decent 5.85 second pass and both Jarmo Kuutniemi and Kjell Sjöblom joined him in the 5 second zone.

Top Alcohol dragster was up next and making the mix a little more interesting than normal was the new British TAD entry of Gold RV proprietor Derek Flynn. The little side-show that was going on was a bet between him and eurodragster.com webmeister and Oberfuhrer Andy Rogers (a.k.a Tog) and it was IF Derek made his first five second pass this weekend, he would lop off his pony tail. The interesting thing was, that if he DIDN’T, Tog would have to GROW a pony tail! So everyone was puckered up for that first run by Derek and… a 6.13 second pass proved he was tantalisingly close – but nobody’s off the hook yet! The ever-improving Paul Ingar Udtian showed great promise in the ex-Dave Wilson Nemesis car by running a fantastic 5.69 and the usual suspects fought over the top three places with Britain’s Rob Turner out on top with a 5.53 at 255 mph.

Pro Mod was up next and quite a few seemed to have the shakes – perhaps they were being greedy with the track – I don’t know but the real performers in this session were the top eight who were all in the 6.4 second zone or better and in particular Mats Eriksson and Andy Robinson (in that order) who were both running 6.26’s. I definitely felt that there was a lot more to come from Pro Mod in later sessions.

With the first session of Professional qualifying out of the way, we were now in for a treat from the Fuel Funny cars. Only two for this session in the form of Leif Helander (sadly in his last race behind the butterflies) and Gary Page who has just taken over the Kenneth Lorentzon ride from rookie Håkan Fällström. Leif made a stout run but there was a little smoke and he got mightily close to the wall at around 1000 feet. Leif didn’t lift and a 5.5 second pass was in the bag. Gary was just out for a familiarisation pass, this time. I understand that the positioning of the seat and much of the cockpit equipment was not quite to his liking, but even so, you couldn’t tell. I had been having a natter with another photographer just before Gary ran and as I settled down to shoot Gary on his “checkout” launch, my head almost exploded into little pieces as he thundered past me – no wonder it had hurt! I had removed my ear plugs when I was chatting to my colleague! Ouch!

The next round of Pro Qualifying got underway and Turbo had a less exciting run on his Nitro Harley – thank goodness. Sticking with the bikes the next thing that really stuck out for me in a momentary smear of sunshine was in Top Fuel bike with Eric Teboul. I can’t remember him running as fast as 6.20 but at 229mph as well – it was incredible.

Pro stock this session found one or two more candidates for the 6 second club which left only the final qualifier, Kenneth Söderström as the only non-6 second man in the 8 car field.

In the second round of Top Fuel qualifying there was more shake and rattle from here and there, but hearty congratulations must go to Jöran Persåker who at last, with tuning from Peter Lantz, broke into the 4 second zone with a 4.964 second pass. Well done Jöran and the team! Lex Joon was still having clutch problems and smoked the tyres before the tree, but Thomas Nataas joined the 4.7 second club with a stout 4.783 second run at a stonking 311 mph.

Ulf Leanders took over the top spot in TMFC and in TAD no improvements from anybody. Unusually, Dave Wilson towed back to the pits, apparently with not a word what the problem was, if any.

Pro mod saw improvements, but not by much. Andy Robinson took over the top spot with a 6.23, but down the other end of the field poor Ray White was really struggling to get his pro-mod Zodiac into the field with a new chuffer atop the motor.

After the Pro Mods it was John Spuffard who appeared with his beautiful Showtime Nitro Funny car. John just made it all look SO easy! He blasted off down the track (with his elbow out the window whilst sipping a nice cuppa from The Coffee Man) to an incredible 5.26 second run at 261 mph (“have we got there, yet?”) – it will not be long before they see 300mph+ again and a sub-4 second run. Of that, I am certain.

So that was it for the day. My feet were very sore and I headed off to the local hotel with some glee, as I remembered that a Swedish photographer pal was expecting some lessons in drinking…. But I wasn’t expecting the bunch of Norwegians he had in tow…. More of that later!

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