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4th July 2004 - Alastaro, Finland. FIA Championship Round 2

I am not on site at Alastaro this weekend, much as I wished I was. My back is still killing me anyway, so it would have been a nightmare experience, I am sure. However, all is not lost because I have been maintaining close contact with several 'spies' who are there over the weekend including team members of crews running cars in the professional categories.

Bad weather has been given out for the race weekend and everybody seemed to be jostling for position to get out and 'bank a lap' on Friday. In Top Fuel, Andy Carter was having real traction problems and most of the others had to lift or pedal. Jöran Persåker ended on top in the first session with near 'full pull' at 5.33 seconds. He did not take part in the second Friday session and although there were improvements in performance from the other competitors, Jöran remains on top of the tree because Saturday qualifying sessions were completely washed out. The Top fuel field and the tree can be seen by having a peek at Micke Kågerad site and clicking here.

This morning things got started on elimination day with Super Street and Super Gas. Unfortunately this is where things started to go wrong. There was an oil down in Super Street and then just after 12 O'clock in Top Fuel bike, Nils Ole Lund proceeded to oil down the entire track and cause a real headache for the track crew to clean up. Many thanks to Vesa Kakkori and the guys at www.fhra.fi for the pictures and extremely helpful facts and figures. Thanks guys!

The First round of Top Fuel didn't even start until two O'clock. I've helped out on these things a bit and I would hate to have to turn round the winning car 3 times starting at two! Jöran Persåker had a bye run and just did a 60 foot launch. Both Thomas Nataas and Tommy Möller smoked their tyres and Tommy lost his blower belt as he crept towards the centre line. Thomas backed off but Tommy got to the line first with an 8 second pass which will not be enough for lane choice in the next round. The next pair brought a shocking turn round in performance for Andy Carter. He beat Lex Joon for a place in the semi finals with a sensational 4.97 second pass and will face Tommy Möller with lane choice. Micke Kågerad smoked his tyres in his battle with Smax Smith and it is our cheery Prestonite who will face Jöran in the semi finals in the other team Söderquist car. In the run against Micke, Smax netted a 5.037 second pass which was excellent. Worth a mention here is the fact that Smax had some fun and games in qualifying. He had a blower belt come off at half track which then decided to go under the rear wheels, which is not good. This then instantly threw the car sideways and gave Smax one of those "Jumping up and down on pedals, whirring of wheels, pulling levers and passing wind" moments. Smax (equipped with fresh 'smalls') was cheerily smiling later, though!

A shock from the Pro Stock ranks is the news that Michael Malmgrem was knocked out in the first round and for all the other details on eliminations check out our pals at http://eurodragster.com who have up to the minute results just here.

As the Semi finals get underway in the professional categories, Jimmy Ålund and Eero Knihtilä are each through to the final round of Pro Stock. Jöran Persaker also bowed out in the first round of Pro Stock (see left hand photo above) and can now concentrate on Top Fuel for the rest of the day. In Top Methanol Funny Car, Leif Andreasson in his super Dodge Stratus-bodied Bret Williamson built car is making good progress and is through to the final to meet Nicholas Anderson who has been really hot all weekend. Dave Wilson and Peter Schöfer are in the Top Methanol Dragster final and at present there's an anxious wait for the Top Fuel teams to turn round their cars for the semi finals.

In the Semi Final of Top Fuel, Andy Carter beat his nemesis from the Main Event Tommy Möller. I'm sure this was sweet revenge for Andy following on from that unfortunate red light in the Main Event TF Final. After catching Jöran sound asleep on the line, Smax blasted off down track. He then started spinning the tyres down track, but instead of pedalling, he stuck with it. In these cases, you're damned for pedalling and you're damned for not pedalling and the motor revved a bit high to 9000rpm and spat out at least one rod, leaving a gaping hole in his block. Jöran had woken up by now and was blasting down track and just nabbed Smax by about half a metre at the finish. Bad luck Smax! So through to the final is Jöran Persåker to face Andy Carter making it an England versus Sweden final round in Top Fuel! Jöran made it down track in 5.148 seconds and the unlucky Smax got there in 5.546 seconds with rod(s) out. Apparently, it was a good job they ran Jöran and Smax when they did because - you've guessed it - there was another heavy shower. The guys are cleaning up the track now. I guess the crews will appreciate the break because they have a lot of work to do.

In the end the running of the finals was really on a very tight time schedule. As far as the finals went, Nicholas Anderson won the Tom Methanol Funny car event - I believe his first victory in this category. Dave Wilson added to his recent successes and downed Peter Schöfer in the Top Methanol dragster category and Jimmy Ålund was victorious in Pro Stock Car and then it came to the final of Top Fuel. The cars had such little time to get back to the start line after the semi-finals. The 8 O'clock curfew is strict at Alastaro and Andy Carter made it there in good time as he ran first in the semi-finals. The start-line officials were counting down Andy ready to start and with two minutes to spare Jöran Persåker and the team came running down to the line. I'm sure the lateness of the hour and the tense situation may have caused one or two frayed nerves between the teams. Andy then had a few problems with a dragging clutch, a leak and a even stalled engine which heightened the tension somewhat. They started up and came to the line right on time. Jöran went from one extreme to another and got a little too excited with all the tension and promptly pulled a red light! Andy won the event with a 5.0 second pass and congratulations to Andy, the rest of the go-talk team and all the other FIA winners. Thanks to the guys at eurodragster, fhra, Micke Kågerad and my spies 'on the premises' at Alastaro. More soon from www.topnitro.co.uk

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