European Drag Racing News (2024)

"We had a great time", says Gerda. "You have all kind of thoughts before you enter a new class for the first time. Despite all kind of small problems we managed to get the car going and the team ready for their new task. It's amazing to see how our crew enjoy their new job. They are very keen on learning all aspects of Nitro racing.Despite the fact that we didn't have enough crew members, the atmosphere was tremendous.Also the cooperation with the Showtime team went really well. The crewworked together when necessary, and Bob's boys didn't hesitate to tellus everything there is to know.

"The Fuel Funny car class showed this weekend that they are ready to show theirreal nature. John Spuffard who made a tremendous run into the 5.2 and just missed theback-up because the blower belt let go, Gordon Smith who had a successfulweekend, running the quickest side by side with John in qualifying.We will also do our best to be a good contender and it looks really promising to do that. Gary Page will be back in a Funny Car later this season. Enough to think about for all the Nitro FC fans!

"Lex Joon Racing want to thank the safety crew for their tremendous work at the track,these guys are really awesome!"

You can read more about Lex's weekend on the official LJR web site at www.lexjoonracing.nl.

Only two weeks since we won the Speedfreaks Ball at Santa Pod Raceway, and we were already back en route to the same venue for the Main Event. Despite the forecast Saturday and Sunday turned out to be nice days and Monday was even sunny & warm. In other words, excellent race weather all weekend.The entry list of our Top Fuel Bike field showed a total number of eighteen competitors, of which a record number of no less than twelve were Fuel bikes.

Our first qualifying attempt was tough one. The bike lost some traction right off the line and when it hooked up it became a little loose and started to drift towards the centre line. Roel was off the throttle for a second and a half to correct this. When he opened the throttle again it started to move sideways again a bit, so he decided to back it off, 6.1 seconds in the run. The result was a still respectable 6.512/209.5. We werewell-qualified and because we had to re-torque the cylinder head gasket (which is quite some job on our bike) we decided to sit out the last qualifying round of Saturday. Though Sverre Dahl came within 0.004 seconds of our time, we kept the provisional # 1 spot at the end of the first qualifying day. We were really sorry for Sverre as he broke the drive shaft of his oil pump during his run, and the damage to the crank was beyond repair, forcing him out of competition.

Because of our comfortable lead we decided to sit out the first qualifying round of day number two as well. It was at such an early time of the day that we expected not to have the optimum grip to make an improvement. It proved to be a good decision, as most of our competitors went up in smoke or didn't improve their previous times. We took the second session of the day which took place at about 14:30. We had added just a little more nitro and made a small change to the clutch. The next thing we saw on the score boards was a 6.26/221! An improvement on our #1 qualifying position and a new personal best. Number two spark plug had lost a porcelain which slightly damaged the exhaust valve, so we had to take the cylinder head off and skip the last qualifying round. Eventually the bump spot stopped at a record 6.94.

Later on back at home we discovered that the lock up system didn�t work well because of a bad seal in the clutch bearing. Also we found out that the puff of smoke which was seen at the finish line was caused by a piston ring malfunction - we had an 80% leak down on one cylinder in the last run. Running consistently in the 6.2s-6.3s, number one qualifier, event winner, new personal best, Low ET and High Speed of the race, and leading the Championship comfortably, with a malfunctioning clutch system and a huge leak down on one cylinder. What more could one ask for? Happy, you ask? You bet we are!

Team Koedam like to thank the following companies: Torco International Corporation, Santa Fe Springs (USA);Nimbus Motorsports, Baiton (GB); Dakota-Industry, Ettlingen (Germany); Flexion bv, Roermond (Holland);Goodridge Benelux BV, Delft (Holland); Goedhals Machine Fabriek, Amersfoort (Holland); Jan Smit�s Power Parts, Wormerveer (Holland); Motorparadijs, Eindhoven (Holland); Jan Roelofs Race Service, Valkenswaard (Holland);Arai Helmet (Europe) BV, Hoevelaken (Holland); Zodiac International, Mijdrecht (Holland).

"After our continued problems at the Main Event I was happy to qualify, let alone take the win.We managed to damage both of our engines during the weekend amidst the catalogue of other mishaps, including starter motor and generator failures. I would like to be able to say what a great weekend's racing it was, but unfortunately I hardly saw any and certainly by our standards, we didn't do any.

"Hopefully both engines will be repaired in time and we look forward to some good quality racing in Finland...if Mr Gipp and myself can find it!

"A big Thank You goes to Ian, Gary, Alex and Mark for all the hard work on the bike and to Lynn for keeping everyone smiling. Thanks to everyone for their support."

The Nitrous system is now definately working and Roger will be fine tuning the settings for the Power Nationalsat Shakespeare County Raceway on 14th-15th June. We experimented with gas on both Kat 1 and 2 but this is the time we needed it to work, and jugding by 'Hollywood' Karl's expression after the first couple of runs lastweekend it did, and some.

Main thanks from the team to: Braggs of Surbiton Limited, and to Roger for all his hard work. Thanks to the crew Steve and Bert, to Hollywood for riding so well, to Brad for the nitrous bits, and to everyone who came by to wish us luck in finding that seven and some naughtiness on the way.

Deszoe and Steve set out Thursday morning for the journey to the UK in thefaithful old Saurer, which is called Sweet - Sweet and Saurer, get it? We left Krivan HQ at 9:00 Thursday and arrived at Santa Pod Friday 12:00 via Dunkirk/Dover on a Norfolk Line ferry, which was nice! The rest of the Krivan crew - Iris, Adrian, and Marcel - flew out on Friday morningand drove up from Luton in a hire car which changed into a crew car for theweekend. We were joined by Robin Grice, who also flew in fromSwitzerland, and Lindsay Deuchar of LA Racing who drove in from deepestYorkshire.

Once all the crew was assembled on Friday it was found that due to a lack ofcommunication all of the Swiss teams' race cars required some extra tubeswelding on the roll cage. So as the rest of the crew unloaded the truck, Steve (der Englander) wasdespatched on a mission to find a suitable trailer to haul the race car toWebster Engineering. Many thanks to Wayne who let us borrow histrailer. The exchange went something like this - Steve "is this your trailermate?", Wayne "Yes", Steve "Can we borrow it?", Wayne "Yes". Great lad noquestions and we are away with his trailer! Wayne has a really fine SSChevelle. With the car on Wayne's trailer, Tech guy Mark Nortontowingit, and Des and Steve installed in the back seat we set of for Webster Race Engineering. The car was left at John's to be picked up at 22:30. we returnedto the Pod to finish setting up the pit area. We whiled away the timewatching people's reaction when looking under the car body to find thatthere was no car under it.

At the appointed hour we picked the car up from Jonn Webster's, an excellentjob carried out in a pristine workshop, very impressive. Back to the Pod by23:00, with Mark putting up with some more of Steve's crap jokes on thejourney, got the race car unloaded and returned the trailer to a relievedWayne. We started to prepare the racecar and lo and behold all the lights went out, sothe hire/crew car was positioned with its lights on so we could finish.

Saturday morning dawned sunny and bright, a lavish breakfast was provided byIris, which involved the largest jar of chocolate spread you have ever seen -note for all you Johnny Foreigners out there, the Swiss eat bread andchocolate for breakfast, it's great! The crew did the final preparation on the race car ready for the firstqualifying run, working together like a well-oiled machine, that oil probablybeing Kendall. After Adrian fettled the clutch, Lindsay and Robin thebottom end and Marcel and Steve the top end, the car was ready for a warm-up. The warm-up went without a hitch and we were ready. It is strange how duringthe warm up a crowd gathers, but always within seconds of the engine startingthey all run away crying, probably overcome with emotion at seeing such afine example of engineering!

Ready to qualify; the race car was towed around to the fire-up lane, Des wasstrapped in and on the signal the car was fired up. Des took the car intothe lane performed a perfect burnout, Adrian took the car into stage, and wewere up against Dan Larsen. Des launched strongly with a very powerful sixty-foot, however at three-quarter track the blower belt snapped, and the blower pulley disintegrated and leftthrough the side of the car. The timing slip read 6.286/204.97, good enoughto put us in fourth at this stage.

The rest of the weekend was spent watching the races. Stevewas positioned out front to network with the customers and ensured that asteady stream of kids kept Des busy signing autographs. Thanks to everybodywho stopped by to chat, we don't usually have the time as we are busy withthe car, but it was nice to have the time to meet everyone! Monday evening we packed up and Des and Steve set off in Sweet for theNorfolk Line ferry back to mainland Europe, arriving back in Switzerland at20:30 on Tuesday evening.

Besides Iris, Adrian, Marcel and Steve, we would like to thank the following:Wayne, for the trailer; Mark Norton, for driving us to Webster's and back;Jon Webster, for doing an excellent job on the car; Robin Grice, for coming over and helping out on the bottom end; Lindsay Deuchar, for leaving darkest Yorkshire and helping out on the bottom end; Kendall Motor Oil; Energy Release; Norfolk Line;the Santa Pod crew; and the Eurodragster crew. We would like to congratulateUrs Erbacher, Peter Sch�fer and Smax for some exciting races and new records!And thanks to everyone who turns up and makes it a great weekend...

You can find Deszoe Krivan's web site at www.dragracing.ch.

"I fell from a scaffold on Thursday, landing on my face and spraining both wrists", saysSteve. "As I have to hit my shifter hard to change gear with my left hand - the one which hurt the most - I thought I might just have to stage for the points. But I thought what the hell, let's give it a go. Jayne got the dial-in one thousandth off on our first qualifying run. We got throughround one on Sunday evening but lost to Aidan Kenny on Monday morning, breaking out by four thousandths, but at least we kept our championship hopes alive.

The Team Orange web site is now up and running at www.teamorange.org.uk.

Notable misadventures in Pro ET were the absence of Terri Lee's beautiful Escort van, her much awaited return being once more delayed by new problems. We heard that this time it was a cracked block. We would like to extend our sympathy and best wishes to Terri and her husband Ian, they have endured so much bad luck and yet persevered. We hope this further setback will be overcome soon.

Gareth Mogford didn't have much luck with his first qualifying round - his propshaft yoke giving up the ghost just after the burnout. Again we hope Gareth will persist and be back at the next event.Worse fate befell Ray Perkins in the well presented blue zephyr when he crashed during an early qualifying session. Fortunately Ray was not badly hurt, but the car looked as if a major rebuild will be needed.

Heaven and Hell's adventures were also not of the Heaven persuasion. The transmission used on the first Webster Test Day (which gave them lovely launches but no second gear) was installed in the Camaro for the Main Event, don't ask why - brain fade and too many transmissions in the garage come to mind - and the team had to take the car home to London to swap it with one which actually worked, coming back to the pits at ten to midnight on Saturday and eating cold sausages and burgers kindly kept for them by the Z Case team.This resulted in only one proper qualifying effort and a qualifying position which made Carla ask for hemlock and cyanide for breakfast.

Steve Wells in the lovely Team Orange Pop pick up, in the mean time, was overcoming serious pain when shifting gear - we could tell you why, but then we'd have to kill you (or alternately read the news item abovethis one - Ed) - and managed to pull a .001 qualifier in his first outing. The numbers ensured a #1 qualifier. That'll do, he thought, I don't have to endure the pain any more, I can just sit back and reasonably hope that nobody will get better that one thousandth off. Oh, no. Not in Pro ET. Marius Blackburn, like a thief in the night, decided that yes, there was enough space to topple Steve. After all, one thousandth of a second is a long time inPro ET. And yes, he pulls a .000 from his dial in and steals #1 from right under Steve's nose. No mercy shown for Steve's heroic gear shifting.

Marius deservedly went all the way to the final when he unfortunately redlit against Lee Huxley.Marius is not new to these upsetting dead-on runs when other racers are basking in the glory of a #1 qualifier earned with one-thou off. He dislodged Bob Doyle last year in much the same way.Talking of Bob, Marius beat him in the first round by one of bracket racing's weird rules, first or worst. Bob and Marius pulled identical red lights (0.483) but the quickest car had the upper end in bracket racing and Marius redlit last. As a consolation Bob ran consistent 10.2s during the weekend, proving that he built a strong combination which is well capable of running a nine-second quarter with the right weather (best time so far 10.05). It must be kept in mind that not only we are talking of a small block here, but a 340ci small block at that.

In the meantime the Spellbound team were having quite a good weekend. They were happy to qualify fourth atsix thousands off their dial in of 11.05. They were also pleased to ran two back to back passes with identical times, both 11.041 and they got through the first round of eliminations on Sunday evening against Rob Elsom who pulled a red light. The second round was against their good buddy Kev 'Kiwi' Taylor, and Kev proceeded to beat them by .063 secs. Malk beat Kev off the line but then broke out running a 11.02 on an 11.04 dial in, while Kev ran a 10.41 on a 10.40 dial in. Great race. All in all a brilliant weekend as always, with Marcie having her first experience of starting the car and using the two-step, one very happy bunny.

Tokyo Toy added another first round red light to their collection after pulling a .503, .511 and .540 in qualifying. Our commiserations to the team. Not far behind in collecting unlikely defeats were the Heaven and Hell team, of course. Not content with losing at Shakespeare County Raceway with a .511 light (breaking out by four-thou) they decided to beat themselves even if their opponent broke on the line, and proceeded to break out by .027 for good measure. This put a smile back on the lips of David Vegter, who thought he was loading up to go back to the Netherlands. However his hopes were then dashed by Terry Wareham, as David fell asleep on the line and then broke out by three hundredths trying to catch Terry up.

Gino Bernadine put up an excellent fight by qualifying #6 .016 off his dial in and running strong 9.60s. His luck came to an end when his starter motor gave up the ghost and he didn't have time to fix it before first round on Sunday evening. This left Jerry Charles on a bye on his first ever round of eliminations. Jerry is new to racing on the track (but certainly not new to racing on the street!) and had lots of fun at his first meeting.His well presented blue Capri sports a 502ci engine and (we know this as absolute fact) the car is his daily driver, complete with stereo, heater and various creature comfort stuff. He also claims low fuel consumption (although whether I can believe his claim that it is less juicy than my Firebird is another matter) and ran effortless 10.3s.He still has a few things to learn about bracket racing, but his enthusiasm and love of speed will certainly make him into a contender in the near future.

All in all the class was as competitive and fun to race in as always. I am sure everyone in Pro ET will want to join me in congratulating the ex-Pro ET racer Al Golding for his much-awaited eight-second run and his well deserved win in Super Pro ET. Three hoorays for Big Al!

My apologies to the racers who have not been mentioned - please let us know a few bits about what's going on in your pits and we'll try to put together a more complete report next time.

You can find the UK Pro ET web site at www.proet.co.uk.

"I run a motor sport rescue ambulance and as a keen supporter of all thingsmotor sport I am trying to promote the joys of going to motor sport eventsto the general public", says Ryan. "To this end I am putting together a motor sportstand at Thrapston Charter Fair (fourteen miles from Santa Pod) on June 28th whereas many things as possible in the motor sport domain will be represented totry to whet the appetites of the general public to get involved,marshalling, watching, or competing.

If you can help then you can contact Ryan by E-Mail at [emailprotected], or by phone on 01908 297713 days or01832 732345 evenings.

"Now that the dust - or should that be oil dry - has settled, I think a few Thank Yous should go out", says Darren. "Firstly thank you to all the Sportsman racers for their patientce and understanding when we run an FIA/UEM meeting. Thank you to all the marshals for their hard work and dedication, and to the team of Swedish friends we had over from Mantorp Park - Thomas, Netten, Suzziand Håkan - I look forward to working as hard for you as you did for me this weekend. Seeyou at Mantorp Park soon guys. Thank you to Kjell Pettersson, David Lloyd-Jones, Pete Button and Eurodragster.com for their support and help over a very stressful weekend.

We are sure that everyone will join Darren in congratulating everyone involved, and we are equally sure thateveryone will want to congratulate Darren on running such a hugely-successful event.

Wow! Wow! Wow (Isn't that a Kate Bush song? - Ed)! What an amazing weekend for the Ant Hill Mob!We won the deal and ran an incredible 4.89/303.14, which is .07 faster than Andy Carter's incredible4.89/303.07 last year!

I would firstly like to thank Tommy Moller for reminding me that a 5.07 wouldn't cut it, so out hero Alan Jacksondialled in a 4.89! Most of the thanks of course go to Al for his amazing feat of running three Top Fuellers andLeif Helanders Fuel FC, and getting two of us - Gary Page and I - into the Top Fuel final.It was a fantastic race for me and testimony to the statement "Everything comes good to he who waits"...bloody hell, this is my thirtieth year drag racing!

King Knut is a star. The new Purple Loans-backed dragster needed lots of work so we were all at the Press Day working hard and animal Mark, Mack, Franko and buddy from Malta worked right throught the next few days to get us on the track so a big Thank You there. Mark and Dave did a sterling job on the three clutches, and Gary Page and Terry pitched in, and nice to see John Sharod! Scotch Rob left his band to 'get dirty' all weekend.Knut, Sharon and Robin got stuck right in and despite a few problems pulled out all the stops to make sure we got to the start line.

And what a result! Being number eight qualifier meant I faced Andy Carter in the first round, and putting him on the trailer first round was awesome. It felt like the fans picked me up and threw me down the track. I can'ttake anything away from Andy, he ran a 5.00 and was ahead at the eighth-mile mark, but the power of the Purple Dreams machine kicked in and kicked butt! Thanx Alan! The chutes didn't open so it was a hell of a ride getting it stopped after a 303 mph run but we eventually did!

In the second round I faced Øvyor Jacobsen, but now the fuel pump leaked and after changing the clutch we had to 'borrow' Micke Kågered's pump and put in a base line tune up. We ran a 5.05/294, narrowly missing backing up the speed record but getting the win by driving round Rune's missile. This meant that I was now in the final against team-mate and legend Gary page, driving my old red car. We both had stageing problems but I pulled out another 4.95/280 to take the win. We blew out a spark plug well before the thousand foot mark, fireballing the car and missing out on the record, but Knut was happy and I was ecstatic! Unbeaten in Top Fuel, three races out of three.

Keith Bartlett put on a excellent event, and Kjell and Darren gave me a first class race track. The crew where magical and amazing. Big congratulations go to Gary Page for getting to the final, to Dave Wilson and Urs Erbacher for their new records, to Peter Schöfer and Martin Hill for setting new personal bests, and to all the record breakers who made the Main Event one class act. And a big, big Thank You to all of the supporting fans and crew. See you all at the track!

"It was our great pleasure to welcome forty two guests from 1st National Telecom services to Santa Pod Raceway.The first to arrive on Moday morning included Albert Mackey. Albert was clearly impressed by the operation and theprofessionalism with which Carter Motorsport operates. A photocall was arranged for 9.30 am and I must say a huge thank you to all the press guys who responded superbly. Albert was pictured sat in the carand really enjoyed the experience despite being a little cramped! He and theother guests were also impressed by the size of the crowd and thoroughlyenjoyed the whole day.

"We also enjoyed the company over the weekend of Brent from Lucas Oils and Paul from Wynn'sLubricants over the weekend. We know you guys had a great time and we lookforward to seeing you at the track again.

"On the racing front, obviously we were disappointed with the outcome butwe can take a huge amount from the weekend. You have to rememebr that this isonly our second outing with the new car, and to come out and run 4.88 and getnumber one qualifier ain't too shabby!"

You can find the Carter Motorsport web site at www.andycarter.net.The guys from the Dragsterworld web site spent the weekend with Andy and the team and you can find theirvery interesting report at www.dragsterworld.com.

You can find the Leanders Brothers web site at www.leandersbros.com.

We lost to Bruno Bader in the final, but I am very happy with our performance this weekend. I must thank all the guys at Santa Pod for the great race track, my sponsor Holiday Autos, and my crew members Carsten and Olaf."

"A brand new ninety six-inch Racevisions Top Fuel Bike chassis is on its way, together with a set of billet PRP crankcases and cylinders and other parts, so it looks like we'll have a busy and hot summer", say Zman and Yla. "The ex-Pepper Pro Stock Bike roller has been sold to Antonis Mathiopoulosof Mathiopoulos Racing and is almost ready to race with a nitrous 1400 GSX engine sponsored by Greece's distributor of Auto Glym car care products.We have one high deck cast and one higher deck billet set of W3 crankcases in California waiting for us to pick them up and start working..."

"One thing I'm hoping is that some of the competitors from the 0-60 Challenge will be there so that we can issue a challenge to them to run against us on a proper surface. Will they? We'll see..."

You can find Andy's web site at www.redvictor1racing.co.uk.

The UK's Flying Dutchman Comp Bike and 10.90 Bike team have updated their web site with a report fromthe Excitement Nationals at Shakespeare County Raceway. You can find the very professional-looking FlyingDutchman web site at www.flyingdutchmandragbikes.co.uk.

Knut had particular praise for Crew Chief Alan Jackson who really had his hands full at the race, tuning the Top Fuellers as well as providing tuning advice to Fuel FC racer Leif Helander."There is only one word you can use to describe a man who tunes three Top Fuel cars in one weekend and gets two of them to the final: AWESOME!", said Knut.

"I would also like to thank John at Armour Fabrications. John did a great job of rebuilding Micke Kågered'scar after the crash last September, and he turned it back into a 300 mph race car (the Purple Loans car now driven by Smax - Ed). Well done, John!

The Carbon By Design team's next event is the Power Nationals at Shakespeare County Raceway on 14th-15th June, whenthe 'red' car is scheduled to match race against the Wildside Inc team. "I don't yet know who will be driving thecar at that race", said Knut. The team are also preparing for the next round of the FIA European Championshipsat Alastaro in Finland, where Smax Smith will be defending his Championship lead in the Purple Loans dragster. "Weare thinking of maybe running two cars in Finland", added Knut, "and we are in negotiations for SusanneCallin to run one of our cars at Mantorp Park in July."

When Knut spoke to us last night he had had his wallet out again "I have just bought two motors fromDon Prudhomme", he said. "If you want to be serious you have to run 4.8s. And if you want to run 4.8s thenwe have the fuel pumps to do it!"

"We had a very good time in England", says Lars. "We had the fastest Top Fuel Bike qualifying in the world. The last qualifier was 6.94, this is probably the fastest qualifying field in the world,ever. There were seven Top Fuel Bikes and one Funny Bike, and we had three more Top Fuel Bikes which didn'tqualify: normally Jon Leret should be in the mid sixes. This looks very good for the future. The elimination in TopFuel did have some problems with broken bikes, but we did see some really good racing. Roel Koedam showed us that he is very fast this year.

"Super Twin Bike was not as strong as normal. Only six racers qualified. This due to the fact that many of the racers are still working on the bikes and the others can't afford to go to England. Per Bengtsson hadbig problems in qualifying and was number six. This meant that he met Ton Pels in the first round. This time it wll worked for Per and he did took the win. He was also the winner of the event, Ronny Aasen was inthe other lane in the final. My personal feeling is that Ton Pels, RonnyAasen and Per Bengtsson are the three racers who will be battling for thechampionship this year.

"Pro Stock Bike is getting stronger and stronger. Riders from Sweden, Norway,Finland, Netherlands, Czechoslovakia, Italy and England were battling for the eightplaces. Roger Petterson set a new record in qualifying but asmall error eliminated him in the semi-final. The final was Chris Hopeagainst last year's Champion Øivind von Essen. Øivind was in too much hurryand had a red light. So this time it is Chris Hope on the top ofthe Championship after the first race. Chris is planning to do allrounds this year and so will be a very strong candidate for this year's title."

You can find the post-Main Event FIM/UEM Championship points on the King Racing web site atwww.kingracing.com.

Driver Martin Gleadow takes up the story:

"Friday night at the Main Event saw us encouraging an 8-71 to fit oursmall block Chevy - it didn't, instead fouling the distributor and damaging thecap and rotor - and attempting to fit the supercharger restraints, which ofcourse also didn't fit. A trip to the workshop in the early hours of themorning turned up an aluminium plate which Darren Galloway cut into aspacer for the hat with nothing more than a jigsaw and several cups oftea, a superb achievement. The 6-71 went back on, and a trip to US Automotiveproduced spare dizzy caps and rotors.

"With Brent from Lucas Oil Products onboard for the day, we went to do our observed runs. The launch went ok,but then the motor cut out, our second attempt saw the car cough on theattempted burnout and cut out, and finally on the third attempt I got up thetrack. However, due to a rapidly misting up visor, I took it slow andsteady, and once I had popped the chutes and opened my visor I could seethat I was still heading the right way.

"A massive YEAH! goes to Smax Smith from all the team, and well done to Joe Bond, Dave Wilson, Peter Schöfer,Martin Hill, John Spuffard, Urs Erbacher and all the other racers who madethe weekend so enjoyable. A big Thank You also to all who have helped andencouraged us, including everyone who came to wish us well, Bob Jarrett,Doug Bond, Dave Wilson, Steve Turner, Doug Ripley, Darren Prentice, SteveSilvester, Knut Soderquist (especially for the hair stylingadvice), anyone I have forgotten, and of course Lucas Oil Products, R-M Automotive Refinish, and Speedflow.

Martin tells us that although the team have switched to Super Comp, he will still be running hisexcellent UK Comp Eliminator web site at www.compeliminator.co.uk.He adds that the team now have their own URL at www.timemachine.co.uk.

"A Video News Release was sent to both Reuters and the European Broadcasting Union", says Caroline. "These are the two largest international News Agencies who feed international news and sport to their satellites. Almost every major broadcaster has access to this service and can 'download' our drag racing news/features as participants of this service."

"I can also confirm that the Swedish terrestrial channel TV2's sports news picked up the Main Event and broadcast it on Tuesday night between 10:00-10.30 pm", adds Caroline.

Update 15:30: We have just heard from Lex Joon Racing Team Manager Gerda Dijkstra that Lex is to be the subject of a feature on Dutch TV tonight (Thursday)."SBS6 did an interview with Lex this morning at our shop, and filmed also the MPM Dodge Avenger. We also gave them footage which Martijn filmed at the Main Event. It will be broadcast on SBS6 tonight at 22:30."

Keith's business is management and individual development and training, working with a lot of major private and public sector organisations. He tells us that a large part of this is work on presentation skills, media handling and personal impact.

"I haven't thought about dates and venue yet, as this will need to fit everyone's commitments. UK and European racers will be welcome".If you are interested and would like to find out a little more, contact Keith by E-Mail at [emailprotected] or by phone on 07770 593425.

Keith and everyone else will get another chance to see Andy Carter's TV performance as CarterMotorsports PR Dan Welberry tells us that Andy is to be on RI:SE again this Friday, which is broadcaston Channel 4 between 06:55 and 09:00.

"I would like to congratulate everyone taking part in the FIA Main Event, especially racers such asRoger Patterson, Dave Wilson, Urs Erbacher and all the rest who broke the European records; Kjell Petterson for preparing a good track as usual; and Keith Bartlett and all the crew at Santa Pod for the organisation. I can't leave out Tog And Sharkman for all those nice pics they take during every event, well done guys(Thanks! Ed)."

We have had several such E-Mails about our American CarImports-sponsored Event Coverage of the FIA Main Event. All we can say is thanks to everyone who has written with appreciative comments, and thanks to the 53,026 readers who tuned in to Eurodragsterduring our FIA Main Event coverage.

"I never expected to be in the final", said Gary. "There were a lot of shocks and upsets. We weren't the fastest car out there, but we had a good go and I certainly didn'tgive the race away to Smax. For the seventh and eighth qualifiers to be in the final was awesome.I don't know how we got through the weekend but we did! Alan Jackson (Crew Chief - Ed) wascalling the shots on all three cars, I don't know how he does it. And I don't know how I did it becausethere were really only four of us!"

If you were tuned in in to our Event Coverage on Monday you will have read that Top Fuel winner Smax Smith'sengine fireballed at the finish line and that Gary's engine smoked and dropped oil. "We've given Smax'scar the once over and it appears that all it did was to spit a spark plug out", said Gary. "Wedid a couple of pistons on my engine but it's nothing serious. We are getting Smax's car ready for thenext FIA round at Alastaro and the red car, which I drove at the weekend, is being prepared for a matchrace at Shakespeare County Raceway in a couple of weeks' time."

The bike has a Puma bottom end with an MTC top end and Sprintex blower. "It is basically the same as Tony Lang's bike", says Cannon. "It has all the right bits to work with as I get more competent on the bike. My Crew Chief Frank Brachtvogel, who has in the past been linked with Top Fuel legend Larry McBride, is the one calling the shots and I have to say it's an absolute privalige to work with someone so dedicated and an absolute professional. All that we have acheived so far is totally down to Frank -all I do is ride. We have now made seven passes on the bike and have got faster and further down the track with every pass, the best being 7.33/181.50. Unfortunatley we didn't qualify for the fastest Fuel Bike fieldin Europe with the bump at 6.94, but the team and I are totally satisfied with our meeting and we have had the pleasure of Jay and Schooly from the MRE camp with us this meeting for extra support.

"I would like to thank all the crew: Frank Brachtvogel, Jon Morton, Wayne Little, Paul Beaumont, andAndy Richards for their time and dedication to the team. Without them this couldn't and wouldn't be happening.Thanks also to Jayne for keeping us all supplied with food and drink. Roll on the next meeting, 28th-29th June at Santa Pod, and hopefully that elusive six-second pass.

"We are proud to be associated with Cannon Engineering, International CNC Limited, MRE, G-Max Fuels, Torco Oils and Mitchell Fox Limited."

Racers: Send your FIA Main Event reviews to us at [emailprotected] and we'll publish themhere.

Also working hard is Showtime Fuel FC team member Chris Dossett who has already updated theteam's official web site with a report from the FIA Main Event. Chris' report is as usual interestingand informative and is well worth a read. Check it out atwww.showtimeracing.co.uk.

• Dave Wilson, new European Top Methanol Dragster record of 5.461 backed up by a 5.483
• Dave Wilson, first ever TMD in the 5.4s
• Dave Wilson and Peter Schöfer, first ever side-by-side 5.4s in TMD
• John Spuffard, new European Fuel Funny Car speed record at 266.57 backed up by a 265.59
• Urs Erbacher, first ever Top Methanol Funny Car in the 5.6s
• Urs Erbacher, new European TMFC record of 5.694 backed up by a 5.715
• Fastest UEM Top Fuel qualifying field ever with a bump spot of 6.941
• Roger Petterson, new FIM/UEM European Pro Stock Bike record with a 7.396 backed up by a 7.456

We arrived at the track on the Friday afternoon, set up the pit and proceeded to put the engine back togetherafter our torching escapade at Santa Pod on the Webster Race Engineering Test Day. The block and head was welded by an old guy in Grimsby called Strante, who has been welding BSA and Norton crankcases since the year dot, and whodid a fantastic job.

Crew Chief Mark Windridge made up a tool with a dremel to re-o-ring the block and it worked fine right there in the pits. New copper head gaskets were bought and installed, although Dave Mckenzie spent a lot of time opening up the holes because someone (me) didn't order clearance holes for the half-inch moly studs which we are now using. New team member, eighteen-year-old Nathan did really well and just got on with any job he was asked to do, and remember all this work was being done under an awning in the pouring rain.

When we did get on the track, the surface turned out to be one of the best we have ever raced on at ShakespeareCounty Raceway. As Crew Chief Mark Windridge was backing me up after the burnout, he had to move to the side of the strip because his shoes were coming off. He pointed to the track and put his thumbs up. It's funny how you develop an understanding with your crew and know exactly what they mean, with hand gestures and the like.When I launched, I recorded my best-ever sixty foot of 1.23 but under load at half track we developed a misfire.On the next pass it was slightly worse so a new ignition system has already been bought and fitted in time for our next outing at the Modified Nationals at Shakey this weekend.

The bottom line is 'We Kicked Ass As Usual', we recorded the fastest times of all the Outlaws present, andthat with a sick engine to boot!