No Main Event for Pro Dutch Racing
It’s very frustrating as the team did everything in their power, but Pro Dutch Racing has to withdraw from the Main Event as the brand new ’71 Plymouth Barracuda will not be in Europe in time. After a six weeks delay in the harbor, the Cuda is finally on its way, but now a tropical storm causes an extra four days delay and the car will be in Antwerp, Belgium, May 23, exactly the day the Pro Mods will have their first round of qualifying at Santa Pod.
At the end of the 2014 season Pro Dutch Racing sold their Camaro to Sweden and bought a one of a kind ’71 Plymouth Barracuda in the States. Robert Joosten and his team wanted to be back in the championship race and the state of the art Cuda was exactly the car they were looking for. The Cuda was built by Tim McAmis Race Cars a few years ago and although Troy Critchley made a few very successful test runs with it, the Cuda has never been used in races. After Joosten bought the Cuda, the car went to Jeff Hoskins to give it a stunning Peter Walters designed (airbrush) paint job. Next stop was Jerry Haas Race Cars, where the car was finished and updated with the latest safety equipment. Everything seemed to be perfectly in time to ship the car to the Netherlands, do the final adjustments in the team’s workshop, an official presentation for sponsors and travel to England for the Main Event and even do some testing.
But completely unexpected, the easiest part of the whole operation and the only part of it Pro Dutch Racing had no influence on, ended to be the most difficult one, to ship the Cuda to Europe. Almost everything went wrong with paperwork and the company responsible for shipping the car. To make a long story short, the car was in the harbor for almost five weeks! At last the cargo vessel left Monday May 11, to be in Antwerp May 19. The team had organized everything to work around the clock to make the car race-ready in two days, and catch the last possible ferry to Santa Pod. But, Wednesday May 13, Robert Joosten got the message tropical storm Anna made the company decide to change their plans and the vessel will now arrive in Antwerp May 23, the first day of Main Event qualifying! Call it Murphy’s law, but this is even too much for Pro Dutch Racing and makes it impossible for Joosten to take part in the first round of the FIA European Pro Modified Championship. The ’71 Plymouth Barracuda will now have its first outing in two weeks at Tierp Arena.
Text and photo’s: PR
