Top Doorslammer round 4 at Sundsvall Raceway wasn’t our weekend, track was too tricky! (And not just for us, it was the first time ever I heard JR Dragster team complain about a track condition) I really wanted it to be better than it was and tried too much! And then it also ended early in elimination round one against Kenneth Lingvald with broken crank blower pulley bolts 2.2 seconds out when I finally took away enough power to go down the track!… E1 was the best pass during the whole weekend when looking at the graphs, finally a pass with an ok but slow wheel speed, good G-meter and no shake! But only until the motor got naturally aspirated!…
It could have been a good race but all the pedaling and shaking with the motor really rich on fuel and low timing resulted in broken crank pulley bolts… At least that is how I see it. It was really sad because it was finally fun to drive the car for the first time during the whole weekend! Car felt really really good and it would have been a tight race against Kenneth Lingvald, I was slower on the tree (that old man got some awesome reactions) and he drove the car the whole way to a 4.41 (low on power of course) to the 1/8 mile and on the 330ft we both did have a time of 2.91 even that I just coasted from 2.2 seconds when my motor stopped pulling when the blower stopped!.. That sucks when I probably would have won that round, BUT this is the best part of drag racing! It isn’t over until it’s over when the best car / driver crosses the finish line! Congrats to Kenneth and KLR Motorsports for the round win!
I could not figure out the track, and the real reason we went there was to check out the track conditions! With my Racepak graphs and info, track meter etc. from earlier years I must say that the track was better in 2017 compared to this weekend!… And then I really wonder why a known problem from the last race with the track surface coming loose wasn’t fixed before the event!? It was a warm and sunny Friday and about 3 hours just got wasted for all racers and spectators… Nothing good about that!! But after they fixed the first part of the track where the surface got loose the first 60-80 feet was really good! But then the track kind of disappears and that is really tricky to tune after. On Saturday it started with rain, its sad but there is noting at all to do about that because it’s something we can’t control! Its just doing the best of it and we did work some on the trailer and organized some stuff, Sofi took the opportunity to test sit a JR Dragster, really don’t know what that will end up with!? And like I said the reason to all bad runs is that I really hoped that the track was better and gave it too much even that I took away A LOT of power, I did slow down the motor with transmission, way rich on fuel and have less timing than I ever tried! Still it was too much, yes I’m able to change the whole car and make it work better but I think that if you need to change everything in the car to make it work the track isn’t good enough for a high powered Top Doorslammer car so I did not even care about huge chassis adjustments! No prep racing is not for me!…. And this is the real reason why there is so small amount of cars attending the event!
I made one full pass during the weekend without any pedaling, a slow 4.28 @ 275km/h, but I was just lucky and on the edge to go in to shake all the way and after 330ft the G-meter and wheel speed did go crazy up and down all the way to the finish line! I could even hear the motor rpm go up and down and the car was fishtailing pretty much!
Well, we did the best of it anyway, great friends around us, special guests were Jörgen and Bengt, really great and pretty warm weather with only a little rain on Saturday, it was great to be there at Sundsvall Raceway again with all the nice people and the facility that they work on and improve all the time! The one and only thing I’m disappointed at is the track, everything else is perfect!! Noting else needs to be changed, I went there on this event because I said I will do 4 events in the series this year and I really wanted to see if the track has changed from the last time I was there… My graphs and data are giving me what I need to make my own opinion about it, nothing more to say about that!
But I must say it’s a long time since I was this disappointed after a race!… First the track problems, and then a couple of cheap bolts stopped the weekends best round! And now when I’m thinking about Saturdays problem we did have with a blower starter that stopped us from making a pass makes me even more disappointed because if we would have made that round the bolts might have broken already on Saturday and we would have fixed it during the night to Sunday instead!… But of course, nothing say that they would have broken on that round if we would have made it.
Thanks to Sundsvall Raceway and all the people that works there! And thanks for the best 60ft trophy and the price money, much appreciated!
Congrats to Stefan “Totte” Carlsson and team Tee Cee Racing for the event win and for being able / having the spirit and knowledge to figure out the track and make 2 decent passes down it! Nice work guys! And a huge thanks for letting us borrow your starter battery!
Thanks to all involved this weekend, friends, family, my awesome team! Dad, Sofi, Max, John, Krille, Dennis and this weekend’s special guests Jörgen and Bengt!
Our Partners and sponsors, Åkes Bil & Motor, Birka Motorrenoveringar, Sjödin Motorsport Race Cars, Swecomposite, LSF Custom Lackering, Swelube Amalie Motor Oil, LVV AB, Bengtssons Smide, Loggamera, Clearwrap, SnapOn Pro Tools Peter Hult, ICA Gärdet, W-Linds Bärgning, Kustservice, Supra Trading, T. Grundström Plåtslageri, Jonnie Lindberg Motorsports, Swedol Arninge, CP-Carrillo, Alwerco Svets & Smide, Catch With Care, Edlunds Maskinservice.
And this is the end of the trip!
Next outing for Sjödin Motorsport / ÅBM Racing is The EDRS Top Doorslammer finals at Gardermoen in Norway next week 9-11 of September, and we are still number one in points that we have been since the first round in the series this year!
We did get some parts to fix the car this week and then we just need to get all stuff organized! Hope to see you there!
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