The 2007 Veidec Nitro Festival from Mantorp Park in Sweden, 26-29th July 2007

The 2007 Veidec Nitro Festival from Mantorp Park, Sweden, 26th - 29th July 2007

Friday Gallery Saturday Gallery Sunday Gallery

This brief page will, when I am able, be expanded to include extensive (and quite amusing) notes from the Veidec Festival weekend at Mantorp Park. As I am very behind with posting pictures from this and various events and the impending European Finals Weekend approaching, I thought I would post the picture galleries for your enjoyment and expand the notes and picture captioning when I am able.

The weekend itself was superb. In keeping with the rest of the season, we were bitten hard by rain on the Friday. Torrents of the stuff came down and it was only the expert track crews and equipment that were able to jump in and dry and prep the track when we had a dry spell. On Friday, we eventually got in a single full professional cycle and the special award of the day had to go to Andy Carter and Andersen Racing for putting down a stout 4.73 second pass.

Saturday was a day virtually uninterrupted to any degree by weather and nearly three full cycles of qualifying were completed. Andy Carter again stamped his authority on Top Fuel, but an all or nothing last ditch pass by Lex Joon (who was out the field at the time) bagged a 4.81 second timing ticket - a run worthy of further consideration. Lex ran an electrifying .83 second 60 foot and had to pedal quickly at 150 feet, then blew both burst panels and tossed the blower belt at 1100 feet - so 4.81 seconds is pretty good with all that going on. The thing is, Lex's front wheel sensor recorded an incredible 317mph at 1000 feet which means that tune-up is worthy of trying again, maybe at the European Finals Saturday afternoon session..... A certain marker (4.645/317.45) set by the inimitable Mr. Kim Reymond in 2003 looks like it is finally going to go!

Sunday was exciting as usual and we all had a busy days' racing. After laying down another low 4.74 second pass in the first round, Andy Carter had another unfortunate reoccurrence of the burst panel-busting incident in qualifying and he had to burble out the top end of the track - bad luck Andy. Lex Joon went on to beat Thomas Nataas in the final to put himself in the envious position of being two clear rounds ahead of the closest competitor at the start of the European Finals meeting. What a cliff hanger!

Many thanks to Mantorp Park, The Veidec Festival and to L-O Jonsson for the courtesies granted to me for the meeting. Thanks to Tog, Simon Groves and to the ever wise Roger Gorringe of eurodragster for their help, assistance and deserved ribbing over the weekend! Thanks to Andy Willsheer for his words of great wisdom and thanks to Patrik Jacobsson & Markus Ek for their amusing contributions to the occasion. Finally a special thank you and the inaugural "Quotation of the Weekend Award" to Stefan Bowman who, when we were stood in the pits, quietly eying Ulf Leanders' new paint job, uttered in disgust "We asked the guy to make the paint Ferrari Red. Obviously something went wrong because now it looks like Tomato ketchup with Milk added to it".

Thanks for visiting www.topnitro.co.uk and look we look forward to your next visit.

Home