Gustafsson, Christiansen, Morrison Jnr and Lymant lead after Day One at the Summit.

The opening day of FIM-E qualifying at the Summit Racing Equipment Internationals, Tierp Arena, Sweden, delivered some pretty stout numbers across the four contested classes and with two sessions down and another day of qualifying to come tomorrow.

Championship leader Rikard Gustafsson underlined his performance advantage over the rest of the FIM-E Top Fuel Bike field carding a very impressive 5.7799/254.38 in firing an opening salvo. Unfortunately, a sticking exhaust valve during the warm-up prevented an improvement in the second session for the RG Engineering team. In second spot is Sverre Dahl with a 6.0495, but the Sunshine Express team is packing up and heading home to Norway after discovering the crank hadn’t liked it. Compatriot Jan Sturla Hegre is currently at 3 with a 6.3178 followed Rene van den Berg at 6.5563. The funnybikes of Mike Olie (6.7192), Peter Andersson (PBing in the class with a 6.9752), Kari Rautanen (7.0581) and Thomas Pettersson complete the current field.

A first outing with a bigger fuel pump propelled Marcus Christiansen to a very nice 6.1302/226.40 to put the Dane in the provisional lead of the FIM-E Super Twin masses. Erling Opheim destroyed his PB with a 6.3403 from one of the Rolfstad blower bikes for second, followed by Per Bengtsson (6.4158), Samu Kemppainen (6.7736) and Marko Lantto (6.9786) in the sixes. With a total entry of sixteen tomorrow (Saturday) could be a tense affair.

Surprisingly only three riders are in the six second zone in FIM-E Super Street Bike, although seeing reigning champion Alan Morrison Jnr on top of the heap with a 6.8740/218 isn’t that much of an eyebrow raiser. The Hungarian duo of Krisztián Jász (6.9292) and Dániel Donát Lencsés (6.9676) complete the currently quick trio, and like FIM-E Super Twin, we’re anticipating some big moves tomorrow.

The five bikes in FIM-E Pro Stock Bike are currently led by Joerg Lymant with a 7.1334 from his Buell while Bertrand Maurice is a shade behind with a 7.1993 from his Suzuki. Timo Savolainen (7.2243), Theodor Vik (7.4492) and Janne Koskinen (7.4521) complete the quintet.

Current qualifying standings are here https://dragracing.eu/results.asp
Entry list is here https://dragracing.eu/event_details.asp?c=y&id=849

Youtube free livestream for Saturday https://www.youtube.com/live/RFzZ3BO77Ek?si=C6bdKauGQ-xuw9vi
Youtube free livestream for Sunday https://www.youtube.com/live/hwxcwE4wNUM

Words and photos Ivan Sansom & Rose Hughes