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14/08/2002 EUROPEAN BESTS SHATTERED IN NORWAY Following on from our win the previous weekend in Sweden, American Car Imports Racing arrived at Gardermoen Raceway near Oslo, Norway in high spirits. These spirits were further buoyed for the lucky members of the group that saw a rare wild moose on their way between the tracks. This was the first team moose sighting despite many years of racing in Scandinavia and stories of its size were continually exaggerated throughout the weekend… In Sweden a small fire had damaged some parts on the dragster and we were indebted to the great folks at Gary Burgin Enterprises and PSI for shipping over replacements in time for the race in Norway. Once the car was totally race ready and our pit set up (including our new mascot as pictured) all we needed to do was warm up the engine before heading to the line for our first qualifying run on Friday morning. On most of our runs the previous weekend we had tyre shake in first gear and hadn't really found a cure for the problem. On the hot track in Norway the same problem occurred, holding the performance back to a 5.830 second run at 247.64 mph. We weren't out of ideas to try and improve the situation and tried the next idea on our list for the second qualifying run early Friday evening. The changes to the tune up certainly helped when the car went straight through first gear with no problems, meaning driver Dave Wilson could keep his foot firmly planted in the throttle and change gear at the right times. From the start line it was clear that the PlayStation machine was on an absolute stormer of a pass but no-one expected what appeared on the scoreboard; a 5.507 second run at a whopping 259.12 mph. This was by far the quickest and fastest methanol dragster run ever recorded anywhere outside of North America, beating the previous bests of 5.565 and 254.65 mph which were already held by our team. From the pictured timing ticket it can be seen that the car covered the first eighth mile of the track in an unreal 3.617 seconds and was already running 209.06 mph! 
Naturally the whole team were absolutely delighted with this performance and we felt confident that this would guarantee us the bonus number one qualifier and low elapsed time of the meeting points. This gave us the opportunity to work on our hot weather, hot track tune up in the first two qualifying sessions on Saturday, where the air temperature was around 90 degrees and the track temperature around 110 degrees. Mixed success on these runs netted a 5.674 at 5.709, both at 255.17 mph, meaning we had set and backed up yet another new European speed record on those two runs and kept alive our streak of raising the European speed record at every single FIA meeting in 2002. 
The Air Sea Logistics supported machine was running like a dream mechanically and we were incurring no damage at all, giving the crew the chance to hone the regular turn round routine to the point where within an hour of being back in the pits, the car was ready for its next run. Heading to the line that night for the final qualifying session in the preferable cool air of the evening and on the cooler track the whole team and all the fans were looking forward to us backing up or even improving on the incredible performance of the previous evening. Sadly it was not to be as with just ourselves and one other car left to run for the day the track marshals decided that the track was getting damp and so we were sent back to the pits having missed out on what we felt was an ideal opportunity. However this meant the car was ready for eliminations the next day so after surfacing our clutch parts (thanks to the folks at Kagered Racing and Leanders Bros. Racing for lending us their clutch grinders) we retired to bed to rest up before the crucial action on Sunday. By 8 a.m. on Sunday it was already very sunny and hot and by the time we pulled to the line for our first round bye run the track temperature was over 100 degrees. A solid 5.665 at 253.24 mph secured us lane choice for our crucial semi final match against 2001 champion Rob Turner. Having lane choice proved to be a good thing as a major oil-down shortly before our race put the right lane into a questionable condition. Taking the left lane we posted a consistent 5.673 at 256.14 mph to take the win against Rob's 5.74 and book our spot in the final against championship leader Peter Schofer. That run also pushed our speed record a little higher. The final looked set to be a great race and probably the first side by side 5.5 second run in European history until sadly we had an oil line split on the burnout and for safety reasons we had to shut the car off leaving Peter to solo for the win. It wasn't quite what we had hoped for but our strong performances over the weekend still had us in good spirits and the bonus points we'd earnt mean that we still have a good shot at claiming the FIA title at the last round back in England in early September. At that race we'll also be trying to lower the elapsed time record and secure the honour of being the first team ever to set the speed record at every race in an FIA season.
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