FIM-E European Drag Bike Championship – Round Two – Summit Equipment Internationals, Tierp Arena, Sweden 7th-10th August

The European dragbike season resumes after a long hiatus at Tierp Arena just north of Stockholm for the Summit Equipment Internationals. The meeting features substantial entries in the four FIM-E championship categories with a true multinational flavour.

The FIM-E Top Fuel Bike field will be looking at a tight bump spot race with 12 entries declared. Heading the field in the nascent points table is Rikard Gustafsson with the Indian Motorcycles backed Puma. He will be challenged by a strong field including the latest member of the unofficial European Five Second club in the shape of Mikko Rajaniemi and the Finnish Sirpa entry, Norwegian veteran Sverre Dahl and Swede Anders Hornstrom as the new rider for the Uggerud Brothers fueller.

Scandinavia always delivers the biggest fields in FIM-E Super Twin Bike and this year is no exception despite the absence of some familiar faces.

With an entry well into double figures, there is going to be a challenge to make the eight bike raceday ladder, but a lot of focus will be on the head to head between Marcus Christiansen (the Dane taking the laurels for the quickest N/A bike in the world at an outing at Tierp back in June) and Swedish veteran Per Bengtsson, but there are quite a few runners and riders that will be looking to have their own say in the event trophy chase.

Bump spot racing will also be a feature in FIM-E Super Street Bike and it will take on added significance for the eighteen bike entry as there are only three Nordic competitors on the entry list. A British invasion is a common sight in the class, boosted to eight (if we give Kostas Giannopoulos honorary status) this year with Jake Mechaell (quickest of the Brits with a 6.603 ticket from testing earlier this season) heading to Scandinavia for the first time.

The influx from southern Europe is particularly notable, with Luke Farrugia heading over from Malta buoyed by a 6.799 on board Simon Giordmaina’s Busa, and Christos Agapidis being the quickest of the Greek residents.

An oversubscribed FIM-E Pro Stock Bike field is something of a rarity in recent years, but nine are declared for the Summit Internationals this time around. Another multinational affair, with Greek Dimitris Petridis making his season’s debut having ended up in third spot in the 2024 championship, and will be looking to make things awkward for those that have already made their mark at Santa Pod back in May.

Entry list available here: https://dragracing.eu/event_details.asp?c=y&id=1954

Results and ladders will appear here: https://dragracing.eu/results.asp

Timing tickets will appear here: https://www.nitroz.se/tidskort.asp

Text and photos: Ivan Sansom & Rose Hughes