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11/08/2003 GETTING TO THE LINE AND GETTING BACK ON TOP As I expect most of you have worked out for yourselves by now; I’m having a pretty good time this summer and today is no exception. I’m sitting at a sun soaked, lakeside campsite in Onsakervika, Norway, a few miles on down the road from Gardermoen where we just took the win at round four of the 2003 FIA European Top Methanol Dragster championship. Before I get into telling you that exciting tale though; an apology. To Stefan Porth, the troubadour at the campsite where I wrote last week’s report, who I rather cruelly referred to as “unfeasibly terrible.” Well to be fair he was still absolutely awful that night too but with the help of a few bottles of Starkol and a crowd of drag racers on holiday determined to enjoy themselves everyone had a brilliant evening. By the time our team principal, Tony from American Car Imports, had performed his rendition of Hotel California and UK sportsman crewman Vinny had blasted out Mustang Sally everyone was in high spirits so it was back to the ACI rig for an impromptu party under our floodlights that did more to improve European relations in a matter of hours than the Eurovision Song Contest has done in three decades. Who knows, perhaps Stefan will be Sweden’s entry in the 2004 contest? He is unfeasibly terrible after all… Luckily for those people at the campsite who didn’t feel like joining in with us reveling racers (I guess they must have been the Canadians) it was soon time for us all to roll on to Gardermoen Dragway. Now this place is legendary as I mentioned last week for its agricultural facilities and awesome racetrack. As we emerged from between the trees and into the pits it was clear that a few adjustments had been made to the forest with a bulldozer and that there would be a lot more space in the pits this year. Although it was still cramped, conditions were a lot better than in years past and a big nod of the cap goes to the organizing club, Norsk Drag Racing Gardermoen, for managing to lay on an electricity supply throughout the pits, something some well established UK tracks still haven’t managed even after 40 years… When we left Mantorp Park the car was all ready to go for this race so all we had to do was set the pits up and then stroll up and down the racetrack whilst making lots of nodding, pointing and surface kicking gestures as if we knew what we were supposed to be looking for. It seemed sensible to make sure there was no Jack Daniels left over to distract anyone during the race weekend proper and with that task duly accomplished it was time to hit the sack and rest up ready for the start of qualifying on Friday morning for a race that would be pivotal in our chase for the FIA title. Unfortunately when we woke on Friday morning it was to the sound of rain pounding on the roof of the van and as we watched a characteristic Gardermoen downpour for hours we also watched our first scheduled run at 2pm slip by. Then our 5pm slot sailed by too but we could at least see a break in the clouds and sure enough, the rain soon stopped and the track dryer was out on patrol. At 6:30 we pulled to the line and blasted straight in to the number one spot with a 5.543 at 257.96 mph, our quickest ever off-the-trailer run. As we got to the car at the turn off we noticed it was sitting at a rather jaunty angle which turned out to be caused by a puncture at the rear. We whizzed back to the pits to collect a spare wheel and the jack so we could change wheels and actually get the car back to the pits before changing the tyre when we finally got there. With such a solid baseline established and no other damage found during the turnround we felt comfortable to try some experimentation during the remainder of qualifying. The huge rain delays meant Friday’s second session had to be cancelled however and we would have to wait until the following day. There was nothing for it but to head to the wonderful Per Andersen’s mobile restaurant for dinner and then trundle, via the beer fridge, off to bed. No one wanted to hear rain again on Saturday morning but around 8am that was the sound causing groans throughout the pits. Fortunately by 9 o’clock it was all gone and that would be the last rain we would see all weekend. Shortly after lunchtime and with some special new parts on board we made the short trip from our pit to the start line and kept the number one spot courtesy of a 5.521 and a magical 260.57 mph from the PlayStation Rocket. Looking at the exhaust temperatures on the computer showed me something was wrong with the number one cylinder and just as I went out of the trailer to warn Dave, he pulled off that rocker cover and said “something’s wrong with this number one cylinder.” Now we may not know what we’re really looking at when we inspect a track, but we know when something’s wrong with one of our cylinders and sure enough a broken pushrod adjuster was found on the exhaust pushrod. In an almost exact repeat of a situation we encountered at this year’s Easter race, the exhaust pushrod stopped operating, filling the cylinder with fuel so that the inlet valve couldn’t open. This in turn broke the intake pushrod and punished the lifter below it, which then got at the camshaft. Although the motor was still usable we knew it was prudent to take the cam out and polish it up. With a dragster it is kind of hard to extract the cam from the motor in situ because the cockpit gets in the way so the easiest thing to do was to change motors. The super crew (with our good friend Brian “Harry” Palmer working in place of a work-bound Mike) soon had the number one motor out and replaced it with the identical, and brand new, number two, setting number one aside for repair later that evening. In time for the third qualifying session we were all fired up and ready to go and it was clear that the drag strip was in its usual top form so we really turned up the wick and hit the right lane for all it was worth. Sure enough, it was worth a lot as we recorded our best ever ever numbers of 5.440 and 261.25 mph. The quarter mile speed was good for a European record and we had also notched up the best eighth mile speed ever in TMD with an enormous 213.06 mph. It shows just how competitive the Top Methanol Dragster class is though because the elapsed time was only good for the number two spot behind Peter Schöfer’s 5.439! In a five car field like the one we were entered in the number two spot is widely considered to be the best because you race the last qualifier in the opening round and if you get through that you get a bye run in the semis straight into the final. Once we knew that both Schöfer and number three man Rob Turner were not going to run in the final session we also elected to sit tight, completely strip and inspect the number two motor after its 261 mph checkout pass and get the number one motor all fixed up ready to run in case we needed it on race day. A big hats off to the American Car Imports Crew for getting stuck in to all that extra preparation, inspection and maintenance work right after the thrash to change engines between qualifying runs. By midnight we had everything ready for the big day and when we got the shock of finding out that first round was at 9:30 the following morning we all retired to bed to make sure we were in top form for eliminations. After all, we are professional athletes at their peak of fitness… At 7:45am on Sunday we alerted the rest of the pits to a gorgeous, sunny Norwegian day by starting our car up. We wanted to check over the checked-over motor in time to fix it if there was anything wrong before the early opening round. Sure enough there was a problem; the number one cylinder wasn’t firing. Being the accomplished cylinder problem spotters we are we soon spotted it and traced the problem back to a duff spark plug. With a new one installed the car was soon firing on all eight again and were all set for our first round match up with Krister Johansson’s awesome sounding A/Fuel Dragster. Our shaky and close to the guard rail 5.587 at 256.63 mph was more than enough to beat Krister’s troubled 6.922 but it gave us a clear indication that the track was in different shape to previous day. Apart from a broken inner valve spring no problems were found back in the pits but we still had to work hard and fast to be warmed up and ready in time for our semi final bye. There seemed to be little difference between the lanes meaning lane choice for the final was unimportant so we made some big changes with the tune up to shoot for a big number. Across the classes performance levels seemed down on the previous day indicating the bright sunlight and high temperatures were having an adverse affect on the racing surface. Although our car ran better, a 5.503 at 258.69 wasn’t quite what we had hoped for. Still it was good enough for a spot in the final against championship leader Peter Schöfer who, despite breaking his rear axle in his semi final, had got through after opponent Rob Turner was forced to shut off with a fuel leak. The final was clearly going to be crucial to our championship hopes and we thought long and hard about our tune up for the money round. As the drivers got strapped in the tension in both camps was clear for all to see but when the signal to fire up came Schöfer’s car steadfastly refused to start. Once Dave had made it back to the line from his burnout the starter told him he was on his own so he set himself up to concentrate on getting back the low elapsed time points rather than winning the race. After feeling some shake in low gear Dave knew that wasn’t going to happen so he took it easy on the motor with the gear shifts and put a 5.538 at 260.57 on the scoreboards for a somewhat anticlimactic win. Whilst that was not the way we had wanted the race to go down, getting the car to the line every time is a big factor in winning championships and had cost us dear last year, so we were soon in celebration mood. We put far more people in the pick up than the Norwegian police would have approved of and hit the town of Gardermoen (which consists of a hotel, a petrol station, two houses, a bus stop and a stable) with fellow methanol winners, the Erbacher funny car team. Much fun was had by all and after a proper sit down meal we all went next door to McDonald’s to fill the gaping hole left by the proper food before heading back to the track to sleep it all off. Once the dust had settled everyone agreed it had been one heck of a race. Congratulations to ex TMD racer and valued friend, Kim Reymond, for the quickest Top Fuel run ever in Europe by a country mile at 4.76 and also to our great friends, the Leanders Bros. funny car team, for running in the 5.7s for their first time. Many thanks to all of our great sponsors and personnel who have been working so hard to keep this European tour rolling and also to UK doorslammer racer Bob Lees for the loan of the weights. Glad we could take some of your stuff over 260 Bob! We take the points lead into the penultimate round of the FIA series at the Formula One facility in Hockenheim, Germany where we are well aware that Peter Schöfer will be even more determined to win than ever in front of his home crowd and sponsors. Hopefully a lot of British fans will be making the annual pilgrimage to the land of endless varieties of sausage and incredibly large beer glasses like normal so please come by to say hi and then cheer on the Brits in front of the hugely partisan German crowd. We can’t wait…
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