FIA / FIM European Championship Finals
Santa Pod Raceway, 4th-7th September 2014

Sunday


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Pro Mod racer and Eurodragster.com sponsor Andy Robinson was delighted to be the first UK Pro Mod racer into the fives in qualifying. He said 'No doubt we are getting close to the tuning window that we have been looking for. I want to thank the support that we get from the track, the top end crew and my own crew all for making it possible'. Daughter Stefani said 'In qualifying we had tyre shake from different issues, after pedaling, following a wheelie, and shifting too early with a suspected malfunctioning shift light. The car got out of the groove in round one but it had done a great 60ft time of 0.971.'


Top Fuel Racer Urs Erbacher said 'We have had a lot of struggles with shake and a clutch finger broke on the second pass.But we are back to good performance today. The car is the same, we had some issues with the heads burning but it is working well. We are trying for a 4.0 in round two and hope to meet Thomas in the final'. Urs had an early shut off 4.21 but it was sufficient to defeat Duncan Micallef whose engine was on fire by half track. Urs's daughter India will be licensing in Super Comp at Las Vegas and will drive an A/Fuel Dragster in January 2015 and the intention is for her to license in Top Fuel at the Festival of Power and run at Hockenheim later in the year.


Top Fuel racer Micke Kågered ran a strong 4.111/280 to defeat Stig Neergaard in round one of eliminations. He said 'I', looking forward to next year and my new car for 2014 has been working well. We will buy some more parts and step up further'. Crewman Mark Turner said 'The engine is running well and we slightly torched a head in round one and it's easily repairable. We will step up, hope there is no tyre shake and are in the hunt for second in the championship.' In a close race (win margin 0.016) Micke was defeated by new champion Thomas Nataas and Micke became champion runner-up by virtue of Duncan Micallef's loss in the other semi.


Top Methanol Dragster racers Timo, Werner and Dennis Habermann were delighted to get a new ET record of 5.22 and both go through to the final. Werner said 'The PSI blower has been great for us from the start of the season. For this event we have added an ignition advance/retard system which has improved the mph as we can give more ignition at the top end. We now have the fastest blown methanol car at an asphalt track anywhere at 271mph. We will try to go quicker, hope to get funding for running the championship and perhaps even some races in the US'.


Top Methanol Funny Car racer Gareth Ellis suffered clutch failure with a spectacular spray of sparks. He said 'I had sparks, smoke and then flame in the cockpit, glanced down and my foot was on fire before the finish line. But I kept on it as I was racing and winning'. The clutch damage caused big engine damage destroying the main bearings and the team had to put in the spare engine which car owner Graham Ellis said was 'tired'. The teams of Danny Bellio and Jonny Lindberg pitched into help and the result was a 5.75/249 victory over Leif Andréasson.


Top Methanol Dragster racer Chris Polidano is 2014 Champion and the team also ran their first 5.2 this weekend and backed up a 278mph. US tuner Jerry Darien (pictured) said after Chris smoking the tyres to a first round loss, 'The extra heat on the track before we ran must have added up to that. We have straightened up the clutch programme and I have tried to get the team to run the car themselves'. Jerry started racing 55 years ago with in injected flathead and worked his was to a blown alcohol car which he ran from '76 to '98. After moving to A/Fuel Jerry helped some high profile names in their driving careers (continued below).


Jerry Darien said 'Gary Szelzi had been out of a drive for a year and a half and we were fortunate enough for him to ask us for help. He said 'I want to be the best' and would beat himself up and then fix it if he messed up. He then won the NHRA Top Fuel championship and after that we got sponsorship from In-N-Out Burger to run A/Fuel and up and coming drivers such as Frank Pedregon, Shane Gay, Melanie Troxel, Brandon Bernstein, Morgan Lucas and the Force sisters came to us. We also ran in TF with Steve Faria. Ashley Force did 140 runs in 29 weekends with us, she worked so hard. John Force told me 'She wouldn't listen to be but what you told her to do worked'. Chris's team is well resourced and have several spare engines'.


Top Fuel Bike racers Steve Woollatt and Filippos Papfilippou had an incredible incident with Fil being pitched off his own bike and riding Steve's wheelie bar. Steve's crew Mark Powell said 'Fil's boot came off the wheelie bar and rubbed against the rear wheel. Fortunately he only suffered some minor burns as Steve came off the throttle, looked back and Fil was holding onto the body of the bike. Steve said 'No more non-paying passengers''.


Top Fuel racer Thomas Nataas and Top Methanol Dragster racer Timo Habermann at the no.1 qualifiers' presentation. Both are record setters this weekend, Thomas with a speed of 316mph and Timo with ET of 5.256.


Pro Mod racer David Vegter ran a 6.10/234 to defeat Tero Laukkanen and eliminate him from championship contention in round one. In round two, David defeated Michael Gullqvist and the Pro Mod championship is Mattias Wulcan's.


Pro Mod racer Andy Wright suffered an explosion at the Mopar Euronats and you will be able to see the scary aftermath on video. Co-owner and driver Bert Englefield said 'Everything forward of the front bulkhead has had to be replaced, including hoses, electrics, master cylinder, computer and tyres. The body is still intact although singed. We did the work ourselves over the last few weeks and have many to thank: Andy Robinson who supplied hoses free of charge, Lee Childs of LA Racing Parts for front tyres, Graham Ellis for blower restraint and Steve Henry for MSD parts including a two-step. We are on the back foot with essentially a new setup and are trying not to do more damage, so we are a couple of runs behind. The track is very good though.' Andy got into eliminations as an alternate and ran a game 6.84/209 to lose to Roger Johansson.


Pro Mod racer Marcus Hilt ran well after fitting a lot of new parts to the car for 2014. 'We tried too much yesterday and have calmed the car down to go down the track. It took us a couple of races to get the performance to where we want'. The car ran 6.46, 6.29 and 6.38 in the first three sessions for its most impressive runs to date.


Pro Mod racers Mattias Wulcan and Roger Moore sharing a joke in the pairing lanes shortly before eliminations. Roger and his team spent yesterday evening repairing and welding his wheelie bar and thanks the Vegter, BA Racing and Andy Robinson teams for their help. Mattias won the first round keeping his championship lead alive whilst Roger shut off after his car went towards the centre line. By the end of round two, Mattias had been confirmed as champion.


Pro Mod racer Marc Meihuizen ran the quickest pass in the first round of eliminations, a 5.941/243 in the right lane. Two pairs later the no.1 qualifier and championship contender Micke Gullqvist suffered instant shake.


Top Fuel Bike racer Rickard Gustafsson qualified second with a 6.441. He said 'We suffered a broken cam chain in the first session and then had an oil leak as we were readying the bike. With that solved we ran two 6.4s back to back which is great'.


Super Street Bike racer Erich Gruber from Austria, probably the most senior rider in the class, ran a PB 7.67/183 to qualify fifteenth, the run being two tenths better than his previous best.


Super Street Bike Thomas Granica said 'On our first run we ran 7.50 and had a blocked injector on the second pass which may have damaged the head a little, so we have struggled. We are not sure whether to pull the engine today and will decide later'. A 7.53 qualified Thomas eleventh.


Super Street Bike racer Graham Balchin ran a best of 7.29/198 to go sixth. He said 'We have been looking at the clutch setup, which had moved and we didn't notice. We have reset the system and will relearn the tuneup as best we can. The track is awesome and it's good not to have a headwind'.


Super Street Bike racer Steve Venables is second with 7.21/196. He said 'We have done the tuning in-house here and are pleased with the performance. The bike is going straighter than it was too'.


Super Street Bike racer Shawn Buttigieg is no.1 qualifier with a 7.20/196. His US tuner Walter Sprout is pictured left and said 'We ran 7.11 and 7.16 in testing on Wednesday, if we put the best incrementals from those two passes together it would have been a 7.08. The differences between then and now are tiny, possibly a stickier track'.



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