It’s hard to explain in words how happy the Robinson crew are after the Main Event 09’. After such a hard year in 2008 we were all quite nervous and skeptical about what would happen. We knew that the car had the power but transferring that to the race track seemed to be such a difficult task and when Easter didn’t give us much track time we really felt like we could be a bit behind some of the front runners.

We all saw the updates on Eurodragster.com, and to see Patrik Wikstrom dip so low in the teens definitely put a bit of pressure on us before the meeting even started.  I’m sure that none of the crew was really expecting the 6.13 to come up in the first round of qualifying!!
Our weekend started with that awesome run, at the time our new personal best a 6.13 and second qualifier, the crew were bouncing off the walls especially when we saw the timing ticket and realized we were the 2nd car in Europe to run a sub 4 second 1/8 mile.
We checked over the engine and everything was perfect, quick maintenance between rounds and we were ready to roll again, this is when we were told that unfortunately Patrik had broken his axle meaning that we would be taking his place as first alternate in the Pro Mod shoot out. This meant as well as qualifying we were also racing to win.

In the first round of this we were against Urban Johannson, against him we run a 6.102 and took the European ET record. As you can imagine we were ecstatic, not only to take the record but also we were ever so close to that first 6.00 run. We were ahead of the pack however the competition was hotting up behind us as more and more cars were running into the teens.
Our second day’s qualifying and round 2 and 3 in the shoot out were a little bit more challenging, the track was extremely hot which meant our set up was a bit too aggressive for it, in the 1st run of Sunday we shook the tyres and although we won the race against Marc Meihuizen, Andy pedaled throughout the run which would later cause us a little damage although we were unaware of this at the time.

This took us into the final of the shootout against Bruno Bader who had also been running low teens consistently. The run started well with Andy in front of Bruno however around 5 seconds into the run the burst panel popped and the car lost power meaning Bruno took the win and the 2000 Euros for the shootout. Even though we didn’t win, we came runner up which is great considering we were 1st alternate.

With qualifying and the shootout completed the real racing started. Being number one qualifier meant we were in the best position possible for race day. As we always say no round in Pro mod is easy and going into round two there were 6 out of 8 cars in the teens which is just outstanding. We had our most consistent day racing and in all four rounds we ran either 6.10 or 6.11, it was as if the car was on rails. We raced and won against some of the best European pro mods which really made the event win for us as it proved we can beat the best.

During race day we got closer again to that 6.00 and ran a 6.1001, which also meant the European record had been pushed a bit further. Although we didn’t manage to get that zero the crew were thrilled with the performance.
Its safe to say that this has been the most successful meeting for the team for a long time, the car ran like a dream all weekend, we did very little damage and ran like a bracket racer in the teens which is a real accomplishment.
We took the ET record and then pushed it further, ran the 2nd ever 3 second 1/8 mile and improved on our personal best time and time again.

We came runner up in a pro mod shoot out, number one qualifier and won the event. Our weekend really couldn’t have got much better and it shows that our ‘old nail’ as the crew like to joke is still very competitive.
From our success at the Main event we are leading the points in the FIA European championship and we are now leading the British championship too. Our next race is the Summer Nationals back at Santa pod, the second round for the MSA championship. Here we will be looking to win the event, continue as points leader and use this as a pre Finland test session.


On a personal note we would like to thank everyone who wished us well over the weekend and congratulated us, its great to win in front off our home crowd and the support we received was great. We would also like to thank our very hard working crew, here is to a great start to the season and the first of hopefully, many wins!!