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16/08/2004 3 OUT OF 4 IN 2004... AND 2 TO GO! To say that the last 2 months in the ACI racing stable have been eventful would be a massive understatement! From 4 day boat crossings, to rain effected races and nearly getting washed away in between races the ACI gang came through smiling, and most importantly WINNING! Just to get to Alastaro in Finland Grumpy and team mum Linda Wilson had to travel for 4 days on a container ferry before the rest of the team even left sunny England. The crew duly took the quick route by plane for 3 hours to Helsinki, which is amusing called ‘HEL’ on the luggage tags and arrived fresh and ready on Thursday. In Friday qualifying the car was as consistent as ever with a soft tune up for the track netting two 5.63’s, one at 252 mph and the 2nd at 248! No damage, no problems, and the car was turned around and ready to race on Saturday by the expert hands of Dave, Harry, Phil and Ricki with time to spare on Friday night. Finland isn’t the worst place in the world to hang out in the rain which is what it did all Saturday! So the presence of team principal Anthony Cohen and his wife Rhonda kept everyone amused, along with Ray MaGuire from Playstation who was going to be making a habit of visiting us through Scandinavia. Back to the racing and on Sunday it was all ACI! An admittedly lucky first round victory over local boy Arto Hoyla was made tighter because the blower belt broke at half track but Dave had enough momentum to carry him over the line ahead of the Finn! The final was between us and the Schofers, and in a repeat of the final in England the ACI flyer took the win after the German unfortunately had a problem on the line and couldn’t make the run. So far it was 2 for 2…………. So onto round 3 at beautiful Mantorp Park near Linkoping in Sweden. The track at Mantorp is one of the more unique in the world as it features an incline on the racing surface that climbs over 8 feet from startingline to finishline! That didn’t affect the performance of the ACI / Silverline tools dragster as after 2 days of quick runs, Dave Wilson was ontop of the pack for the 3rd time in 3 races! A new track record of 5.46 at over 258 mph was enough to make sure the rest of the field were following going into Sunday! We were once again joined by Ray MaGuire of Playstation who was having a great time on our Scandinavian leg of the tour, alone with moral supporters and all round good eggs, Catherine and Super Suzy! A first round bye run saw a conservative 5.59, 254mph on the scoreboards to set up a date with Rob Turner in his first race back since his fire at Santa Pod. Everyone was glad to see the Turner family back racing, but no one wants to lose. Dave strapped a hole shot on Rob and pulled away for a convincing 5.51 to 5.64 victory. Now if you’ve been reading the reports so far, you wont need any help as to who our final round opponent was going to be! Yep, you got it, German Peter Schofer again was to be in the other lane. After struggling with new parts in the first 2 FIA rounds, Peter and the team seemed to be getting a handle on it as their 5.55 255 mph win in the semi finals proved. A minor drama in the pits didn’t deter the ACI team, as a front tyre went down inexplicably, but was duly replaced with a spare front wheel. The crew made it to the line on plenty of time to race the German and after a strong burnout the stage was set for a classic final! On the green both cars left like a rocket and by the narrowest of margins the German took the win at 5.51, 254 mph to Dave close loseout of 5.55, 256 mph. The rain returned just after the final to make sure the celebrations were cut short, but we were still 2 out of 3 so far so life wasn’t that bad at all! A huge event on the Wednesday before the event in Norway saw a top fuel dragster fired up in the center of Oslo which was live on national TV and even opened the prime time evening show at 7pm. This meant that the event at Gardermoen was the biggest ever seen, and thousands of Norwegians showed up to see what our wonderful sport was all about! Friday was a very trying day for the team. The ACI flyer is normally on rails at any given time and we pride ourselves on consistency and performance. The virgin starting line at Gardermoen proved tricky for everyone and tyrespin and a broken blower belt meant we were way down the order by the close of Friday. You cant keep a good team down however, and especially not a championship one! We were joined by Malcolm Francis of Air sea Logistics and again by our now honoury team member Ray Maguire from Playstation to cheer us on! And boy did it work! Two absolutely storming runs followed and the number one spot was duly tied down with identical runs of 5.50. What set the runs apart though was the speed on the first run. For all the folks at ACI, Playstation, Silverline tools and every other valued supporter we have, you can proudly say that your Top Methanol Dragster is one of only 3 on the planet to run over 270 mph! A terrific top end speed of 270.37 mph came in the first qualifying session to leave the opposition gasping and wondering what they had to do to get a number 1 spot this year! Sunday dawned sunny and very warm, as had the rest of the weekend, and in keeping with the theme the ACI Flyer was consistent again at 5.50, 254mph in victory over Sweden’s Krister Johansson. The other semi final was between Rob Turner and Peter Schofer and the Brit did our championship hopes a huge favour by holeshotting the German and taking a moral lifting 5.56 to 5.53 win! So for the first time in 2004 the final wasn’t between Dave and Peter! As you may have guessed from the title of this piece, win number 3 came up on the boards in only 5.52 seconds to see off Turners close 5.56 second try! So that was us around Scandinavia. 2 wins out of 3 events. Only the 3rd car in the world over 270mph and 3 number 1 qualifying efforts aswell as low et and top speed at each race! A huge thanks to the whole team and everyone who came and supported us while we were so far away from home. We cant wait to do it again in Germany and see everyone for the best send off to the year at Santa Pod in England on the 10th-12th of September! Keep that date free, you cant miss the finale!
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