2012-08-03, Sunoco Drag Challenge « Sjödin Motorsport / ÅBM Racing

Gardermoen Raceway

A great weekend with a lot of racing and a new personal best!

Thursday. We left Täby and started the trip to Norway pretty early on Thursday morning, everything was just fine until we got into Norway then rain started… And it never stopped, so when we got to the track, unloaded the car, unpacked the bus and got up the tent in a really heavy rain (about 2-3 inches on the ground). And when we where about ready it stopped. Of course… But after some dinner and a beer we were pretty happy anyway! 🙂

Friday. Started with pretty boring and cold weather… I went to the drivers meeting and because of the bad conditions with a lot of rain they had to cancel the first run of the day for all classes. The first run out I got staged a little to the left, left the line really nice went left tried to steer and of the throttle.. 1.05 @ 60ft and 5.98 @ 201m. Second run left the line good, 1.05 @ 60ft the clutch locked up about 0.5 sec out hit a shake and went left and then off and on the throttle a couple of times, 4.81 @ 201m. On Friday evening when we was serving the car Åke found the he could not turn the engine backwards… After a while we found that the problem was in the transmission, a planetary or a gear ratio was broke, but we got spare parts for it so we fixed it and some other strange stuff that we found in the Lenco without problems..!

Saturday. Woke up to a really good weather! We warmed up the car and was ready for the first round, but went in to a tire shake directly of the line… To second run I made some pretty big changes to the car and it worked!! 🙂 Left the line really good. 1.04 @ 60ft, got so surprised that the car worked for the first time this year so I dropped the throttle… Went back on it a little got through the finish line with a 4.40 @ 201m best time of the year so far! Third round out ended up as a really bad run… Broke the wheelie bars between upper and lower wheelie bar tubings, hit a shake and spun the tires. But that was easy fixed later on the evening thanks to Johan Westberg (JVA Racing) for the angel iron that I got from him! 🙂 Saturday ended with rain and about 3 inches of water in the pit again. But hey! It did not matter as we were in the ladder for Sundays elimination as number 10 of 17 cars!

Sunday. Race day! Once again I did some really big changes to the car, especially to the clutch. First round was delayed because of water pouring up in the end of the track because of the rain the day before. But about three hours to late it was time! And I was up against Michael Joneskog, the car left nice, 1.04 @ 60ft and then it was really loose in the rear end after about 1.5-2 seconds out, I was steering for a while and then of an on the throttle a couple of times and I won. This was my first ever elimination round and also first ever win so that felt really good! But I was lucky. Michael had problem to get the right launch rpm he ran a 4.36 against my 4.67… But I was over the finish line first and that’s the most important thing!

Second elimination run was against Niclas Andersson in The Old 51. I got the car in pre stage and in stage and then I could not see the tree… So I released the clutch when I saw that the Old one started to move. The car felt better than ever before! I did hold the throttle down the whole way to 3.6 seconds for the first time ever, it felt so good. And then the clutch locked up, I spun the tires, hit a really crazy shake at about 250km/h, a feeling that is really hard to explain but pretty cool. 🙂 And all I saw was a angry shift light, so I released the pedal and just rolled to the finish line, reaction time on Niclas 0.535 sec against my 1.073 sec, we got a pretty bad 60 ft with 1.073 this round (have been running 1.04-1.05 all weekend, Niclas ran 4.189 sec against my 4.237 sec and he was over the finish line just 0.549sec before me! Could have been a really tight race if I could see the tree… But at that moment loosing did not matter so much because the run gave me a new personal best! 4.23 @ 201m, the best run before was 4.27 at Tierp Arena in September 2011.

So now when everything was just great it was time to pack all our stuff and go back home to Täby, but first of course the rain from hell when we were packing the stuff in the bus and trailer, about 3 inches on the ground and the rain bounce about 4-8 inches when it did hit the ground… And when we were ready to go the rain stopped, AGAIN!?

But I am more than happy with the weekend in Norway. Started with a lot of rain, a lot of sun, more rain, sun again, rain , sun, 7 runs in the car, won my first elimination run and got a new personal best. So I am really happy anyway with everything! 🙂

A huge thanks to my dream team this weekend, it have never ever worked as good before like it did this weekend! Åke, Marcus, Max, Simon, John and John and of course once again thanks to Lenn Lindell for borrowing the bus and Björn Friström the trailer!

Now I really look forward to make some full passes in Malmö in September!

/Andreas