The Main event for us started on Thursday when Andy and Luke went up to the track to set up. Friday is dedicated to the sportsman racers so for us it was a chance to get the car race ready and do anything else that was required. The rest of the team followed during the day ready for the first qualifying session on Saturday.

However the weather was terrible and it ended up being a complete wash out.
Between watching the rain and not doing very much we saw Melanie Troxel’s car arrive from Holland where it had been flown to. A massive crowd circled the car as it was unloaded. It was great to have the US team over; everyone was friendly and interested in how we race over here in Europe. Roger Burgess, Travis and the rest of the team are currently trying to organise a world pro mod series, which is very exciting. 

With Saturday washed out, the plan was for there to be 3 runs on the Sunday which would leave us one short of our usual 4, however unexpected delays including our oil down delayed the racing too much to fit them in. In the pairing lanes we waited patiently as we were the 2nd to last pair. Our run wasn’t great, after a strong burnout the Stude hit a bit of tireshake but Andy drove through. However through the top end a cloud of smoke covered the car – we feared that our new block would be damaged, so we rushed back to get Andy and see where we were and how we were going to fix it. Oil covered the car, all over the drivers side of the windscreen which meant that Andy struggled to see where he was going. As the oil was pushed back it went all over the wheels front and back which meant that the car was sliding all over the track at the top end. Clocking a 6.3 is not ideal wihen the car is skating on a sheet of oil. Of course we couldn’t see this, all we saw was smoke and we’re thankful that it didn’t result in an accident.

So whilst the track crew are clearing our oil off the track we were trying to figure where our problem cam from. Expecting to see rods hanging from the block, we were thankful it was only a damaged piston, liner and a head gasket. The oil had come from a large split in the oil tank, caused by the resultant pressure. There was not much oil left in the tank which would explain why the car and the track were completely covered. (We would like to apologise to all the racers and track crew for the down time caused by our unfortunate oil down!)

So with spares in the trailer, all hands were on deck to try and clean the car up, fix the damage and get out for our next session. We knew it would be tight as the day was really pushing on and although we were qualified at this time we knew the next session would knock us down the bottom of the pack if we couldn’t improve. Luckily for us we managed it with a lot of help, lots of rags and tissue and a fair amount of petrol to clear the oil from…literally everything! We managed to qualify 4th after the first session, and while we knew we could do better, new names were popping up and the competition was hotting up.
Johan Lindberg, with the Rockstar Firebird ran a 6.08 on the first run. We knew they were likely to improve and on the second they took the top spot with a 6.01.
We also improved with a 6.12 to take the 3rd qualifying spot while racing against Graham Ellis who jumped from a previous PB of 6.2 to a 6.07. (Well done from all the team, we’re glad the car is showing how much potential it really has!) And that was that, 2 runs and qualifying was finished, unfortunately for us, more damage on the second run was haunting us and we were very worried we hadn’t found the true cause of the problem.

Eliminations came round very quickly as the team were working on the car till late and then again early in the morning. Our first session is at around 9am and were the first cars out onto the track. We were up against Jan Gunnarsson with the Badillac. This car is fast, in Sweden last year he was in the final against Mats, which unfortunately due to rain wasn’t finished. He was dipping very low into the teens and it was not much of a surprise that he would run a 6.0 sooner or later. After two runs struggling they managed to run a 6.04 against our 6.11. Fortunately running quick doesn't earn the win and quick reactions from Andy put us through to the next round. With the car back in the pits, the car was in good shape and no damage… so onto the next run again Micke G!

At this point Melanie Troxel had been knocked out by Adam Flamolc. Unfortunately with the rain restricting the passes the US team had it up against them to get a good pass (however they did still manage to run a 6.2 in qualifying and in a demonstration pass later in the day they popped out a stout 5.93). Both Andy and Micke had been running quick they were really going for the best reaction. What could be described as a slow red lite from Andy .002 reaction to Micke’s .05 reaction meant that Andy took the win with a 6.12 to Micke’s almost identical 6.12.

We were through to the semi’s and doing well, a few minor issues sorted and we were back in business against Adam Flamolc. We actually had the better side of the tree coincidently enough as on the other side was Johan Lindberg who was bracket racing in the 6.0’s all day and then Mats Eriksson who in the 2nd round pulled out a 6.03 which would match the Lindberg Brothers ET’s. Unfortunately for Mats he lostthrew it away with a red light and gave Lindberg the win. With our semi to run, Andy pulled round to the start line and completed the usual process, a slower reaction after our 2nd round caution but still nipping Adam on the lights. We took the win with a 6.12 but in that we also ended our weekend because another cloud of smoke and another oil down occurred after the 1/8 mile. The crew rushed to the finish line to see the damage, oil up right hand side of the car, first impressions were that it was too much damage to fix, and unfortunately they were correct.

The damage wasn’t as bad as expected, the block was fine and it was another piston causing us trouble. However the choice was made not to race because the boys didn’t have enough time to properly check and clean everything and didn’t want to risk more damage. There was also not enough time to put our spare engine in so we called it a day to stay safe.
The most positive point from that run was the 1/8 mile time. We ran our best 1/8mile in the semi finals which leads us to believe if the piston didn’t break we would have ran a 6.04 (ish) as it was better than our previous 1/8 PB on our 6.05 run.

All in all, out of 29 cars we got to the final 2, and that is a real achievement. We weren’t the fastest overall, during the testing and runs during the weekend we were knocked from being the 2nd fastest in Europe to being the 4th. Two other cars dipped into the zeros (Graham and Marc both ARRC Cars) which is also great. Although we didn't achieve a zero, we ran consistent low 6.1’s all day, and with Andys driving its clear that, sometimes the fast numbers wont always win you the race!

We are very pleased for the Lindberg Brothers team, they ran consistent 6.0’s all weekend and really deserved to take the win, we wish we could have given them a race for it but there is always next time. We would also like to give credit to Sean Brown of Acceleration Enterprises and Jeff Burnett from JBR for their help over the weekend.

For us, our next race is in 3 weeks time at the Summer Nationals back at Santa Pod, this is for the MSA championship which we will be looking to hold onto our lead in the points and use it hopefully to iron out some of our gremlins. After that we will be travelling to Finland for the 2nd round of the FIA Championship.

Between the races we will be stripping the engine and really trying to analyse what’s going wrong so we’re on top form to chase down those Brothers!