FIA European Championship – Race report, Main Event

The coach left Norway on May 13 and arrived at Santa
Pod Raceway on May 15, a week before the FIA Main
Event. We got there early because there are two new
racers in the Islanders team, and they were
scheduled to get their license the weekend before
the Main Event.

The two new drivers are Fred Hanssen and Per Håkon
Trøa, both from Norway. Fred, who has bought a Top
Methanol Dragster from the States, did well and got
his license after two runs in the new car. Per Håkon
Trøa’s Top Methanol Funny Car suffered from an
engine explosion and he had therefore no chance to
get his license during the pre weekend.

We decided to rent the track for testing on
Wednesday. We were excited about how Paul Ingar’s
dragster would run, because we have a completely new
set up for this season. We decided to do it
“step-by-step” and started with a 1/8 mile run, so we
could get some more data from the computer before we
made a full pass.

In the second round of testing, Paul Ingar
“rolled the beams”, which means he left the starting
line before the green light came. The time you get
after a run like that won’t be correct, but the
computer on the dragster showed a run around 5,66
seconds. We were already close to our personal best
and we were still driving on the safe side regarding
to the amount of power we can put in the engine.

We went through the computer log on Wednesday evening,
and decided to take some power off the first gear and
just continue the “step-by-step” improvement, without
damaging any parts of the engine.
 
A new day of testing – Thursday, May 21

In the first round Paul had a 0,072 reaction time,
0,95 to 60ft before some hard tire shake at 300ft and
5,805/180,57 mph at the finish line. We took out too
much power from the first gear, so we decided to put
it back. The next pass went well, and Paul Ingar left
the starting line like a rocket with 0,95 to 60ft,
3,684/202,49 mph half track and 5,625/249,61 mph at
the finish line.

Friday

No driving that day, so we checked the dragster and
prepared it for the first round of qualifying in the
FIA European Championship. There were still no
damaged parts after days with testing!

First day of qualifying – Saturday, May 23

Paul Ingar red lighted in the first round, but no big
deal since it was qualifying. He had 0,96 to 60ft,
3,6076/204,7 mph half track and 5,6110/252,17 mph at
the finish line. We had to put more power into the
engine, since the previous pass only qualified as
number five. In the second run Paul had 0,95 to 60ft
and were only 0,008 seconds from a new personal best!

Sunday – the last day of qualifying

In the third qualifying round the new personal best
finally came, 5,5692/254,74 mph! It was a good run and
there were still more power to be found in the engine.
Last year this elapse time would have made us number
one qualifier, but this year it was only good for #7.

We put too much power into the engine in the next round,
so the tires spun, and no improved time for Paul Ingar,
5,57/253,10 mph. The computer showed that the
transmission had slipped, so we overhauled it for the
next day’s eliminations.

Monday – Eliminations

Paul Ingar was up against Dave Wilson in the first round
of eliminations. Unfortunately, Paul Ingar red lighted
and the win was automatically given to Wilson. The
dragster got into a tire shake at 100 ft so Paul Ingar
went off the throttle so the engine wouldn’t get damaged.
A first round loss is never a good thing, but we’re happy
with the weekend’s results. We got a new personal best
(5,56 seconds), we qualified as #7 in the fastest TMD
field ever in Europe, we didn’t break any parts during
the weekend and we have a nice set up for the dragster.