Sjödin Motorsport / ÅBM Racing Race Report!
Great pic by our friend Patrik Jacobsson! 🙂
Sums up Drag Challenge 2023 at Gardermoen Raceway in Norway, This event was added to our calendar due to the problem we got at our planned test weekend at Tierp Arena in June when the camshaft broke and we did not get enough rounds in Jörgens Corvette 79 to be prepared for the Tierp race in August…
After Tierp in June Jörgen took the motor apart and cleaned out all the debris from the broken camshaft gear and then we put in a new camshaft from a different manufacturer, we also took some time to check the real compression in the motor now when I was involved in the tuning when putting it together and did some other updates on the Corvette to make it work better!
Gardermoen was the first race weekend of three in a row for us and Sofi made an awesome job and spent a lot of time trying to organize a huge shopping list for the coming race weekends then she and Max went to our long time partner and friend Kaare and ICA Gärdet on Monday evening before the Gardermoen weekend to get grocery’s so we in Sjödin Motorsport / ÅBM Racing will survive the coming weekends we got in front of us!
I once again want to take the opportunity to say thank you my friend for believing in me and for supporting my racing circus! I can’t explain how much this means to me, do like Kaare and ICA Gärdet, Support Sjödin Motorsport / ÅBM Racing and help us with our future madness!!
Me and Sofi arrived Tuesday evening in Ludvika around 20:30 for some pizza dinner!
Then me, Sofi, Jörgen, Katrin, Ludde and Bänkt loaded up all the stuff and the car in the trailer! And of course it started to rain when we got the Vette outside the shop! And that caused some extra clean up work for us to keep us busy!
But, we were ready to hit the road on Wednesday morning for Gardermoen Raceway in Norway!
After a rainy 7 hour trip me, Sofi and Bänkt arrived at Gardermoen Raceway on Wednesday evening!
We did build our pit camp and unloaded everything, did get some awesome delicious dinner made by Bänkts wife Babsan, cleaned out the trailer and just did have a good time!
We did not have any racing on Thursday, just good to be there in time to do some small stuff on the Vette, get it inspected, prepare for Friday and relax some!
On Friday we warmed up the motor, all was great and we were ready for qualification round 1 for the weekend at Gardermoen Raceway, our planned schedule was 12:00, 14:30 and 17:00!
But then some rain before Q1! And the temperature dropped down a bit at the same time! And then it started to rain way more!
Then we finally got our first round at 16:30 after the rain delay and some really bad communication from the track crew… And due to driver errors and some other stuff there was absolutely nothing good at all about qualification round 1!… Except that the track was way better than what I expected so the car kind if died on the starting line.
The pic above is to me!… 😉
Then we got one more round (Q2) on Friday at 19:00, that one went better when I added some power to the car after checking out the track in Q1!
After that we did service the Vette and made it ready for Saturdays qualifying!
Saturday at Gardermoen Raceway was a boring day! Woke up around 5 this morning to heavy rain on the trailer roof!… Around 9-10 the weather started to clear up and the crew was working on the track and the pit area started to get dry spots! But it was still cloudy and cold and we could feel the rain hanging above us!… Then around 11 it started to rain lightly and went over to heavy rain again to make sure that everything gets really wet!…
And this was exactly what the weather forecast said earlier during the week!… And it felt like it will only be a loooong day of waiting it the pit!
During the boring hours I decided to do some changes to the fuel system to add some power and also even up the cylinder fuel distribution to make the motor happier! Was hoping that we would be able to test it before the day was over even that I could not see it happening, and I also assumed that if we get a chance I’m pretty sure that the track will be too cold to do what I want anyway!… But the Vette was ready to warm up and make a pass, if we got a chance!
At least we did have great food and snacks to make the day better from our friends at ICA Gärdet!
But all day was all about rain on and off, sun, rain, drizzle, sun, heavy rain, thunder, lightings, sun, rain, sun and so on!…
Then suddenly it did clear up, track was dry and we were called out at 4 to make a round at 5, we warmed up the motor, I was in my driving suit and ready to roll down and it started to rain again so they called the qualifying for the day when that happened! The track crew had done an awesome job all day trying to make a track for us, they had really done all they could all day! Thanks for that to the crew at Gardermoen!
So, it turned out to be a day all just about waiting.
After a boring day Max felt it was a good thing to have some Lenco school with Jörgen and Benkt in the dark because the electricity went away for a couple of hours!
We got some great BBQ dinner made by Sofi and Katrin with groceries from our partner ICA Gärdet and friend Kaare!
And thanks to team Perman for letting us use our noisy generator to make dinner on Saturday when they were out fishing!
All we could do was waiting for Sunday and race day, was going to be exciting to see how it will turn out! Only Jan Ericsson have made a decent pass so far!
Then it was Sunday, it was cold, track was tricky and uneven when checking it with the trackmeter…. This would be a hard one to solve, I did my thing with the tune and I was pretty sure it would go down the track but might be a bit loose further out! But then some problems in the stagening process messed it all up….
It turned out to be a totally wasted run that should have been cancelled by the starter that didn’t do the job correct, (if you ask me) also… Autostart is the right thing to use so you don’t have a starter to mess up the round!.. Terje did take a really good time to back up the car, then it took forever for him to get into pre stage and stage (and he did apologize for that when we got out of the cars after the round) Thing is that I was on 2-step for so long time that I felt something must be wrong so I started to let of the throttle and when I did the starter let us go….. Then on a movie after the round I could see that Terje did go into stage and then bump out and in again! And, the car won’t work like planned if you are on 2-step go off the throttle due to the car in the other lane bumps out from stage and the starter is waiting for him then you get back on the throttle when you can see the three fall down!… (or what now really I did, I can see on the boost curve and lean out system that I was not on full throttle when I released the trans brake button)
So, it was time to pack up and leave Gardermoen Raceway! Move on and forget a bad and rainy racing weekend, but not everything was bad! We did solve some issues on the car that makes us more prepared for the next race, the camshaft gear did survive so I got even more proof now against the manufacturer that I bought 3 cams from that broke, because just by change manufacturer the problem stopped! Isn’t that kind of strange when the one with the bad camshafts tells me that WE are the ones that does something wrong installing it and not him making it? We did install the Bullet camshaft in the same way as we did with the earlier one and now it works!… I’m going to make the next race also and then I will start to question the manufacturer when I have more time!
Then we also found out that the blower and fuel system set up that Jörgen bought now works just like I should after we found and fixed all the issues with it and there was A LOT to fix and adjust!… That’s really bad when you buy a “complete and turn key set up ready to make a pass” and have to spend tons of time getting it to work…. So I got some data during the weekend to start calibrate my fuel program!
It was a rainy trip home also, so no big change there compared to the weekend we just had!
The next race is at Tierp Arena this coming weekend for some more Pro Modified Racing with Jörgen Bergs Chevrolet Corvette 79! Hold your thumbs for some great racing weather and not like it was in Norway!…
Before the Gardermoen race I finally got our new shirt design! Sjödin Motorsport / ÅBM Racing, 2022 Top Doorslammer Champion supporter shirt! Do you want to help and support Sjödin Motorsport / ÅBM Racing with our future madness on the race tracks!? Please purchase a shirt from us!
They are available as
T-shirt in kids to 3XL.
Zip hoodies small to 3XL.
Tank top in small to 2XL.
You can buy them at the track, at our shop and I will ship to the ones that prefer that way!
T-shirt 250 SEK.
Tank top 250 SEK.
Hoodie 550 SEK.
Or hoodie + T-shirt or tank top + free key band for 750 SEK.
Plus shipping cost if you want it that way.
Please share this and help us make more people see it and support our racing!
We will bring them to Tierp Arena this weekend and to Dala-Järna next weekend, so make sure to get your own shirt!
Thanks for your support!
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