After 5 weeks of extremely hard work, we made it to Germany for the 4th meeting of the European FIA Championship. With Andy finishing the final jobs on the car at 6pm on Tuesday night, its safe to say we only just made it when we left at 7am on Wednesday morning!

After a long drive we arrived at the track at around midmorning on Thursday to be greeted by our fellow pro mod racers all of whom were very complimentary about how fast we’d managed to get back onto the track (well there’s no point in messing about is there!). The crew set the awning up, pushed the car in and started with a few last minute checks, the new red paint with our fire department badge attracted a lot of attention as planned and we were visited constantly by people saying how pleased they were to see us back at the track. I got the impression that they perhaps didn’t expect to see us this quickly considering the damage.

On Friday we were scheduled with two qualifying runs. A very nervous crew cautiously started with they’re start line procedure as we raced against Micke Lindahl. The burnout was good but the very sticky track pulled the revs down and caused a little pop at the end, we’re not 100% sure whether this is when our burst panel went or whether this pop was just Andy catching the clutch in time but either way with a great amount of tire shake the burst panel popped and Andy coasted to the finish.

After a bit more investigation it was unclear what had exactly happened however we edged on the side of caution and checked through the heads, blower etc the crew felt happy that everything was ok and we finished the maintenance ready for the 2nd session. Considering that we only ran a 7.6 we still didn’t qualify that far down the pack. Our second run was much more successful and we clocked a 6.19 which the team were all thrilled with. After 5 weeks we were back to a position where we can move forwards and work on being more competitive. Andy said the car feels great but different, every part had been changed or refurbished and due to this the car reacted differently, which took Andy a bit of getting used to as you can imagine.

Ryan clocked that one of the valves had pulled so it was ‘off with the head’ and on with a fresh one. After the usual maintenance we were ready for Saturday’s racing.
We were looking at three run’s as the first round of eliminations would be just before the night show on Saturday – this means if you don’t get through the first round, your not racing on race day! Even more pressure then! Our third and fourth qualifying passes were much the same, consistent low 6.2s helped to gain a bit more confidence that the car was working well. We just needed to step things up as by this point we were down to 6th qualifier. Although the qualifying was close between the top 6, we ideally wanted to be closer to the top spot which was held by Melanie Troxell with a 6.04.

The only good thing with being 6th qualifier is that we were on the opposite side of the tree to Melanie. (Which after the way that car was running was definitely a good thing!) By the time our 3rd run of the day came round and our 1st round of eliminations the air had cooled a bit and the track had seen some good numbers on it from all of the Pro classes. We were up against Marco Maurischat and according to qualifying times we had a tenth over him – however in racing you know full well everyone pops one out the bag and we know Marco can run fast so we needed to step our game up.

While waiting in the fire up lane the session was delayed due to Fast Freddy who suffered from a fuel tank explosion and ultimately caught on fire much like we did in Finland. The feelings all came back of our experience and it was very sad to see it happen again to a friend and fellow driver. The most important thing is that Freddy managed to get out missing only some of his eyebrows. Unfortunately, like our Stude, the truck was damaged badly and will need a total rebuild from chassis to get back to the track. Freddy and his crew are keen to get back racing for the Euro Finals, however that’s only 3 weekends time and a lot of work to do. We do hope that they make a speedy return as we will miss Fast Freddy and the crew if they are not there!Once the track had been cleared a few more dramas took place, when Adam Flamholc crossed the centre line against Johan Lindberg as well as Robert Joosten against Melanie Troxell. Luckily our race was uneventful in that sense, and both cars were on great passes. Andy left first, however as we predicted Marco would step up his game and clocked a great 6.26, unfortunately for him we also stepped up and managed to run a faster 6.16. We were so happy that we were going in the right direction and improved on our qualifying time!

Our next round would be against Mats Eriksson who had been running consistently in the high 6.0’s. We knew this would be a tough race, but he knew also that Andy was a killer on the tree so he had to be on the ball also. Overnight the rain came down hard and this meant that we were out later for our second round than initially planned, the track seemed reasonable but as Mats had lane choice he had the slight advantage. Andy left first but suffered from some pretty bad tireshake, which slowed him slightly. Andy not giving up drove through it but the power just wasn’t there. Mats beat us with a great 6.09 against our 6.2 and our weekend racing was over.

It was a shame to have not gone further in eliminations as we really could have done with gaining a few extra rounds in the championship. We are currently sat at 8th with less than 10 points between us and the next few places. In hindsight it may have been that we were taking things a bit cautiously as not to damage any parts after such an extensive rebuild. Either way the crew were exceptionally happy with the performance because after so much work trying to get it back to the track we have the car performing almost as it did previously. The German track is tricky and its hard to compare the performance to previous races. However we’re sure to find out whether there are still any gremlins after the rebuild in 3 weeks time at the Euro finals.

Overall we are just thrilled to be back racing where we belong, with all our friends and fans. We appreciated everyone’s kind comments about the car looking great and the quality of the rebuild. We also appreciate everyone’s cheers when we pulled down before our first run! The support we’ve received makes this worthwhile.

In the few weeks we have before the Finals we will check over the car in the workshop and redo a few bits on the car which we weren’t able to make exactly how we wanted due to time restrictions. Other than that we’re in a good position for the Finals where we hope to run some fast 6.0’s, with any luck a new PB and hopefully go some rounds!!

See you at Santa Pod!