Sjödin Motorsport / ÅBM Racing

HUGE homepage update!

Ok, it’s been about 4.5 months now since the race at Tierp Arena in August and I feel that it’s time to sum it up!…

Great photo by our buddy Patrik Jacobsson! 🙂 Thanks for the support my friend!

I had kind of totally lost interest to racing, and the shitty start and people of 2024 is the main reason that I lost the spirit to do something at all in life. You that follow me knows that the reason I put the Chevelle together for the Tierp race was because I was pissed off and then I also feel I got a responsibility against my partners and other people that I told I will be there. Simple, just do what you said you would do and support the ones that support you!

BUT, the spirit is slowly coming back! It goes up and down from day to day, but it’s on its way!

The service job on the Chevelle was a pretty big deal, I never touched it after the exhibition race at Dala Järna Raceway in 2023 because the plan for 2024 was that it would never leave the ÅBM shop. And before Dala Järna in 2023 I just did the most important things on it after our championship winning 2022 season! So… everything in the whole car needed to come apart, be inspected, cleaned, serviced and so on!

The plan for the Tierp race was to go WAY FAST, quicker than 3.80 was the only thing that would make me happy and satisfied!

Felt kind of sad to remove the blanket and see how bad condition the Chevelle was in…

But it’s a 14 year old race car also, everything when it comes to service the Chevelle went pretty smoothly, it was A LOT of work but I got some help from John and dad of course.

The whole car was in pieces, whole drive line was out and in pieces, everything was cleaned, serviced, changed a cracked main cap in the block and everything was on the way back together again!

Then the first real big issue was discovered!….

Sofi came to help out / rescue me so I would get the help I needed to get the last stuff back together again. I was going to change the blower pulley / add some power to the motor for the first time since 2017 or so, remember I did have a plan to make pass quicker than 3.80!… And when she was on the way to change the pulley I said lets check / change the oil in the blower gear case. And that was when Sofi found a huge problem, the drive rotor gear was missing 2 teeth, and it was a crack in it!…

At this moment on Wednesday night the week before the race it felt like it was over for us and the plan we did have with the Chevelle, I mean it was less than 1 week (6 days) before we planned to leave the shop and head for Tierp Arena!… But you that know me, know that I NEVER give up! No matter what, I will try if there is a chance.

The option to use the blower like it was with the bad drive gear is a BIG NO! First of all because it’s dangerous, that gear will see 25000 rpm when I shift and when it goes into pieces it will for sure hurt the blower!… The blower today is worth around $20.000-$25.000, just a new rotor in it will cost around $7.000-$8.000 and it’s a year or even more before you will get one from the manufacturer (if you will ever get one) and it needs to be sent over to USA to have it replaced and serviced. So that would destroy the 2025 season also for sure, I do not have the money to replace the blower and I did not want to mess up 2025 already in August 2024… I did talk with the owner at PSI Supercharger a couple of times and at first I could buy a new set of gears but in the end it did not turn out that way because it was to much back and forward with them so I did run out of time to make it possible…

Then I put out an add on Inside Top Alcohol on Facebook to se if someone did have a new or used set of gears, and I found a guy in California / Los Angeles that had a used set! And he sent them out to me on Friday evening (Swedish time) that would make me have them on Monday lunch and we would have about 48 hours until the planned trip to Tierp! BUT, as always!…. UPS messed up and the package got stuck… Of course I was the one to fix it because UPS is the best shipping company in the world but also has the world’s worst customer service!….. A lot of arguing later and the package was finally on the way again on Monday evening!… Yes, 3 days delay and less than 2 days left before we planned to be in the pit area at Tierp. At this time I started to feel like giving up… But, there was still a chance! But I did also know that when I finally have the gears in the shop I might have trouble install them, there is very small tolerances and you must time it correctly, otherwise I will end up with damaged rotors and blower case…..

At this time I got some spirit back to continue with everything else on the car that I did stop working on due to the UPS delay with the gear package..

Wednesday morning, the parts are finally in Sweden! And on the roll, moving through customs and should be at the shop around lunch! Now I did hope it won’t be any issues from the airport to the shop….

At this time the Chevelle was serviced and back together pretty much so far I could get it, I just had to service a Lenco and get it back in the car!

Something that also made me really happy that day was that Krille were on his way down from Sollefteå about a 5-6 hour drive to the ÅBM shop to help out, I asked him what if we can’t get the blower back together? And he said it like only he can, “well at least we will get the chance to spend some time together no matter if we will go to the track or stay in the shop” and that’s why I love him as much as I do!

And FINALLY, the package came!

During the evening and night with help from Kevin Cantrell A LOT of luck me, Dad and Krille got the blower back together and the rest of the car also!

 

During the time Sofi made an awesome job, preparing EVERYTHING around! cleaned out the upper floor in the trailer, making sure we did have something to eat, organizing the trailer so we would be ready to hit the road when the Chevelle is loaded in the trailer. Mom also started to preparing food for us for the coming 2 weekends!

At this time the clock was 3:30 Wednesday night or Thursday morning, depending on how you see it! So, it was time to get some sleep and I had also decided that we wont even try to make any rounds during the qualifying on Thursday even if we get there in time to make a pass.

Thursday morning, time to load the Chevelle in the trailer!

Next stop Tierp Arena!!

So, after a week with A LOT of issues we did arrive to Tierp Arena on Thursday afternoon after a really stressful day!

So, we did miss the first day of qualifying like I assumed. The ones that got there in time made 4 rounds on Thursday! That was exactly what I was looking for to do to be able to figure out the Chevelle after adding some power / made some changes to it… But what the hell, I was more than happy anyway. We got the car together and we made it to the race track! That’s more than what some other people did.

The Chevelle was pretty much ready to make a pass when we arrived to the track for once! We did make the inspection on it. Then I needed to do some tuning stuff to it and we had to warm it up and see that everything was ok with the blower and newly rebuilt engine. We made some noise at Thursday evening and WOW, I can tell you that it felt GOOD for sure!!!

After that it was TACO THURSDAY for me, Sofi, Dad, Krille and Fredrik!

Friday and time for the first pass in about 800 days with the Chevelle at Tierp Arena!

But it wasn’t our day! I was a bit lost in the tuning after some changes I done to the car!… Made two rounds, first one launched hard and went left so I did some chassis changes, second I went into a shake early! Got angry, off and on the throttle and ended up with a lazy 4.26 @ 262 km/h! But what a hell, we were at Tierp Arena and making passes! Because we do not give up! Just 2 days earlier we did not even have a blower for the car, so what can I say!? We are the best anyway!

Sofi are preparing our new beautiful Swedish colored chutes! They are ready to stop the Chevelle after a great pass!

I want to take the opportunity to say a HUGE THANKS to our partners that makes this possible for us to do! Thanks for believing in me and helping me out like you do, without you we are nothing!

Saturday, after a good nights sleep I did have some new ideas! I was pretty sure the car would work with the changes I made! But Saturday was a bit slow, but started really good during our breakfast when we got a surprise visitor, Bänkt!

Qualifying started pretty late compared to what we are used to! But we did do our best and had some partners that came by for some burgers! Thanks to my mom for helping out getting the stuff around the burgers fixed for us!

Finally!!! That shake down pass I was looking for! 3.92 @ 302km/h! But also lazy early in the round with and a lot of misfire from 2.3 seconds! And the misfires was totally my own fault, if you are stupid and don’t remember what you should do, your race car will be lazy!…

In Dala Järna 2023 I did use the MSD ARC module as a safety equipment due to the track conditions! Track wasn’t bad but last year it wasn’t a track prepped for a car like this if you use too much power!

I don’t like traction controls, but instead of going up in smoke I have the ARC module to pretty much kill the engine, I prefer that instead of hurt the car!

But I forgot about it and that module also pretty much killed the engine from 2.3 seconds to the finish line!… So it was unplugged! And I did some small changes early in the round because the car was really slow there!

That’s it for qualifying, because when we rolled up for Q4 we went into a lot of problems… It was time for TD, we got ready to get into the cars and then it was a huge clean up before the first pair!… Heard something about a 1/4 mile oil clean up!…

Then it started to rain, and about 1.5 hour later it was time for us again but!… It wasn’t the same track anymore, it felt like doing the burn out on ice!.. When driving a car like this it’s easy to feel in the car if you got some kind of friction or not between the tires and track.

So, we ended up in the fifth position of ten cars with our bad misfiring 3.92 round!.. If this would have been a normal race weekend I would have been disappointed! But I’m more than happy to just be here at the track!

Pics by Lena Peres!

Like I said earlier, Wednesday we did not even have a blower to the car, the car was in pieces, nothing around with the trailer, food and much more was prepared! And from that we in the team are having fun here at the track together in our drag racing family!!

Sunday and race day! We did have our first elimination round around 2, so it was a day of long waiting! We did have Anders Edh in the first round, but they did have some issues when fire up the engine, I could hear his engine run so I made my burn out (I always wait for the one in the other lane) But then I heard on the radio that Anders had issues and never did his burn out. I did continue my thing and backed up the car and suddenly Tommy Abrahamsson shows up in the lane and makes his burn out. I did not understand what happened because I assumed that when Anders fired up his car not just once but twice he had “started” his round. But I really don’t know for sure what’s right or wrong here.

That made me wait as it felt forever because he started his car a good time after I did, and then he wasn’t in a hurry to speed up things after that. Felt like he did his thing as a normal routine, which messed up my routine totally… I could see the oil pressure go down and the head temp go up… I was messing around with the shift reset button and in some way hit the kill switch button… Fredrik made a crazy good job running over the guard rail with the blower starter and did fire up the car again! (if you ask me that was wrong by us, but after what they did on the other lane I did not ever care, and we did communicate with starter that from how I see it approved us to fire up the engine again)

This ended up with a massive driver error… Crazy bad light and lost with a 3.95 @ 281km/h! Got loose, went left! Was able to drive through it! Then I started to drift left again and pulled the chutes early at 3.1 seconds!… And this weekend is over for us, congrats to Tommy and team for the win!

But I’m happy anyway that we were at the track and that the car worked as good as it did! And I’m on my way to figure out a new tune for it after all the changes I made to it!

Then it was time for some lunch and to pack things up, in rain of course!

Then me and Sofi left Tierp Arena with the rig and was heading for Vansbro, for a couple of days at home before the exhibition race the weekend after at Dala Järna Raceway!

I want to say a special thanks to customers at Åkes Bil & Motor, Joakim at MP Elektriska and Linus at A.L.J. Kran & Transport for reaching out and jump onboard when I asked for help when we found the hurt gears in the blower the week before the race! Kevin Watson for helping me getting the drive gears to the blower and Kevin Cantrell for helping me out getting the blower back together over the phone! Priceless support!

And of course, thanks to our partners, Åkes Bil & Motor, Birka Motorrenoveringar, Sjödin Motorsport Race Cars, Edlunds Maskinservice, Jonnie Lindberg Motorsports, Nicclast, Alwerco Svets & Smide, Heds Garageportar & Service, MP Elektriska, Skyltapan, Clearwrap, Catch With Care, Rörmekano, Logga Mera, Get Logistics Inc, T. Grundström Plåtslageri, CP Carrillo, LSF and Kustservice.

And THANKS to my team, Dad / Åke, Sofi, Krille, Fredrik, Mum / Yvonne and Bänkt, the Scania would never been finished (or kind of done) in time so we could use it!

Thanks to Mike Canter for the help and support!

And also, thanks to all of you that came to us at Tierp Arena and bought a shirt to support our racing circus, so we are able to continue with this!

It felt good to be back in Top Doorslammer also, this is where I belong! All since I announced that I will be back in the Chevelle again I did get A LOT of messages and a huge response from people that they were really happy that I will bring it out again! And it was the same thing during the whole weekend, pretty much everyone I talked to said “it’s so great that you are back in your own race car again and not in the other one” it both surprise me and makes me happy!

 

The only one that did mistakes during the weekend was me!…. But what a hell, we made rounds with the car! I mean against all odds after Sofi saw that the rotor drive gears in the blower was damaged and saved the rest of the blower we got to the track, that’s a HUGE WIN!

Stay tuned for more to come!