Norway’s Fred Hansen is the 2011 FIA Top Methanol Dragster champion. Fred came to European Finals as second in the championship by nine points, so the event became a fight for every single point, in qualifying, in elimination and also the important five points for low ET. “It feels just great to bring the championship to the island of Fröya and Norway! I have been driving this car for three years and my great crew has been the basis of all this success”, smiles Fred looking at the crew working hard to get the car ready for the final. Fred's wife Line mentions that Fred was 40 years when he started drag racing. “I actually don’t think age is that important in this sport. I might even be a advantage with life experience and being able to keep the mind cool when it’s stormy”, says the fisherman from Fröya. .

Michael “Gullan” Gullqvist is the 2011 FIA European Pro Mod Champion. “It is an awesome feeling” said Michael. “We have been no.2 too many times prior to this. Luckily we have been successful during the whole season, since we did not figure out a good set up for this track this time. We also had to change gearbox and a cylinder head before this last round, so we weren’t able to do any changes at all to the car. My team did a heroic job to just get us out there in time. You have just got to have a team like that to claim a championship!" Pictured is Michael celebrating the championship with a hot dog. .

Jimmy Ålund is the 2011 FIA Pro Stock European champion. After a very good season the champinship was confirmed when Jimmy did his first qualifying run on Friday. “It’s good to be back on top” smiled Jimmy. "I have been pleased with the season. The only exception was Tierp, where we didn’t perform as well as we should. And since the championship was settled on Friday, we have been concentrating on winning the European Finals all weekend, so it’s very frustrating to not be in the final” Jimmy continued. “Up to the semis we have able to read the slightly tricky track rather well, but the track just left us in the last run.”.

After the semis, Peter Svensson with the Kendall Top Fuel bike became the 2011 UEM champion. “We raced at four out of seven races this season because of the economy”, Peter explained when we asked him to sum up the season. “We were low qualifier at Tierp and won the event. We had problems with the rear tyre in Gardermoen and did not qualify that well and eliminations were rained out. After that we went to Hockenheim with a new solution for the rear tyre resulting in both new European ET and speed records, 5.96 and 375.5 kmh” he said proudly. “But the first thing that happened when we came here was a broken chain and over revved engine resulting from that.” The guys had a tough evening repairing all that on Friday, but on Saturday ran a 5.88 that was the first part of a record. Before the final he said “We haven’t backed it up so far and it is a bit difficult during eliminations”. “It is also a problem with side wind this weekend. It forced me into the guard rail yesterday. I tilted the bike down on the frame so I could hit the guardrail almost from underneath the bike. The impact was a lot less than I expected and looking back now it wasn’t a problem”! It was a very happy team that prepared the bike for the final against Sverre Dahl where Peter ran a record-equalling 5.96 in a defeat of a tyre-smoking Sverre. .

Ulf Leanders is the Top Methanol Funny Car Champion. It came all down to a very exciting pairing in the first round this morning, when the two drivers that had a shot at the title, Ulf and Arvid Grødem, met. “The championship was decided right there and then when Arvid lost traction and went up in smoke” said Ulf. “It’s been a good season. We have been no.1 qualifier and have been both the quickest and fastest at every race in the championship. Tierp was a new experience and we made a couple of mistakes, but we learned a lot from it and otherwise we are pleased. It has been good racing and a lot of fun this year” says Ulf before packing the chutes before final, in which Ulf was defeated by a resurgent Rob Turner.

Robin Grice, crew chief for Urs Erbacher and major contributor to Urs's two Top Fuel championships has decided to hang up his wrenches and retire at the end of the season. He said "I will help training of members of the team but won't be at races. I feel thirty years in the sport is enough and I will be going out on a high. I am grateful to Urs and Rune Fjeld the car owners I have worked most with." Robin was delighted with the result of the pedalfest final between Urs and Risto Poutiainen. "Both drivers pedaled the throttle four times. It was incredible and was certainly a drivers race. When the car runs well, it is like a bracket car. After the first round losses at Finland and Hockenheim we chased and found a problem. We didn't change much of the setup, just the blower overdrive slightly. But we're happy with the outcome anyway." Best wishes to Robin from us all at Eurodragster.com.

In the Top Methanol Dragster semi-finals there were two team matchups, the Habermann brothers, Timo and Dennis and the Islanders team cars of Fred Hanssen and Paul Ingar Udtian. In their race, both Timo and Dennis hit shake and both drove through it for a 5.65 win for Timo against Dennis's wild 6.46 all over his lane.

Fuel Funny Car racer Gordon Smith has been chasing the tuneup. Crew Chief Dave Bryant said "We missed one initial run and then a bad fuel pump caused the loss of an engine. On the pass yesterday a plug came out on a 5.93 so today's run is really the first we've got to tune from." On that pass, Gordon drifted toward the centre and took the reflectors out. He said "It shook down the track then the big headwind got to us with our large rear spoiler and there was little I could do to avoid the blocks. There was some slight body damage but FGR Motorsport will repair it after the event. We expect Leif will step up for the final but we don't like getting beat." The team are now supported by MPM Oil.

Top Methanol Funny Car racer Rob Turner was delighted to be in his first final in the car. He said "This was our first round win in three years. We definitely have the car on the right track now and it is not even shaking down the track. The mechanical side is going great and my confidence is such that I am now doing 0.06 reaction times in it."

Top Methanol Funny Car racer Jürgen Nagel, pictured with Crew Chief Frank Schlemmer, said "We have so much power but we couldn't put it on the track. It is difficult to change the game plan to the conditions and we couldn't find the right setup for all four qualifying runs. So we took power out of it and in the first round, it slowed us to 6.55. We knew what to do for round two and it worked with a 5.90 but Ulf won on a holeshot." Frank said "The crew did their job and we will buy the driver a practise tree for Christmas!"

Top Methanol Funny Car racer Danny Bellio said "The testing we did on Wednesday helped us out and we were no.1 in the first session. We tried to go quicker but ran into problems." In the final session, Danny's chute came out. He said "It was the first time this had happened to me and it was a strange feeling. I thought something was wrong with the transmission and shifted to second. "In the race this morning I wasn't expecting a 0.01 reaction from Jarmo. My reaction time was not as good and beat me on a holeshot as we didn't step up as much as we could. We wanted to go further than the first round."

Pro Stock racer and event winner Richard Sundblom was delighted with the win. He said before the final "It has been a tricky track and it is on the edge, loose all the way down but we have found a good setup. I broke my no.1 Jenkins engine in the second qualifier when an intake valve broke and we don't really know what the second engine will do. The final will be history making, the first with both cars running the new generation DRC3 heads manufactured by David Racing.

Pro Mod racer and Andy Robinson ran a best of 6.64 for 12th in qualifying and said "We just had so much tyre shake and too much power - we couldn't find the tuning window. On the last pass we were on and off it four times and found a small drip from the axle casing at the top end. We fixed it but it wasn't to a standard I fellt safe with. It's the car's last event - we are talking to people who have shown some serious interest in buying it and will work on the new car when customer business allows." Andy was joined by SFI President and CEO Arnie Kuhns.

Top Methanol dragster racer Manty Bugeja is a most welcome returnee to Santa Pod since his last appearance in 2001 where he ran low ET of both SPR FIA events, having won them the previous year. Manty is supported by car owner Joe Carabott (in green shirt), a big Maltese racing contingent (pictured) and tuning adviser Charlie Draper who visits Malta for four week-long visits each year to help the team. He said "The team have come back to win and a 5.5 qualifying time showed they can run with the best. The 5.5 was on a very soft setup and we took a gamble against Fred in round one and lost traction in the right lane." Vince Carabott added "The car has so much potential, we will be back."

Top Methanol Funny Car racer Deszoe Krivan (pictured with wife Iris) said "We went up in smoke on most of our runs and tried to adapt but we don't have as much modern electronic clutch management on our car as all the others have. We will be getting it for next year. Thanks to Will Hanna who gave advice on what we need to do in the future. We enjoyed the season but our budget may not allow us to do all the events next year."

SuperTwin champion and event winner Per Bengtsson was trying to lower the class record from the current 6.45. Crew member L-O Jonsson said "The bike went 6.47 and now we have won the championship we want to go quick. The power is back and we have solved the problems from the previous two races." Per did win the event but a new record was not set as the bike shut off early. Per is pictured with Christina Ottosson.

We met up with Dave Wilson in the line up and he said that he has been looking for the right set up for the slightly different track conditions from usual. “We made a test pass on Wednesday and instantly went up in smoke. At that time we thought it was all dependant on the track, but later on we found out that we had a ignition unit that malfunctioned. So when that was sorted we tried two totally different set ups during Friday and Saturday. Both resulted in the same ET, so at the moment we are very curious to what has happened to the track over the first hour this morning.” Dave also explained that at the start of the day, he and Fred Hanssen were about equal in the points. It wasn’t that complicated to figure out that last man standing would win the championship and when Dave went up in smoke in his race against Paul Ingar Udtian, Fred became champion. Dave's son and crew chief David said in a startline interview "That's Dave's last race in the car but it won't be his last time at the track." Happy Retirement, Grumpy! .

Timo Haberman explained that his chance to win the championship was only mathematical coming to the European Finals. “The chance is gone now, but we can still win the event” Timo said. “We have had a bit of struggle over the weekend. We arrived on Wednesday and were able to do a test run with Dennis's car. We were really surprised when it ran a 5.49 on a track that didn’t looked that good at the time! During qualifying we tried to get to no.1 but I smoked the tires and Dennis was slightly too slow. But today is a new day,” Timo finished before getting into the car.

Marco Maurischat had a scary experience in the first round of Pro Mod eliminations. When he left the line he suffered terrible tyreshake and lifted the throttle. When he got on it again the car immediately took a hard right turn. “Normally you can feel it coming”, says Marco. “But this time it really came out of nowhere. It is very bad when you, as a driver can see the starting line! The car was up on two wheels and I could see the wall coming up against me, I tried to correct it and hit the wall more or less broadside” Marco continues. “It might be that the wheelie bars broke during the tyreshake that caused the violent right turn. I have a little pain in one hand but am otherwise totally OK. The car is not in that bad shape, it just needs a new strut, a check on the frame and some cosmetic work so we will be back”.

Sverre Dahl in Top Fuel Bike took out Ian King with a 6.45 in first round of elimination. Sverre had problems getting off the starting line in all qualifying rounds and mechanic Christian Merlied explains: “We have been taking our set up towards less and less power from the starting line. Late yesterday evening we decided to go the other way around for the first elimination round!” Sverre came back to his pit with a big smile and said: “Finally, finally we got off the line in a proper way.” .

Top Methanol Dragster racer and Eurodragster.com sponsor and blogger Derek Flynn started with a 5.54 and 5.52 to be no.3 on Friday. "Those runs were brilliant considering the conditions so we stepped it up for Saturday. But no.6 cylinder went out after the burnout and was spraying out nitro. We shut down as we didn't want to hydraulic. In the final session it had got much too cold and with the delay the temperature dropped by 10 degrees. We will try to go quick against Timo as we need to defeat him to defend our third place in the points."

Pro Mod racers Bruno Bader and Eurodragster.com sponsor Marco Maurischat are friends off the track and became determined competitors on it. Bruno said "We ran well in session one then had some troubles. In the last session we had a $1 piece fail when a finger from the distributor broke. The engine wouldn't start which is the first time in four years that happened."

Pro Mod racer Marco Maurischat sponsors the Exhaust-coating.de Pro Mod Challenge as well as Eurodragster.com. He said "I'm pleased the race within a race has brought extra excitement to the event and congratulations to Urban Johansson for winning it and the €2000 prize money. Many thanks to the race director for arranging for it to happen." Marco had a new engine and Darren Meyer from the US to give advice at Hockenheim. Marco said "We are figuring it out and backed it down to 6.6 to get a decent qualifying pass in the last session." In their race, Marco crossed lanes on two wheels and barely brushed the wall while Bruno went 6.24 for the win.

Pro Mod racer Marc Meihuizen got down the track four times in qualifying with 6.59, 6.20, 6.18 and 6.17. He said "We short shifted to minimise the shake and tyrespin and on the last run, drove through shake and was weaving around the track in the second half. It wasn't what we hoped for but it was nice to come out in one piece." Marc was winner against Norbert Kuno with a 6.24.

Pro Mod racer Norbert Kuno has made a change of tyres to Hoosier and also took the power down to get down the track. A 6.66 on Saturday morning was the only successful attempt and in a potentially close race against Marc, Norbert redlit. Norbert said "We are very lucky to have Lucas as major sponsors, I appreciate their support which we now have had since 2003."

Pro Mod racer Mats Eriksson said after a 6.14 final qualifying pass that put him second, "We are happier having run that pass. Before the last pass we discovered the rear axle gear had broken and it was only when we warmed the engine we also found a sprag in the Lenco had broken when the gearbox wouldn't shift." In round one against Eurodragster.com sponsor Graham Ellis, Mats again wrestled with the car down the track to record a winning 6.12, second lowest ET of the round (to Urban Johansson's 6.10).

Pro Stock Bike racer Martin Newbury's wife Cindy said the bike has had a new MC4 ignition system and new tyre. "We had to add 16lb of lead as the bike was too light. We are pleased with times in the first half of the track but need to go better at the far end." Future plans for the Psycleworks team include a trip to Pomona, and a ride on one of Gary Stoffer's bikes at the NHRA Finals.

Pro Stock Bike racer Martin Bishop said "We have got the settings on our Gen 2 clutch sorted which is a major hurdle crossed. our 60ft is 1.11 and we ran a PB to 330ft. We have a new engine which has gone 7.48. Our other more powerful engine has run a best of 7.32 but needs a new cam. If needed we may put it in and swap motors.

Pro Stock Bike racer Len Paget is still happy even after having had to put in another engine after a broken crank. He said "We made changes to the four link and whilst we have used these settings before we haven't tested." The gamble failed to pay off with a first round defeat to Gert-Jan Laseur.

Super Street Bike racers Rick Stubbins and Dave Holland were awaiting their first round which they both won with 7.5s. Dave said "We are trying to stick to the programme with the bike and it is good to be sharing data with Wayne Saunders again." Rick said "We had eight qualifiers, four with good data and four aborted. This is my first UK race since October last year so we are racing more for fun this year."

Top Fuel racer Risto Poutiainen is still in with a chance of the Championship after two of his main competitors, Anita Mäkelä and Timo Lehtimäki were defeated in round one. Crew member Tony Pearson said "We qualified no.2 last evening with our best run in the dark last night. The track temperature was just on the limit of being able to run decently. The air had stayed the same to that point. The run was all down to Rune deciding the clutch setting which made it work. The only damage was to a plug. So we are ready for the championship decider."

Top Fuel racer Anita Mäkelä said before her first round race against Micke Kägered "Yesterday we ran a 4.95 after the blower belt went at 3.85s. So we know we have the performance. The last round was so late the team decided the track was too cold to run on and I couldn't see the centre line sitting in the car." Anita smoked the tyres in the right lane to lose to a fireballing Micke.

Top Fuel racer Jari Halinen has suffered tyre smoke on seemingly every pass this season. At Hockenheim, Mike Delagana, co-crew chief for US racer Clay Millican, came in to help get the car down the track. Yesterday the hard work paid off and Jari went down in 5.03/296. He said "I am happy, it has been a difficult season. My thanks go to all the guys on the team and Mike for finding a setting that worked down the track." Jari's luck continued when he had a single in the first round after Stig Neergaard was shut down for a leak.

Top Fuel racer Micke Kägered was one of the beneficiaries of the final Top Fuel session held at night-time. He recorded a 5.05/250 to get in the ladder and bump Andy Carter out. He said "We were happy with that but it should have been like that in round one. The fire did some damage and we will see how much later." This may have been needed sooner that expected when he suffered yet another fireball in his first round defeat of Anita Mäkelä and may need a superhero effort to get ready in time.

Top Fuel racer Andy Carter, retiring after this event, was still pumped up with his team before round one despite a DNQ. Crew chief Ben Allum said "We heard that some of the other teams were having problems with their warmups and Kenni Neergaard is out so we have come to the start line as alternate. In the final qualifying pass at night the temperature came out of the track before we ran and the altitude fell by 800ft while we were waiting to run. You can only take so much power out of it in the staging lanes." Andy did a valedictory idle down the track after the first round to a rousing reception from the packed crowd.

Top Fuel racer Stig Neergaard, with a two car team, suffered issues when both he and son Kenni had severe engine damage. Stig qualified no.4 with a 4.91 but the toll of engine damage mounted. There was a thrash to get ready for round one but a leak caused a shut down and the end of a mixed season for Stig.

Pro Mod racer Roger Moore has one of the more aerodynaic cars in the class. Two 6.8s passes in qualifying on Saturday put Roger at no.14 and Urban Johansson's quickest ET of round one, a 6.10, got past Roger who we will see again in Pro Mod action in two weeks' time at the National Finals with eight cars entered.

Top Fuel Dragster racer Urs Erbacher was confident despite being one of five teams that could win the Championship. "We are on the other side of the ladder from Timo, Anita and Micke so they have to take each other out. We have won championships on the final round of racing before and we know about being in that situation." After running three four second passes in qualifying, Urs and crew chief Robin Grice stepped up to a first round 4.79/313 defeat of Patrik Pers in round one.