 |
 | ||||||||
|
20/09/2004 WIRE TO WIRE IN 2004! As the title says, 2004 for the American Car Imports team was a banner year both in Europe and America! Starting out the year with an NHRA victory in Tucson Arizona, and concluding with win at the FIA European Finals at Santa Pod in England, 2004 was the year of domination for all concerned at the ACI camp. From the first turn of the wheel back on home soil in May, we should have guessed it was going to be our season! Number 1 qualifier, won the event and set a new track record! What a way to come back to Europe and start the title defense! Our cheering section at The Main Event was fantastic as ever. We had plenty of sponsors and friends on hand and they made victory that much sweeter! Emma, and everyone at Silverline, Ray McGuire from Playstation and Tony from Custom Graphics and Claire from Total Design were just a few of our over 200 vocal supporters that weekend! Winning is great, but winning at home infront of your friends, family and sponsors is just awesome! On to Finland, and another great weekend that was hampered by the weather saw the ACI flyer on top again come Sunday night trophy presentations! Maximum points so far, and 2 for 2 on the season! Round 3 was the always great Mantorp Park adventure, with the uphill track and friendly Swedish crowds it was another weekend to savour! Number 1 qualifier at a track record 5.46, and a final round appearance again arch rival Peter Schofer from Germany were the highlights of the weekend, and the Bavarian team narrowly took their first win of the season by only 4 hundredths of a second! Round 4 was at Gardermoen in Norway. One of the easiest tracks in the world to find as it located at Oslo international airport! The event had the biggest turn out ever seen in Norway due to some primetime tv slots leading up the race, and during the weekend. Another number one qualifier, and event win pleased the whole ACI gang, along with our traveling band of supporters that this weekend included Ray MaGuire from Playstation and Malcolm Francis from Air Sea Logistics! Highlight of the weekend for the whole team was running the first 270mph run anywhere outside the USA, but not only that! There are only 3 top methanol dragsters in the whole world who have done it, and your team is very proudly one of them! With a virtually unassailable points lead in the championship now with 3 wins from 4 races, the German round at the world famous Hockenheim ring. Now for anyone whos never been, this place is awesome! Over 120,000 loud German fans pack the purpose built drag strip for their once yearly dose of big league straightline entertainment. It was the first race of the season Grumpy didn’t manage to qualify number one, but that was all made much better in the first round of racing as ACI Racing took out Germanys lone hope, Peter Schofer to silence the partisan crowd. That one race locked up the FIA European Title for the 2nd year in a row and even a final round loss couldn’t dampen the teams spirits that day in deepest Germany! So back to where it all began at Santa Pod Raceway for the biggest and most prestigious drag race of them all, the FIA European Finals! Over 300 guests over the weekend made it even more special for the team and everyone involved. The list of people that cheered so loudly over the weekend and supported through the year made all the effort worthwhile! Representatives from Playstation, Silverline Tools, Creative Car Sounds, Footman James, US Automotive, Expert IT, Portman Business Consultancy, Old Car World and Air Sea Logistics all made the weekend louder and much more friendly for their support! So, the last event of the year, championship sewn up and time to throw the proverbial kitchen sink at the car and see what would stick! Well stick it did, and another number 1 qualifier closely followed by a new European record of 5.436, topped off with the event victory made for the sweetest possible end to the title defense!
|
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||
