Saturday at the 2007 European Finals

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

Last night, after another excellent dinner at the Dog and Duck, my buddy Patrik and his Norwegian chums turned up again and successfully turned, what was up to that point, a quiet night at the bar, into another titanic celebration of Scandinavian drinking and general silliness. After the bar closed, proceedings were adjourned to "someone’s" room at the hotel, where there appeared to be inexhaustible supplies of drink. A reigning FIA champion was seen leading the activities and thoroughly enjoying the fun and games. I bailed out when I was offered some thick blue liquid which, I was convinced, was the stuff they usually used to clean combs. Back at my room, my peaceful sleep was soon breached by a really irritating noise which emanated from the alarm on my mobile phone. By the time I got to the track and was ready to start work, I had missed my opportunity of an early morning warm-ups and the first round of Pro-Mod was beckoning.

Niclas Anderson got the drop on Robert Hoosten, but Niclas’ 6.41 wasn’t going to beat Robert’s 6.28, but it was only at the last minute that Robert ran down Niclas. Micke Lindahl used another incredible 6.19 to dispense with bump-spot holder Ian Bishop. Andy Robinson smartly dispatched first alternate Bert Englefield and Micke Gulliquist stomped all over Roger Johansson with a terrific 6.156 which instantly became a new European record to boot! Patrik Wikström advanced over Marc Meihuizen and Mats Eriksson topped the retiring Gordon Appleton after a terrific side-by-side and all-over-the-place run. Robert Kuno caught everyone with their trousers down – not least of which was the mighty Urban Johansson - with an incredible 6.25 second pass over Urban’s pedaling 6.54. Finally, for Round 1, a tyre-smoking Bruno Bader was the lucky recipient of a free round win after Micke Nord pulled a cherry and promptly disqualified himself.

In the first round of Top Fuel, there were a few surprises. The first pair matched no 1 qualifier Andy Carter with bump-spot holder Stig Neergaard. Andy was swiftly away at the hit and had to give it a quick pedal at around 250ft, Stig was all over the place and had had shake as well and was off the throttle before half track. Bad luck for Andy Carter because he lost his blower belt at half track which is why a cruising Stig Neergaard suddenly woke up and stabbed the loud pedal a couple of times to take the round win. Andy’s championship points position would not improve from here. Up next was an interesting match-up. It was Championship contenders Lex Joon and Thomas Nataas. Each driver went about their routine as normal with the sort of professional, cool attitude that you and I would be as nervous as hell, if we were in that situation. At the hit, it was pretty much side by side action and Lex needed a quick pedal which passed a tiny advantage to Thomas. Thomas got there first by just .06 of a second on a run which netted him a 4.847 time and a 304mph speed. Despite Lex crossing the line at a thundering 312mph his championship hopes would not proceed today. In the next pair, Urs Erbacher bested Micke Kågered with a early-lifting 4.94 and in the final pair, Tommi Haapanen ran a terrific 4.89 over a wheel-hiking Jöran Persåker who still ran a creditable 5.24 after his ring-gear climbing expedition.

In Pro Stock, round 1, the winners were Eero Knihtilä, whilst running the first 6.7 second pass on European soil & a new European record to boot. Michael Malmgren, Jimmy Ålund and Jonas Dantanus followed him into the second round of eliminations.

In TMFC, Leif Andréasson, Dan Larson, Fast Freddy and Ulf Leanders all advanced in what was a fairly unremarkable round. In TMD, Peter Schöfer, Rob Turner, Timo Habermann and Dave Wilson all advanced without difficulty.

In Super Twin, Roel Koedam advanced over Per Bengtsson and Lorenz Stauble dropped Joachim Rainer and in doing so was the first to clinch a 2007 Championship. The UEM Super twin Crown is his. Hans Olav Olstad was unopposed in his win over Petri Kaltonen and Gunther Sohn got a fright from Ian ‘Turbo’ Turburville who caught him napping at the lights, but he managed to hall back Turbo and got the round win in the end. In Top Fuel Bike, fellow ‘Picky Virgo’ Ian King advanced, as did Neil Midgley, Luigi Ferretti and, expensively, Eric Teboul, who crossed the line in a big flash of flame.

In the second round of Pro Mod, Micke Gulliquist, Micke Lindahl, Andy Robinson and Patrik Wikström all advanced in exciting matchups. It will be Andy against Micke for the Championship in the next round.

It was good to see the Nitro Funny cars come out to play – it was just a pity there weren’t eight of them! Leif Helander and Gary Page were first up and Gary had his near side front wheel well-lifted and was taking the long way round until he needed to pedal and to get it all settled down. In the meantime, Leif drove past to take the stripe and back up that big speed of his, yesterday. John Spuffard was next up and even though he left two black stripes all the way down track, he ran another fantastic 5.16 second pass which backed up his previous faster run from yesterday.

On to round two of Top Fuel. This was an exciting one. The first pair was Urs Erbacher versus Thomas Nataas. They were together past the tree and both got a bit greedy with the track and whilst Urs blew his tyres off and did a huge pedal job, Thomas had the same trouble, but a big flash of flame came with it and he got quite sideways. Thomas pressed every pedal and pulled every lever he’d got but just trailed Urs to the stripe by a couple of tenths. The next pair was Stig Neergaard and Tommi Haapanen. Tommi would have been as sick as a pig because his starter wouldn’t work and Stig got the freebie. When Stig realised he was unopposed, he just gave it a quick squirt and pootled through for the bye. This makes for an interesting final round. If Stig manages to rustle up a magic wand and downs the much-fancied Urs Erbacher, that means that Lex Joon is champion. Urs is the champion if he beats Stig.

The second round of Pro Stock got underway with Jimmy Ålund spectacularly taking out Michael Malmgren. Michael must have forgotten to set his alarm clock because Jimmy ‘only’ ran a 6.86 to Michael’s much quicker 6.81. Eero Knihtilä then astonished everyone by running yet another 6.781 second pass which instantly became the new European record from yesterday’s 6.7 second backup and dropping Jonas Dantanus out of competition in the process.

In TMFC, Ulf Leanders beat a shaking Leif Andréasson which promptly handed the championship to Fast Freddy Fagerström. Feeling rather pleased with himself, Freddy then appeared against Dan Larson and it was Dan who wiped the smile off Freddy’s face by taking the round win. It was close, though, side-by-side 5.81-5.82 and not a lot to choose between them. In TAD, Rob Turner ran another 5.48 to crush Peter Schöfer who, coincidentally, had thrown it all away with a red light. Someone must like the flavour of Cherries, as in the next pair, Timo Habermann pulled one and gifted Dave Wilson with an elimination round win. I guess Timo new his work was cut out as a 5.80 was never going to get by a 5.52 without the most demon lightwork.

In Super Twin Top Fuel there was excitement with the pairing of Laurenz Stauble and Roel Koedam. Side by side 6.65 second passes and Laurenz gets the win. Gunter Sohn put Hans Olav Olstad on the trailer in the other pairing with an incredible 6.54 second pass. In TFB, Ian King made short work of the storming Neil Midgley and Luigi Ferretti was unopposed when Eric Teboul did not show. That sets up an interesting final round/championship position.

In the semi-final of Pro-mod, it was disaster for Andy Robinson with something breaking as he was attempting to reverse after the burnout. Bad luck for the team and their incredible efforts this year. Micke Gulliquist still ran as strong as planned with a fantastic 6.18 to set up lane choice for the final. The next pair was Patrik Wikström and Micke Lindahl and proved to be exciting. Micke ran into shake after 60 feet and got a bit wibbly, and Patrik kept straight and smooth to the line with the Black Flash of Micke steaming up on him at the finish line but, alas, Micke just ran out of real estate.

On to the finals:- Starting off with Top Fuel Bike. This was an exciting one – there was a logical break before the actual race and I hovered round to the pit lane to have a natter with one or two of the racers. In particular, I spoke with Ian’s Crew Chief Mick Beaumont and he was mithering about a bit of damage incurred on Ian’s motor during the weekend. The only thing that made him feel better was that he’d heard Luigi was nursing damage, too. When it came to the race, Ian got a clear holeshot on Luigi and in the end, Ian’s 6.44 was too much for Luigi’s 6.61. That makes Ian the first Triple championship winner with his third Top Fuel Bike championship. Congratulations, Ian and Happy Birthday on the 15^th!

In Super Twin, the inimitable Laurenz Stäuble took the win nice and straight with a 6.60 at 208mph. In Pro Stock Bike, Tom Tinndahn squashed Britain’s Martin Bishop with an incredible 7.19 second pass. That’s the sort of ET and would put you in the top half of a US Pro Stock field.

In the Pro Stock car final it was, again, Jimmy Ålund who brought home the bacon with a winning 6.86 over a quicker 6.84 from Eero Knihtilä who ought to have had a few Red Bulls before cutting his light. Up next was TMD with Dave Wilson, (surprise, surprise!) winning on a holeshot over a quicker Rob Turner. In TMFC, Dan Larsen got the surprise win over a shaking Ulf Leanders which topped off the alcohol categories quite nicely.

For the Top Fuel final, the atmosphere was electric as no-one can take anything for granted. Stig Neergaard knew he was the underdog but anything can happen on the quarter mile and usually does. On my last trip up to the pits I saw Andy Carter co-crew chief Karsten Andersen in Stig’s pit helping out his fellow Dane. In Stig’s case, that sort of tuning help could just be the sort that could give Urs a fright. But Urs has Glen Mikres and he’s a man who can keep a cool head when all about him are losing theirs and these thoughts led us to a tense and wildly interesting Top Fuel final. At the hit, Urs had the advantage and held on to it, despite some smoke later in the run to a terrific 4.81 second pass and his first FIA Top Fuel Championship. I guess this and Lorenz Stauble’s title made great viewing for the accompanying Discovery television crew that have stuck with Urs all season. Just behind Urs at the finish line was Stig with his first 4 second run at 4.87 seconds and another first 300 mph run at 308mph. Stig was there to pick up the jackpot if Urs had put a foot wrong. Well done Urs! I wager that the party went on until dawn and that Jack Daniel shares had a dramatic increase in price, as a result!

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