Pro Modified – Preview Main Event
Bruno Bader
In the Pro Modified category more than twenty teams have entered the season opening event at Santa Pod. A good mix of teams from seven countries where some will do the full championship and some are in it for a few rounds. A We have caught a few of the teams for an update.
Bruno Bader, Switzerland tells that he will do the whole FIA Tour this season. He is very confident with the car and has made no big changes since last season. -The car was running fine last season so we only changed the start number and cleaned the windows, states Bader.
Swede Mats Eriksson is back on track. Many of us remember that bad crash he had last year at Santa Pod. First round out he hit the wall and the front of the car was badly damaged. Luckily Mats could walk out of the car by himself with no injuries. Back home again crew chief LG fixed the car so they could go to Finland. They struggled during the season to get good numbers, but at Tierp in august they found something and a new 5 sec run came at last. -It was a relief to get confirmation of what we all knew the car was capable of, said Mats. Now it feels good and we can work from here.
Tuner Adam Flamholc stays in the team this season, as well as piloting his own car in the EDRS Top Doorslammer series. There are no major changes made to the Green Goblin Crown Victoria, just some planned service and ordinary updates. After the test & tune weekend at Tierp Arena two weeks before FIA Main Event they got some good data to use at the first championship round of the 2015 season. And the front of the car is still unpainted! Hopefully we can get an explanation to that later during the season.
photo: Adam Flamholc (left) with Roobert Joosten
Marco Maurischat from Germany makes a welcome come back at Santa Pod. There was two reasons why he stopped racing back in 2012. The main reason was to focus more on his company. – In 2004 we started the high temp Ceramic division here at PBN, says Marco. And in 2008 we became the European distributor and training center of NIC Cerakote Ceramic Firearm Coatings as well.
The division grew fast at Marcos company PBN and more focus was needed on development and customer service. The other reason Marco decided to stop racing was that after more than 25 years of drag racing he had become a bit tired of travelling, spending money and had lost a bit of the fun part of it as well. – So looking back, I think it was a good decision to step away for a while, to regroup and to become hungry again, he smiles. We started last winter updating the car to comply with the current technical regulations. The engine, gearbox and all parts have been updated. We will run the same TFX/AJPE engine combination with a DMPE M5 blower. The paint scheme is still white/Black. I don´t focus on any sponsorship at this time beside my companies Cerakote Ceramic and Prismatic Powders brands.
The goal for the team is to run four FIA races in 2015 year to fit their “part situation” and time schedule. They will start with the Main Event followed by Tierp Internationals in june, Hockenheim in august and back to England for the Finals in september. – When I look at the numbers it seems that Pro Mod had really stepped up the last two years, says Marco. So our first goal will be to come back into “racing mode” and qualify for race day (to qualify among the top 16). We want to come out and have fun as a team. That´s most important for us right now and we are really happy to be back to meet all the other teams again at Santa Pod. Last time we ran at the Pod was back in 2011. I love Santa Pod and it was and still is my favorite track. I really enjoy the atmosphere, the track, all the track crew and the fans up there, so we are really looking forward coming “back home” next week.
David Vegter: A a lot of work has been done the last few months at Vegter Pro Mod Racing. And he first test runs showed that the team had done a great job. Good reasons for David Vegter and his team to look forward to the first round of the FIA European Drag Racing Championship. When Vegter Pro Mod Racing took the ’67 Camaro apart at the end of last season, it was loud and clear the car had suffered severe damage after all tire shakes. Many parts had to be replaced and the ’67 Camaro was brought to Andy Robinson Race Cars in the UK for some major repairs. Autoschade Harteveld was responsible for a fresh new paint scheme and when the engine came back from Post & Dros Racing Engines & Parts, the team could start to rebuild their Pro Mod car.
No changes on the engine this season, but instead of the traditional clutch, Vegter will run a converter this season. Big advantages of a converter are less maintenance between rounds, more consistency in performance, better reaction times and it makes the car easier to adjust to the track conditions. MPM is no longer our major sponsor, but we are pleased to welcome Sonic equipment and WVB among our sponsor, says David.
Robert Joosten had hopes to start the season in his new state of the art race car at Santa Pod. But unfortunately the arrival of the one of a kind ’71 Plymouth Barracuda from the States is delayed due to shipping problems and tropical storms, so now the team head for a season start at Tierp International in june instead. Joosten and team sold the Camaro to Sweden after last season, but wanted to be back in the championship race this season, so this was exactly the car they were looking for. The Cuda was built by Tim Mc Amis Race Cars a few years ago. And while the Cuda has never been run in competition, Troy Critchley has made a few good test runs with it.
A top contender and candidate for a championship title Micke Gullqvist does another season with the Camaro. Micke and crew have not been testing before entering Main Event. Although the Santa Pod track have provided some struggle for Micke in the past we gather the team will be one of the quickest to adjust and reach their normal standard at Santa Pod during the qualifications.
Andy Robinson is keeping the same great team of Nick Chandler, Mark Balzaretti, Martin Dunks, Jerry Clayton, Jim Chandler, Ben Fisher, my sister Stefani Robinson and myself, says Luke Robinson. And still with my mum Kate Robinson and Kate Binks, who looks after us at the track.
The team have made many changes over the winter. Luke Robinson; -We changed the front end of the chassis, remounting the struts to make the front track width narrower and upgraded to new Penske struts, which worked really well at Easter. Many thanks to Penske UK and Eric Davis at Penske Midwest for that. We also rebuilt the center X in the chassis and changed the transmission mounting points so we can swap transmissions a lot quicker.
They have also been experimenting with different wheelie bar designs, alternating between single wheel and twin wheels. The power plant and drivetrain is the same as we ran in the Studebaker and we think it has some potential left in it yet. – We ran pretty well at Easter, gaining low ET of the meet but feel we could have gone quicker with some more track time. We have been very busy at the workshop the last couple of weeks getting Peter Wacker’s Roofers Toy ready for a comeback in 2015, explains Luke.
Tero Laukkanen came from Finland to attend the Tierp Arena test & tune a few weeks back, was pleased with the result and decided to request a late entry to be accepted to FIA Main Event. – We had a good weekend At Tierp although it rained on Sunday, team member Kettil Rautio comments. We got some things fixed and could see that the modifications we had made to the car worked. The team will return to Tierp Arena in June for championship round #2. The team has a new constellation this season. Kettil is still working on the engine. He is accompanied by Jari Heitanen, Marko Karppinen and Micke Rautio.
Fr v Kettil Rautio, Jari Heitanen, Tero Laukkanen, Marko Karppinen, Micke Rautio
Last years champion Mattias Wulcan has not entered Main Event. He will start the season at Tierp Arena in June. Wulcan tested and raced in the Qatar ADRL series over the winter and got his car back to Sweden in April. The team tested at Malmö Raceway with positive results. The car is set up very differently this season and Wulcan wants to run more runs in Sweden before committing to enter races abroad. Being the 2014 European Champion Wulcan has gotten used to be a top contender, but now the team has a new combination to work with. Team Wulcano Racing will be missed at Santa Pod.
On the entry list for Main Event are also a number of UK based teams where most participate in the domstic rounds of the FIA championship. A few will no doubt qualify top 16 and be part of the eliminations on Bank holiday monday. We are in for an exciting start of the FIA European Championship in just a few days. Don´t miss our class by class report after the event and also updates via the web and Facebook during the event.
Text & Photos: Lena Perés/Team Maurischat/Team Joosten
