UEM European Drag Racing Championships Round Four, FHRA Nitro Nationals, Alastaro, Finland

Words and pictures Ivan Sansom & Rose Hughes

We arrived at this year’s FHRA Nitro Nationals to be confronted by something of a tropical heatwave at the northernmost outpost on the UEM Drag Racing tour. Hot and humid conditions turned the track into a slick and tricky prospect, when it wasn’t drowning under the watery products of huge electrical storms that curtailed qualifying on the Friday and Saturday evenings. Mercifully the temperature and humidity dropped for eliminations, but these were considerably delayed whilst spares for the timing system were sourced after the Saturday evening lightening display had knocked out the power at the track and for some distance around.

Last season’s Nitro Nationals saw fuel bike rookie Petri Paljakka score a breakthrough win in what would prove to be a championship winning series debut. This season has hardly gone to script for the Finnish rider, but the diagnosis of a ignition problem that had hampered the Puma Yamaha during the Swedish round and much of qualification here may indicate a turning of the corner. Paljakka may well have used up all his luck in scoring a repeat win at his home race as he got down track to qualify in a last ditch effort immediately before the rain fell, and somehow gained the event win despite not running quicker than a mid seven during three rounds of eliminations; the fortunate recipient of a red light from points leader Ian King and subsequent no shows from Jaska Salakari and Samu Kemppainen.

Sverre Dahl and the Sunshine Express fueler garnered low qualifying points with a nice and easy 6.573 at only 206 mph and was hopefully of getting close to the 6.3s track record the Norwegian set back in 2009 during eliminations. Unlike Paljakka, Dahl’s racing luck ran out before he could make the startline for the first round when the exhaust cam broke in the burnout, although the benefits of it failing then rather than at high speed probably saved a fair amount of this season’s racing budget.

Points leader Ian King qualified second behind Dahl with a 6.626/212 pass that had the Gulf Oil/Grand Prix Originals backed rider rolling off and on the throttle in order to correct a drift to the left that the new Puma Yamaha has been blighted with since debut at the start of the season. The team were optimistic that the cause of this may have been spotted prior to eliminations, but the result of the adjustments will have to be revealed at the next event in Norway as King reacted to Paljakka’s prestage light in the opening round of eliminations, leaving a cherry on the tree despite a rapid cut of the throttle.

Back with a spring in his step, both literally and metaphorically after an off season hip replacement operation, Roel Koedam was in fine form on board the Pels’ supercharged V-Twin over the Nitro Nationals weekend. Qualifying in second spot with a 6.725/187 despite a very early click off, Koedam chased down 2010 champion Lo Stäuble with a 6.817/198 and improved to a 6.656/201 in a semifinal match up with Per Bengtsson. The Dutch team picked up their first win with the Godfather 7 bike when Jaska Salakari had clutch failure at the hit of the throttle and Koedam now moves into contention in a very tight points chase.

The top five qualifiers (in the second quickest UEM Super Twin field in history with the bump at a 6.959) were all on supercharged bikes, and the consistency that previous has been lacking from these blown combinations is clearly coming as the semifinals were all forced injection machines.

Jaska Salakari’s low qualifying 6.691 was impressive enough, but the terminal speed of 197mph suggested that there was plenty more left as the rear exhaust went wet at about half track. The Nitro Duke clones that Salakari rides in Top Fuel and Super Twin competition have become renowned for their short numbers, but the 6.390/212 the Finn recorded in the opening round of Super Twin eliminations had both cylinders firing for most of the quarter (the rear dropping for a second just after half track) and the second quickest pass in UEM Super Twin history was the result. Ironically, the incremental numbers were comparatively tardy (a 4 teen at half track and a flat second half speed wise) so perhaps we can look forward to further improvements before the end of the season.

After a glaring DNQ in Hungary at the start of the season, we’re not too sure Per Bengtsson would have dreamt that he would be at the top of the points table coming out of Finland, but a solid semifinal finish (losing out to Koedam with a best of the weekend 6.742) off the back of his event win in Tierp has placed The Beast parallel twin at the head of the list although the top four are separated by less than a single elimination round.

Alastaro represented something of a high for the AluCat supercharged bike of Greger Johansson who is a regular at many of the Euro events but rarely figures in the latter stages of eliminations. After two DNQs at Santa Pod and Tierp, a new PB of 6.878/206 put Johansson fifth on the ladder in Finland, and, when Jan Sturla Hegre’s blown Fastcat went bang at half track, Johansson progressed to the semis with a 7.127. Unfortunately the Swede’s weekend came to an end with a fuel leak being spotted by the startline crew whilst Johansson was pushing back from his burnout handing Salakari a freebie into the final.

Jesper Thiel’s unbeaten start to 2011 extended deeper into the season with the event win over Kalle Lyrén in the final of the Nitro Nationals onboard the Sovereign G2 Buell that the Dane had ridden to victory in Hungary and Sweden, as well as low qualifier at the rained out event in England. With hot and humid conditions perhaps being more familiar to tuning advisor George Bryce than the freezing cold he experienced at Santa Pod earlier in the year, Thiel was tuned to a 7.203 for second spot on the ladder, and progressed through eliminations with victories over Kenneth Vik, Dave Beck (with a 7.143/183.63) and the aforementioned Lyrén with a 7.134/183.59.

Although now someway back from Thiel in the points, Kalle Lyrén and the Veidec/ Lyrén Motorsport team were delighted with the progress made with the all new Hayabusa they debuted in Sweden a couple of months ago. Alastaro saw the bike responding to adjustments in the clutch and chassis suggesting a solid baseline has been found, and Lyrén recorded a new PB of 7.249 in his losing final round effort, but regained the second spot in the championship chase that he’d left the season opener in Hungary with.

A shock first round exit in eliminations, thanks to a fuse popping out of it’s holder, forced Fredrik Fredlund to give up second spot in the points, but the PAF Suzuki rider was delighted with his performance in qualifying, resetting both ends of the track PSB record with a 7.086/189.19mph that had the field covered by well over a tenth. Although Thiel closed up the performance gap during eliminations when conditions were much cooler, Fredlund shortened his own odds on being the first PSB rider into the sixes outside of North America.

It’s been a long wait since the first round of the UEM Funnybike Cup was held in Hungary back at the start of May, but the result in Finland was pretty much the same as Rikard Gustafsson dominated from start to finish with a low qualifying 6.830 pacing the field, a semifinal 6.672/206.37 setting class top speed and a 6.546 at only 197.58mph taking the event win over Dane Jens Hojan. Quite why the rule makers decided to exclude the likes of Gustafsson from the Top Fuel Bike field a couple of seasons ago is a puzzle as maintaining an eight bike four cylinder nitro burning field is a serious struggle the world over at the moment, and the perversity of the decision was once again underlined when the Swede set low ET of the boosted four cylinder bikes over the weekend.