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13/08/2005 2005 SEASON SUMMARY HEADING INTO THE EUROPEAN FINALS  As superb as 2004 was, the 2005 FIA European Drag Racing season for the American Car Imports Racing team looks set to be even better! Currently number 1 in the points, riding higher than ever and with one race event left on the schedule, Dave Wilson and the team have accrued an unbeaten record in 2005 both in eliminations and qualifying.  The season started in fine style at Santa Pod Raceway in England. Being our home event, we welcomed a lot of our sponsors and friends to the track to help us get a head start in 2005. The number 1 qualifying run of 5.44, 252mph was cheered on enthusiastically by a group of school children invited by new associate sponsors ELAS, who enjoyed the day tremendously! On into eliminations and the records started to fall. A new European elapsed time record of 5.425, 249mph sent Germanys Peter Schofer home to Bavaria and an even better 5.423, 248mph charge won the event and set the stage for a great year!  The beautiful trailer designed by Total Design and graphics applied by our friends at Custom Graphics was packed away and sent to Finland for round 2 of the series. In the land of a thousand lakes it was more of the same as a 5.47, 258mph qualifying run proved. This provided the team with a huge (in drag racing terms) 2/10ths of a second advantage over their nearest competition. With Playstation 2’s Ray MaGuire cheering the team on, Dave eased through to the final to face a resurgent Peter Schofer from Germany.  Once again though, with the expert work of the crew the ACI/Silverline Tools car unloaded a tremendous victory lap of 5.47, 260 mph to outdistance Schofers 5.68, 248 mph try. This left the happy team with a perfect points score from the first 2 events, and the competition was starting to get that sinking feeling from 2004 all over again!  The tour moved on to Mantorp Park in Sweden. A notoriously tricky track, mainly because of the incline on the racing surface! Silverline tools excellent products again helped the top-notch team prepare the car for another series of record setting runs!  Dave opened with a new track record 5.45, 260mph run and followed it up with a tremendous 5.43, 260 mph charge! As you can tell the beautiful new wheels supplied by Bling Rims were working fantastically and the stage was set for an epic finals day! A quickest of the round, 5.52, 256 run in the opening round of eliminations was all that was to be completed of the Swedish event due to a lengthy rain delay which meant the event was cancelled early due to a local curfew. With the tour now moving onto Norway, hopes were high of more record setting performances. Gardermoen raceway, just outside of Olso was the site of our previous world beating 270mph run from last season so the team were prepared to throw everything at the track and see what it would take! Unfortunately again the weather had other ideas as after a number 1 qualifying 5.487, 261mph run early Friday the event was curtailed due to rain.  So we head into the final race of the FIA series at home in England with a virtually unassailable lead. Just showing up at Santa Pod in September will virtually assure a 3rd championship in a row for the ACI Racing team. The team wont be happy with just that though, as they have the chance to do the impossible and be the first unbeaten team ever to win in the FIA European Drag Racing series! We’re looking forward to welcoming all of our friends and sponsors including Creative Car Sounds, Expert IT, OCW, 76 Racing Fuels, US Automotive and Euro American as well as everyone previously mentioned for what will be one of the best celebration parties ever!
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