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10/08/2003 260 MPH!!! Sometimes it’s hard to think of a title for these reports so I thought it was best just to get the big news out of the way first; WE RAN 260 MPH!!! Yep, that’s not a typo folks, at this weekend’s Veidec Nitro Festival at Mantorp Park in Sweden (round three of the FIA European Top Methanol Dragster championship) we broke the 260 miles per hour barrier and upped the European speed record to 261.00 mph. As if that wasn’t enough we also carded a 5.49, found the lost city of Atlantis, put a man on Mars and built a perpetual motion machine. But seeing as these reports are supposed to be about racing and things that really happened I’ll concentrate on those for now… After filing my last report, Jennifer and I crossed into the Arctic Circle in the trusty van for a spot of reindeer hunting and midnight sun watching. We discovered we had made it as far as the midnight sun region when we spent three days waiting to watch the sunset. After heading across beautiful Lapland and into Norway we headed down through the fjords for just over 1000 miles (which incidentally would take just four hours in a car that travels at 260 mph) to Trondheim. Oh and if the nosey old witch who gave us so much grief for camping next to her there is reading this, yes, it was me who towed your caravan onto the railway line while you were out shopping the following morning. From there we went into the Swedish forests for a fantastic weekend with the Leanders Bros. crew. Many thanks to Ulf, Jorgen and Karin for their hospitality and to Lars for a very pleasant afternoon chugging round the lake in his 1940s motor boat and hanging out at his log cabin. Also a big thank you to Tomas and Anders for proving that Swedes forget how to talk after too much beer just like the English… On Sunday night we picked Dave, Linda and David up at Arlanda airport in Stockholm, found a hotel for the night and then collected the truck the following morning from the truck park, repaired the lamp post Dave hit getting it in there and then headed on to Mantorp. We spent the next four days pottering around getting ready for the big race by pulling the pistons and rods to check them, servicing all the cylinder heads and tidying up the hastily installed and repaired wiring from our tacho problems in Finland. We also fitted our new PSI supercharger. The old one had a couple of damaged rotors, so our friends a American Car Imports decided it was time we had a new one and kept the other as a spare. Who are we to argue? With all the work done, the crew safely flown in, our little pit fire extinguished (beware folks; WD40 cans explode when they come into contact with live electric terminals) and more than our fair share of pit space successfully hogged, we richened up the fuel system a little to play safe with the new blower and went out for our first pass. The first 150 yards of the drag strip had been resurfaced and the weather during the week had been very wet so everyone expected the racing surface to be very green. And they were all wrong as the track was in surprisingly good shape and we obviously got it pretty close with the fuel system as the ole’ girl cranked out a track record 5.571 at 257.03 mph in the left lane to take the number one spot. We had a little bit of shake on that run but knew that if we could hit the correct set up then a 5.4-second run was possible. The rain that had plagued the track crew during the week had also delayed the racing several times during the day and eventually washed out the day’s second qualifying session, so there was plenty of time to tour the pits, catch up with all our Swedish friends, take a Spendrups or two and talk about how drag racing was better when the races were started by a guy waving a bra around… At noon on Saturday we had a crack at the right lane and the PlayStation Express stormed through the first half of the track like a crewman running from a burning can of WD40. A whopping 208.66 mph at half track showed the car was really on one until the top gear shifter button malfunctioned, the car hit the rev limiter and Dave shut her off to a coasting 5.753 (a run we would have been delighted with just two years ago). Undeterred we turned the car round, fired it up, checked the timing, shut it off in confusion, moved the timing light pick up from the number three lead to the number one lead, started her up again and checked everything out ready to try and repeat the run we had just made except for the missed gear. Having left the tune up unchanged for the next run we were all surprised to see the car shake its way off the start line like a crewman with no shoes on running across pebbles from a burning can of WD40 and record a weedy 5.628 / 255.57. Then it rained again forcing the cancellation of the final qualifying session, so after starting out so well we had slipped down to the number three spot, had no real idea what we were doing with the tune up and were almost out of beer. All the great drag racers have been renowned for overcoming adversity so we hunted high and low, found an old case of Stella Artois under the kitchen floor and set to pouring over the video footage and computer data to try and work out what to do. In the end we made one very simple change. Observant fans and racers will have worked it out for themselves by looking at the car and everyone else probably wouldn’t understand anyway so I won’t spill the beans here but we thought it was a good idea. It has to be said our confidence had taken a bit of a knock during qualifying and all of us felt a little uneasy going into race day like we were heading up a rather foul smelling creek in search of a paddle… The sky was pretty overcast on Sunday but we went to the line on time for our first round match up with Jari Halinen at the wheel of our old friend and adversary Simo Patoharju’s Mad Bomber dragster. After watching a long clean up from one of the fuel cars it was finally our turn and I’m pleased to say Dave left the line first and never looked back on his way to a blistering 5.503 at 419.80 kph win. Yes folks, the scoreboards out here on the European tour are all in foreign and we have to translate. However it has been our ambition since we ran 259 mph in Norway last year to crack the 260 barrier so we all knew that 418.42 was the magic number we needed to exceed. Of course there was one heck of a celebration right there on the start line that we had made history once again. First in the 5.5s and 5.4s and now first in the 260s. That was also our third quickest elapsed time ever so we were a bunch of happy bunnies as we towed the car back to the pits and prepared it for our big semi final showdown with Peter Schofer who was nipping at our heels for the championship points lead after his win in Finland. Back in the staging lanes under threatening skies we were all ready to get it on for the big race and the signal to fire up just couldn’t come soon enough after another oil down ahead of us head held up the racing once again. Once we got out on the track there was great news; the car pounded out an awesome 5.492 at 261.00 mph. Sadly there was also bad news as the win light came on in Peter’s lane because of his quicker leaving 5.51. It was hard to accept that we had just run low elapsed time of the meet, the fastest speed ever and still lost but that’s racing I guess. We also lost the lead in the championship but the rain materialized shortly after the semis and the final was cancelled so at least we are only eight points behind. Now I know I’m always going on about how great our crew is, but it is a real credit to them that straight after a crushing defeat like that every one of them voted for cracking straight into the between races maintenance needed to get the car ready for the next FIA race in Norway the following weekend. So in the pouring rain we set about putting in a fresh set of rods as we had made 16 passes on the set in the motor, changing the heads over and servicing the clutch and transmission. After a 260 mph celebration Chinese meal in Linkoping that night we started the motor next morning to check it out, packed the pit away, left the track, tuned the wrong way on the E18, taking a 160 km detour, and finally arrived here in Karlstad for our annual summer holiday with lots of other vagrant drag racers. It is a beautiful campsite here, nestled between the lake edge and the surrounding forests. The view is marred somewhat by our rig behind me, Andy Carter’s in front of me, Peter Schofer’s, Rob Turner’s and Urs Erbacher’s rigs to the left of me and Bob Lees’ van and our van to my right. Apart from that it is your typical idyllic Swedish campsite scene. From here we will drive on to the legendary Gardermoen Raceway in Norway on Thursday for round four of the FIA tour. The facilities are awful, the crowd smell funny and scratch themselves a lot and the beer is outrageously expensive, but the race track is flat, extremely smooth, tight and typically lends itself to some big numbers. We have a couple of tricks up our sleeves to make the car make more horsepower so we are hoping for good weather, fast times, high speeds and great racing in the depths of the Norwegian forests. If any of you are crazy enough to be heading out there for a holiday we are right out of smokey bacon crisps and can’t find them anywhere, and of course we have eaten all the jam doughnuts and polished off all the Jack Daniels. It’s time for me to go now because last year’s unfeasibly terrible troubadour, Stefan Porth, is scheduled to appear in the bar again tonight and I want to reserve myself a seat as far from the loud speakers as possible. It’s been a pleasure as always. Cheers folks…
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