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22:30

After the second Top Fuel session Alan Jackson of Micke Kågered's team said the damage from the startline explosion was not as great as first feared as the main danage was restricted to blown valve covers and a lifted blower.

Håkan Nilsson's tyre shake problems returned in today's runs. He said "When the car goes well, it feels soft and easy, it is much calmer than a Pro Mod car, which you have to steer much more, but driving it is like being in a narrow tunnel that gets more and more narrow as you go down the track. I have borrowed a kidney belt from Lorenz Stauble to help keep them in place.

In the first session, Ulf Rapp was pushed back as the car couldn't get into reverse gear.

Micke Gullqvist showed us his new Sonny Leonard Chevy Semi-Hemi heads, which are sporting "King Kong" lettering. He said "They are a prototype and have performed well so far on our shakedown passes. This morning's 6.55 was the first full pass on them and I hope there is a lot more where that came from. The rest of the motor is basically a Keith Black but we have changed a lot on the car and have also been able to remove about 100lbs of ballast." Sponsors are Nordic Lan, IVT Väimepumpar and Lucas Oil.

Sami Saapola obtained a license in his beautiful '37 Chevy but failed to qualify. "We have had a lot of tyre shake and are working to solve it, but it is difficult to find the cause", said Sami. "We are very happy with the car which was built by Bertans Racecars. We are grateful to Pasi Kaunonen for the paint job." Power for Sami comes from a blown TFX motor and sponsors are Tarpaulin.fi, manufacturers of canopies for trailers and Multilift industrial lifting equipment.

Gordon Appleton said "We had a problem on yesterday's run with the clutch where the release bearing seized up on the shaft and this resulted in all the clutch fingers being taken off. We are grateful to Robert Joosten for lending us some fingers so that we can go out again. On our 6.816 run, we did the run on seven cylinders as we lost one due to a broken sparkplug before 60ft. We don't know why this happened and are keeping an eye on it. There is no such thing as an easy first round in this class, so we will try to be ready."

Bert Englefield said of this morning's run "The car jumped out of top gear and this hurt the ET, which would have been a six otherwise." Unfortunately the car briefly contacted the guardrail on its later pass, but damage is believed to be faily light.

Jerry Clayton of Andy Robinson's team said "We drove through the clutch on our earlier run and need to tighten it up for next time."

16:30

Here are some Pro Mod notes courtesy of Spencer Tramm.

Bruno Bader left the line in third gear and his converter “got a bit hot”.

Robert Koper’s 7.51 with early chutes was a no-nitrous pass. Checking out a new 734 ci motor. Going to put in first stage for the next session which they hope will result in a low seven and qualification.

Marko Lantto had to weld both heads and the block last night. Marko and the crew worked shifts, taking it in turns to sleep and work throughout the night in order to get ready for today’s first session in which he ran a personal best.

Ray White is now licenced and his first licenced pass will be against Bert Englefield.

Jorgen Nagel (TMFC) said "We had some problems with ignition last night and found the timing was being retarted when the motor was being run. We changed the retard box and thought we had it sorted, but then when we fired up this morning the chip in the replacement box broke and needed to replace it again. It took time to figure it out ourselves and had to miss this morning's session when the problem recurred. Our run yesterday was also affected by being in the lanes for so long, and the engine got too cool and the track was also cool.

Ulf Leanders was pleased with his 5.859 to go into no.1 in TMFC. "We had some damage to the axial side bearing on the crankshaft", said Ulf. It is a little strange thing to happen, and we have not had the problem often before.

Leif Andreasson said he was pushed back after the burnout following a fire in the ignition box. "The engine just died", he said, "and the wires from the switch burnt out. This is a problem that would normally have been solved in a test session but the weather didn't allow us to do what we wanted to. We are ok for the next run and would like to see some numbers."

Dan Larsen said "The car worked fine for the first 330ft, much better than the first run, and then the chutes deployed. The car is not hurt, only my feelings", admitted Dan. The trans and clutch had been removed for a full inspection when we visited.

Timo Habermann said after a 6.389 run, "We had bad tyreshake off the line had to get off the throttle and only ran a 1.07 60' time. At the finish line the motor was making a lot of power and after the launch the car is good. But we have a 3-speed trans and convertor and it is very sudden at the start, either all or nothing, and this is giving us tyre shake. We won't be out in the nexy qualifying session as we want to get ready for Monday." Timo's sponsors are Uni-fit Katalysatoren and GJD Geba&uunl;demanagement.

Steve Turner said "We tried something different and the clutch locked up too soon. The grip is better than yesterday but we will have to be less aggressive with the clutch next time."

Dave Wilson said "We went up in smoke due partly to a brain-foot interface problem and buzzed the motor to 10,800 rpm. Fortunately there was no obvious damage but we pulled the heads off and put our spare set on so that we could check the main set at our leisure. We just need to get out and try again."

A perplexed Krister Johansson said "We are not making enough power and the combination may be running too cool. It may be in the fuel system, but I am happy the 48 gallon capacity fuel pump is sufficient. I think it may be something to do with the 98% nitro mix."

Andy Carter said "We had bad tyre shake on our first run yesterday evening and I pedalled the car, but it made a big move. We changed three things overnight in the tuneup hoping to stop the tyre shake, but on our run this morning, the car didn't have enough power. We were also struggling to hold the car on the brake. We will miss this afternoon's qualifying session as we are confident that we are in the field and want to rebuild all the motor and ancillaries as something is not quite right. We can then be confident that we will fire our best shot in the first round. Thankfully we have largely eliminated the major shake problems that we were experiencing at Easter. Our thanks go to B&Q, Wynns, NGK, Luca Oils, TengTools and all our crew who worked so hard last night; I hope I can give them the result they want in the first round so that we can all smile again but it will take some luck as well."

Tommy Leindahl (Pro Stock) said "We had too much clutch on our first qualifying run, but the car went well on the second one and we are in no.3 position with a 7.022, after lifting at 6.7s. We think we can get into the sixes for the first time this weekend." Following rule changes, the Camaro has different bead-lock wheels and the gearing in both the trans and the rear end has been changed. This is to support the additional power coming frmo the new Reher-Morrison motor that Tommy bought. "We are proud to be associated with Reher-Morrison, who are looking to expand into the European market and we are working with them to that end. They are looking to develop race motors specially to run on unleaded gas and ours is running a prototype of this motor. The car is a Jerry Bickel-built 2000 Camaro." Sponsors are Signco and Skylt-bolaget. The team is unchanged - "The engine person Kent Jonsson has been with us for at least fifteen years and there is a lot of experience there", Tommy said. "Our goal this year is a top three championship position." Tommy's home page is a portal for Pro Stock racing - www.prostock.se.

Richard Sundblom is pleased that the new Cobalt has run down into the seven teens on its first passes. "We didn't have an opportunity to test so this weekend sees the first runs in the new car. On the first run we had some trouble with the shocks, which bottomed out. But Michael (Malmgren) was getting close so I kept in it, shifted up and avoided trouble. We're confident that we have a good car."

Kenneth Soderstrom who is returning after a year off following his crash at the 2004 Euro Finals, has bought Jan Muren's complete car, a Jerry Haas-built Pontiac Grand Am. Kenneth said "It's a very smooth car to drive. We went to Malmo to test a couple of weekends ago and had a little problem with the clutch which we have solved, and now think we are on to something as our 7.04 is a PB and we can improve on that." Kenneth's sponsors are local companies and the team is as before with the addition of Michael Holmgren to the crew from Jan's team. There is also a new motor man Jurgen Lindgren.

13:30

Gittli Koller of Peter Schofer's team said that Peter short-shifted because the car shook the tyres, but that a 5.859/244 was ok for the first run of the season.

Patrick Jakobsson reported that Urban Johansson, who had handling problems like many of the Pro Modifieds in yesterday's night-time session, suffered tyre shake after leaving the line with too high rpm for the conditions. US Pro Mod racer Kirk Kuhns is present here to help Urban and we'll try to grab a word with him later.

On a wild ride, Ulf Rapp, who is running Roger Johansson's Mustang from last year, missed a shift and the car was very close to the guardrail, but came down softly after the front wheels left the ground.

Jan Arve Nygaard was pleased with a 6.72 which is a new personal best (his previous was a 6.74). Team member Linda will be licensing in the car later in the year.

Dan Larsen (TMFC) said "The track was cold so we drove down it to get a time in in case there was more rain today. The track is still quite cold so we may take some clutch out of it and still improve on our time." Dan is sponsored by Boxter, Dansk Auto HiFi, Sunoco, Racefuel.dk and DFDS Seaways.

John Spuffard and Bob Jarrett are hoping to run twice today after the curfew prevented them from running yesterday. John said "We have been working hard to get new sponsors and are pleased to welcome a number of firms new to the team. They include VA Winged Aviation, Poggipolini Titanium, Balzers, Torco Racing oils, Ferrea Valves, Nimbus Motorsports (racewear), and Motorsport Marketing Solutions" as well as other supporters." Thanks go to team members Lee, Paul, Bill, Keith, Nigel, Dave and my partner Jo.

We spoke to Anders Wall following Michael Malmgren's crash yesterday and examined the car. In spite of the violence of the impact, damage has been confined to the front end of the chassis and front body parts. "The only damage to the motor is the water pump and a little damage to ignition leads. We are aiming to fix the car to finish the season, but it is difficult to get the car back to what it was in the available time. When Michael left, the power of the motor was quite something but it appears that in second gear the car shook the left tyre only; when Michael shifted the car into third, it turned right into the wall without any warning. We won't be able to check the drivetrain for component failure until we get home and are concentrating on preparing the car to be transported back to base."

Ray White, easy pass yesterday evening sounded great but crewmen Chris Manning and Andy Oliver said that there was a "problem with the pedals" that prevented the dramatic-looking Lethal Zephyr 2 running faster. Chris recently debuted a '57 Chevy, dubbed "Hooligan" at the American Car World Nationals.

Andy Robinson (Pro Mod) said "We broke a sprag off the line and had no drive down the track. The car went on the rev limiter so we had to change the heads overnight."

Marcus Hilt's '63 Corvette, imported as a rolling chassis from the US, is sporting a superb paint job from Dieter Löffler (www.loeffler-the-artist.com). Marcus said "The engine is from my '55 Bel Air and we have made changes over the winter with a new 20% overdriven Littlefield/Kobelco blower and Brad Anderson motor parts." the Swiss team's support comes from Ralph's Tattoo, www.alrepa.ch, www.creaworld.ch and www.express-autoglass.ch. The team's website is www.trouble-racing.ch.

Marc Meihuizen was delighted with his 6.518/214.11, good for top Pro Mod qualifier after one round of qualifying. "We changed the fuel management system and the AFT clutch over the winter and also installed a new, lower injector head. It was meant to be a half pass but it felt so good, we kept in it", he said. "The settings were safe and we ran rich on that run; we will lean it out a bit on the next one".

08:30

Ulf Leanders edged forward a few feet on the start and then stopped just short of the tree. He said "We don't know what happened. We found nothing wrong with the motor, so we are taking the ignition boxes to Leif Andreasson who has an MSD test bench for them.

Leif Andreasson was pleased with qualifying no. 1 with a 5.957/233 and said "We know we will improve on that. We have got rid of the tyre shake that plagued us and made plenty of changes over the winter with that intention. The only bad thing about the run was that I lost traction a little in second and got slightly sideways, which caused the bounce. But I can drive the car now and it felt much better at the top end. We got a new clutch cannon and ignition over the winter. Funny cars are so sensitive to changes; every run feels different and this was our first of the year."

Leif continued "It's great to be back driving and we've a new style to the team, with support from the Swedish Armed Forces. This is a special sponsorship; our other sponsors are delighted that they have joined up and there are a lot of promotional things we will be doing to help them. We invested a lot of time and no little money to plan the deal, as takes money to get money. The Swedish Armed Forces will be spending £12m on promotional events including airshows in Gothenberg, Stockholm and Malmo and us, in order to recruit 2,000 members to sign up to their part of the EU armed forces. There will be camouflaged merchandise, even underwear with an aluminium look to it and we have been given an opportunity to work together on the marketing. We did our homework by talking to Don Schumacher who is sponsored by the US Army."

Steve Turner said "We were quite pleased as we had been concerned that the track temperature was 15 degrees and falling, so we launched at lower RPM and short-shifted to get the car down the track."

Dave Wilson, no. 1 qualifier in TMD, said "We were a bit unsure about a couple of things. We have new Mickey Thompson tyres and made a few changes to the car - it was also the first time that we have run this year. So I short-shifted, took it easy and drove like an old woman!"

Krister Johansson said after running a 5.974/240 for no. 4 position, "The conditions were too cold for an ideal run, but were pleased that we were able to get down the track and have the data to find what we need to do to run the numbers. The rules about nitro percentage have meant that we are now running 98% rather than 100% and this changes the power characteristics of the motor."

In the Top Fuel pits car owners Karsten and Per Andersson were delighted that Håkan Nilsson is no. 1 with a 4.860/306.35, which has to be one of the quickest and fastest debut passes ever. "Our car was sourced for us by Doug Herbert and was run by Don Lampus in the NHRA last year. We bought the chassis only and the running gear is our own combination. We have had experience of Top Fuel with Jens Nybo and Kim Reymond and tuned Kim to the best Top Fuel run in Europe ever of 4.64/317." They continued "We wanted our own car and we have got the best driver. Håkan gives us such good feedback after every run and feels the car well. We're so happy this operation has come together so well; three months ago we didn't even have an air hose." Thanks go to Håkan's long-time sponsors Veidec and Landmeco poultry equipment; Håkan'sday job is a poultry farmer and Landmeca have supported both him and Anita Makela."

Karsten Andersson has a business making metal cabinets for tools, which several racers use, a recent customer being Tommy Moller. Crew for the team combines the Danish Top Fuel crew of Morten, Henrik, Per and Karsten and Håkan's ex-Pro Mod crew of Conny, Martin, Ulf and Markus. Thanks also go to truck drivers Flemming and Gunnar.

Thomas Nataas's Batmobil entry was put to bed quite early after he had lifted on the run. Crew member Ian Pellant said "Thomas had too much power and shook the tyres, so he lifted to prevent damage, which is sensible as we will have two opportunities to run tomorrow."

Andy Carter also suffered bad tyre shake which resulted in a great driving job when the car took a sudden left turn at the eighth. Crewman Roger Neill said "The car got out of the groove and Andy had to apply full lock and then came off it. When we recovered the car at the top end, we found a brass bolt sticking out of the front tyre, which we think was debris from a previous run."

Lex Joon ran a 4.87 at only 239.31 for the no.2 place in Top Fuel. He said "We ran a 3.183 at the eighth which means the run had a potential to be a 4.5. Unfortunately the head gasket let go on one side, in a different place to where it went last year. He said "We have a small issue with the torque of the head studs which we are looking at. The car launched quite soft, with a .890 sixty foot, but when the clutch came in it was awesome. There was shake, so I couldn't see for a little, and the tunnel vision was more than before. Then the front came up a little and as I agreed with the team, we came off it at 1000ft, so this was not planned to be a full pass."

In the Tommy Moller camp we spoke to Kenneth Lorentzon and Håkan Fallstrom. Kenneth said "Tommy's motor broke a blower pulley locking ring on the spline and the pulley came out and this happened before 330ft. We have replaced the parts and there was no other damage. We are pleased that our ignition problems at the Easter Thunderball have now been solved."

Håkan Fallstrom ran a 5.725 after getting off the throttle. "The sixty foot time was not the kick I experienced on my licensing pass and was only a 0.96 compared with a 0.88 on the Easter run. The car hooked up, went well for 330ft and drifted left, almost to the centre line; as it was out of the groove and started bouncing, I was off the throttle after 800ft."

Rene Hersland said "We banged the blower after 3.5s, and the blower is in three pieces now. We have a spare blower to use and should be good for both runs tomorrow. We also drove through the clutch." He showed us the damaged clutch discs and said "The gap was about 3-4mm which means a lot of slippage and one disc is junk. This is the best track we have run on so far and we have mainly run on airfields up to now and ran a 5.7s best. Our best incrementals to the eighth airfield in Denmark.

Urs Erbacher said "We broke two head gaskets and a block. Our spare block needed to be welded on Friday and we will take the other block off-site to get it welded early tomorrow morning. We also lost three pistons. We had quite a fire with the head gaskets. We will install our spares and go tomorrow but we are still trying to find the setup and need to drive down the track as we have only gone 1000ft so far. We have made our own combination which is difficult for us as no-one on the team has experience with nitro, so we will figure it out together."

Alan Jackson of Micke Kågered's team said "We dropped a cylinder off the line, broke one rod and damaged the block, but have spare parts. This was an unexpected mechanical fault." Christer Abrahamson reported that Micke had a pretty serious fire going and when the car was towed back it caught fire again a couple of times.

Saturday was not the best day for dragracing, rain pretty much all day with a single qualifying run coming in around dinner time. A whole day of waiting in the pits together with this being the first run of the season for most teams did not make for ideal conditions or record breaking numbers. No worry, the weather is excellent as we write this and all teams are very happy that the season is finally under way.

PiPPi writes on Pro Stock bike: Not a big surprise here, the number one qualifier is Team MotoSpeed rider Anders Abrahamsson with a respectable 7.47/177.8 but the team is obviously looking for a lot more today. The second Team MotoSpeed rider Örjan Gustavssons did not get a run in, a carburator float got stuck with the result being one cylinder getting completely flooded which resulted in a glorious starter motor explosion. Good thing these motors run on petrol.

Martin Bishop is breaking in a new engine, the team ran a soft setup that had the clutch dragging which resulted in a bogged engine and unfortunately no time.

No surprise to PiPPi, Pro Stock Bike rookie Anders Jakobsson qualified in second place with a 7.91/167.3 but we've seen Anders running almost half a second quicker in testing a few weekends ago and the team are very eager to get as much track time as possible. Best 60-footer in the class so far with more to come..

Former Super Twin Top Fuel Champion Anders "Charley" Karling did not run last seasons championship. Instead he spent time designing and building a brand new bike for this years championship. Many, many hours at the drawing table and in the machine shop but still a few things left to do so the new bike is not quite ready for racing just yet. To be able to start to gather points in the 2006 championship, Charley has made his 2006 come-back at the Main Event on the "old" bike. "Old" being all in the eye of the beholder, that bike is still the Euro record holder both for ET and speed and is a serious a piece of engineering. The bike has been used as a showpiece for main sponsor Uddeholm and was called back into duty just recently: Team Karling Racing recieved the bike just over a week ago. "We looked it over" and good enough, Charley qualified number one with a run of 6.88/163.6. Bad news for the competition is that the run was meant as nothing but a test run to check out a fuel delivery problem. "The bike felt real good so it turned into a longer power run than intended", Charlie says. The motor ran slightly lean but not enough to hurt anything and with a shut off at 1000 feet the result was very impressive.

Ronny Aasen is in second place with a 6.99/198.5. The team runs both a new ignition and fuel delivery system which means that lots of runs are needed to get the data needed for best performance.

The team of Svein Olav Rolfstad was very very dejected as he experienced a 100% identical engine explosion as at the Gardermoen testing a few weeks ago. The problem is in sealing cylinder head pressure and unfortunately Team Rolfstad is out of the running for the rest of this weekend.

In Top Fuel Bike, Roel Koedam took charge and is in the number one spot with a run of 6.57/155.16, the speed indicating a problem at the top end. Roel will not show up for the first run this morning due to a broken cam chain but the data logs indicated very good performance to say the least and I'd advice everyone in place to make sure not to miss Roel in his second qualifying run this afternoon.

Luigi Ferreti looked good and backed up a strong fishtailing burnout with a 7.08 which makes him second qualifier.

Rickard Gustavssons race debut on the 6.5-second Funny Bike did not fare so well as he kept up the drifting problems he's experienced at all earlier testing runs. He has good backup from former owner Korry Hogan and Rickard spent time on the phone with the USA with changes in clutch, tire pressure and raising the wheelie bars being the advice.

Current European Top Fuel Bike Champion Ian King did not show up for qualifying last night, still a few tweaks to be worked out but he will run both qualifiers today. "With all the changes under the hood, this is pretty much like tuning a whole new motorcycle", says Ian. "That obviously takes a lot of time and we are shooting for much improved performance over last years numbers so we got our work cut out for us".

The weather looks good and we are looking forward to a good second round of qualifying starting on time in just an hour so be sure to stay tuned to Eurodragster.com.