FIA European Drag Racing Championship
  

Class Review FIA Main Event – Pro Stock Car

Winner of FIA Main Event – Jimmy Ålund, Sweden

Venue: Santa Pod Raceway, UK
Dates: May 22-25th 2015

Ålund re-writes the records

The 2015 Pro Stock championships certainly started with a bang at the opening round in England.  On a good track and with near ideal atmospheric conditions, The Pro Stock cars could really show what they were capable of.  They did not disappoint! Personal Best laps, European speed and ET records, close racing, mighty burn outs and a great pit atmosphere made for a really happy event.  Not even the rain on Sunday morning managed to spoil any of our race event.  Jimmy even managed to race with a damaged back, and Thomas worked around some mechanical issues the team discovered on Friday.  Altogether, the opening round at the Santa Pod Main Event was brilliant and memorable.

Summary of Qualifications:

Jimmy Ålund is looking at the 2015 season to provide his tenth PS championship win.  The best way to achieve this is to qualify number one at every event, and to win all your races.  Off the trailer in Q1, Jimmy laid down a marker for the rest of the field.  6.527 which was the first half of a new European ET record.  The other contenders were all between 6.6 and 6.8.

Michael Malmgren

Jimmy backed up the new record in Q2 and everyone else hit shake trying to attack. Except for Michael Malmgren, who did not run in Q2 after losing the porcelain from a spark plug into his block in Q1.  Michael was forced to sit out the second session while the team changed the motor.

No driver improved in Q3 and the ET improvements in Q4 were not sufficient to change the qualifying order.  In an odd state of affairs, the qualifying positions and times for 4 out of the 5 drivers and teams was set in Q1.  This is proof if it were ever needed that the Santa Pod track crew prepared well for this event.


Summary Eliminations:

Magnus Petersson

First round:

Michael Malmgren defeated Magnus Petersson in round one as Magnus dropped the inlet valve on number one cylinder at about 600ft and dropped the chutes before the gantry.

 

Simon Gustafsson

Thomas Lindström had a round win gifted to him as Simon Gustafson pulled a red light.  Thomas didn’t relax though and delivered a new PB of 6.579.  The Ernyrd cars backed Dodge looked like it was prepared to run even quicker.

Jimmy Ålund was the recipient of the round one bye.  In a lot of cases this gift might tempt drivers to save engine wear and put in a soft time.  Not Jimmy.  On a solo, and already holding the European ET and speed records, Jimmy went for it again.  The NHRA ET record for PS is held by Jimmy’s NHRA team mate and engine builder, Jason Line.  That record is currently 6.455.  The NHRA speed record in PS is held by Erica Enders and is currently 215.55mph.  The European records were both held by Jimmy and stood at (ET) 6.527 and (Speed) 213.31mph.  Jimmy reset both ends of the record with an astonishing 6.4999 at 215.00mph.  Both these numbers back up Jimmy’s earlier recorded time and speed set at this event.  This puts European PS in the same tenth of a second and within the same mph as NHRA.

Semi-finals:

In the second Elimination, Jimmy Ålund defeated Michael Malmgren as he once again backed up his new records.  6.500 @213.08 compared to 6.701 203.26

Thomas Lindström, on a bye run also improved his PB to 6.562

Final:

Thomas did everything right at the start of the track with a huge jump on Jimmy at the lights.  But the race was over by half track when Jimmy’s Camaro caught and passed the Dodge.  Thomas dropped the chutes early, so I guess he could already see the race was lost.  Jimmy stopped the clocks at 6.515 and 212.99mph

 

Conclusions & looking ahead towards next event

The consistency that Jimmy Ålund delivered at Santa Pod is the sort of thing bracket racers dream of.  The variation between Jimmy’s quickest and slowest ET’s across the weekend was just 0.063 sec.  Thomas Lindström found his way back into the 6.5’s which made the team very happy.  Michael Malmgren has a little work to do from third place to be challenging for the race wins he wants, Michael ran consistent 6.7’s at this event with only one lap into the 6.6 bracket.  It is only ion the low 6.60’s that a driver has a realistic chance of taking on the faster cars, but I do not doubt that the team will bounce back. Magnus Petersson will have to repair his engine damage before Tierp Arena on the 4th to the 7th June.  Simon Gustafsson had a really good try on the tree to shave a bit of his horsepower disadvantage off.  He will reflect on that before Tierp.

The Tierp event will see a full 8 car field, with 9 drivers and teams competing.  This event will see the five teams that attended Santa Pod joined by Christian Sagelv, Bengt Ljungdahl, Sampsa Palos and Jan Ericsson.  One disappointed driver will be on the outside looking in.  The big question will be, which one?

Low ET of the event:  
Jimmy Ålund 6.4999
Top speed:  
Jimmy Ålund 215.00 mph (346 kmh)
Records set: European ET and Speed records

Link to full results:
Final qualification list Pro Stock Car
Elimination ladder Pro Stock Car

courtesy of TSI Timing Crew


Author:
  Ian Hart ian.hart@speedgroup.eu
Photos:   Lena Perés, Remco Scheelings, Patrik Jacobsson

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