Rain ends a reign in Pro Stock at Tierp
For the second round of European Pro Stock at Tierp, ten cars would compete for the eight car ladder and the quality of the field promised excellence in every session. The weather had other ideas though, and heavy rain managed to put a stop to most of the racing on Friday and all of the racing on Saturday.
The Pro Stock cars rolled out for Q1 at 19:30 on Friday evening. Q2 was at the unprecedented hour of 22:00. After heavy rain all day, lower than optimum temperatures and below par air quality and pressure, the teams were not setting any records on the excellent Tierp track.
With Saturday racing cancelled by rain, the teams had to make do with just two qualifiers in less than ideal conditions. With only two shots at qualifying, any car that had struggled to get down the track cleanly was at risk of elimination. For the first time in recent memory, Michael Malmgren was outside the bump spot at the end of qualifying which is a major upset.
Qualifying
The number one qualifier in round one was Thomas Lindström closely followed by Jimmy Ålund and Magnus Petersson. These three cars were the only ones in Q1 to get into the 6.7 bracket. Following these three with an ET of 6.9 was new kid on the block Robin Norén who was the only other driver to post a time below 7 seconds. The remaining places were taken up by Bengt Ljungdahl, Hannu Kalliomäki, Michael Malmgren, Stefan Ernryd, Simon Gustafsson and Jonas Boberg in that order.
Nearer to normal service was resumed in Q2 as Jimmy Ålund took the Camaro to a number one qualifying time of 6.65. Second fastest in this session was Bengt with a 6.66 time and taking the final point for third fastest was Thomas recording a time of 6.68. Michael Malmgren and Hannu Kalliomäki both hit problems on their Q2 laps and both failed to post a time leaving these two outside the field
Qualification 3 and 4 on Saturday were both rained off meaning that the qualification ladder was that set on Friday night.
Eliminations
Quarter finals
Magnus Petersson defeated Simon Gustafsson as Simon went red on the tree and handed victory to Magnus.
Thomas Lindström, the reigning champion gave a first event Pro Stock lesson to Robin Norén as he hit a better light than Robin and then delivered a text book 6.60 run against the debutante 6.85. However I believe Robin must have been delighted with his weekend.
Bengt was obviously watching the Lindström Pro Stock lesson as he delivered with an excellent reaction time and a 6.55 ET to eliminate the Ernryd racing entry of Stefan Ernryd who hit tyre shake early in the lap and aborted for an ET of 18 seconds.
Jonas Boberg was the other first time competitor this weekend and he was facing nine time champion Jimmy Ålund. Jimmy has exited in the first round at Tierp before, but not this time. A 6.55 from the Blue Camaro and Jonas’ weekend was over as he delivered a 7 second lap.
Semi-finals
Magnus progressed further as huge tyre shake forced Jimmy out of the race. Magnus recording a 6.8 second lap to progress into the finals.
Bengt left the line first to take a starting massive advantage over Thomas who then went in to tyre shake and was never going to make up the deficit. Bengt stopped the clocks at 6.58 to Thomas 6.80.
Final
The final was contested between Magnus Petersson and Bengt Ljungdahl. Bengt making his first appearance in a final and an appearance that I do not believe will be his last. The “other” Blue Camaro is consistently running the sort of times and speeds that make Jimmy Ålund so hard to beat. But almost to prove that there is more than one way to lose a drag race, Bengt hit a red light in the final and handed the big trophy to Magnus. It was probably doubly painful for Bengt as well since Magnus hit enormous tyre shake and gave up by the eighth mile marker to record an eminently beatable 38 second pass. But once the red bulb is on, nothing else matters and Magnus was the winner on the day.
Championship
Jimmy still holds the championship lead with Bengt in second place Thomas holds the third place while Magnus’ win takes him up to fourth.
Tierp Internationals statistics
Low ET of the event: Jimmy Ålund 6.5538 seconds
Highest speed: Jimmy Ålund 211.82 mph (340.9 km/h)
Results
Link to final qualifying list:
Link to elimination ladder:
Link to championship points standings after the Tierp Internationals:
https://www.dragracingeurope.eu/fiaedc/points-standings/
For more photos see:
https://www.dragracingeurope.eu/fiaedc/tierp-internationals-2016/
Author: Ian Hart ian.hart@speedgroup.eu
Photos: Remco Scheelings