{"id":6078,"date":"2016-06-13T05:50:11","date_gmt":"2016-06-13T04:50:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.dragracingeurope.eu\/fiaedc\/?p=6078"},"modified":"2016-06-13T20:51:37","modified_gmt":"2016-06-13T19:51:37","slug":"pro-stock-review-the-main-event-santa-pod-raceway","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.dragracingeurope.eu\/fiaedc\/2016\/06\/13\/pro-stock-review-the-main-event-santa-pod-raceway\/","title":{"rendered":"Pro Stock review, The Main Event, Santa Pod Raceway"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"alund_spme_review.02\"<\/a>

Jimmy \u00c5lund<\/p><\/div>\n

The 2016 Main Event escaped from the rain delays and bad weather associated with the season opener for the most part. A few hours were lost over the weekend for some very fine mistings of rain, but to all intents and purposes, the event ran without interruption from the weather gods.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

Qualifying<\/strong><\/p>\n

Jimmy \u00c5lund has set a goal of gaining his tenth Pro Stock championship victory in his fourteenth year in the class. If we stop to think about those numbers for just a minute, and consider that Jimmy took one of those years getting to grips with the Camaro, it is an altogether impressive record. I wrote last year that the best way to ensure a championship win is obvious, qualify number one in all rounds and win every event.\u00a0 Jimmy has started as he means to go on. Number one qualifier in session one, improvement in session 2, retained the number one position in session 3 and improved again in session 4 to finish as number one qualifier in all sessions, 3\/100th up on the competition.<\/p>\n

\"ljungdahl_spme_review\"<\/a>

Bengt Ljungdahl<\/p><\/div>\n

Bengt Ljungdahl claimed the second place with the other blue Camaro, which looked very much like the car to dispute Jimmy\u2019s title hopes this weekend.\u00a0 Bengt is in his first competition year in this car and got progressively quicker and faster throughout qualifying, taking the number two spot in session two and holding it through session three before improving further in session four.<\/p>\n

\"ernryd_spme_review\"<\/a>

Stefan Ernryd<\/p><\/div>\n

The remaining cars all made it into the 6-second bracket with the only other notable performances or incidents being Michael Malmgren\u2019s Pontiac making a hard right turn in session two and crossing lanes to cruise up the track in Jimmy\u2019s slipstream. It looked closer from the start line than it was in reality, Michael told me later that after the car made the move, he looked at where Jimmy was and realised he had room and time to allow the car to settle down before he put in too much steering correction.<\/p>\n

\"malmgren_spme_review\"<\/a>

Michael Malmgren<\/p><\/div>\n

\u201cI knew the lap was over, so now it was time to save the car, Jimmy was already out ahead and so I went across into his lane and just followed him up the track, it was the safest thing for me to do\u201d<\/p>\n

\"petersson__spme_review\"<\/a>

Magnus Petersson<\/p><\/div>\n

Eliminations<\/strong><\/p>\n

Quarter finals<\/strong><\/p>\n

In eliminations, Magnus Petersson gave the first round to Thomas Lindstr\u00f6m with a red light, Michael hit some tyre shake which allowed Bengt to get away cleanly and take the round win.\u00a0 In the final pair, Jimmy took a huge start line advantage from Stefan Ernryd, and was off and running so far ahead that Stefan stood no chance of catching him.<\/p>\n

\"lindstrom__spme_semi\"<\/a>

Semi-final with Thomas Lindstr\u00f6m and Bengt Ljungdahl<\/p><\/div>\n

Semi-finals<\/strong><\/p>\n

Round two of eliminations pitted Bengt against Thomas whilst Jimmy had the advantage of the bye run. Thomas got away first by 16\/100 and managed to hold on to his advantage despite a very hard charging run from Bengt. This was one of those times that I have to explain to a spectator why the quicker car did not win the round, Bengt gave it everything he had on that run, but despite clawing back nearly half of the start line advantage he did not have enough to get back past Thomas.\u00a0 Jimmy took the bye and the final was set.<\/p>\n

\"spme_review_ps_final\"<\/a>

The final<\/p><\/div>\n

Final<\/strong><\/p>\n

Jimmy and Thomas lined up for what promised to be another great final, but Thomas, knowing he needed every advantage he could get, went a little too early on the tree and the FIA Main Event champion was crowned as Jimmy \u00c5lund who has achieved stage one of his quest.<\/p>\n

\"alund_spme_review.01\"<\/a>

Jimmy \u00c5lund<\/p><\/div>\n

Main Event\u00a0 statistics<\/strong><\/p>\n

Results<\/strong><\/p>\n

Link to final qualifying list:<\/p>\n

http:\/\/www.dragracingeurope.eu\/fiaedc\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2016\/05\/QUAL_PRO.pdf<\/a><\/p>\n

Link to elimination ladder<\/p>\n

http:\/\/www.dragracingeurope.eu\/fiaedc\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2016\/05\/LADDER_PRO.pdf<\/a><\/p>\n

Link to championship points standing after The Main Event<\/p>\n

http:\/\/www.dragracingeurope.eu\/fiaedc\/points-standings\/<\/a><\/p>\n

For more photos see:<\/p>\n

http:\/\/www.dragracingeurope.eu\/fiaedc\/photo-galleries\/<\/a><\/p>\n

Text: Ian Hart<\/em><\/p>\n

Photos: Remco Scheelings<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The 2016 Main Event escaped from the rain delays and bad weather associated with the season opener for the most part. A few hours were lost over the weekend for some very fine mistings of rain, but to all intents and purposes, the event ran without interruption from the weather gods.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dragracingeurope.eu\/fiaedc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6078"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dragracingeurope.eu\/fiaedc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dragracingeurope.eu\/fiaedc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dragracingeurope.eu\/fiaedc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dragracingeurope.eu\/fiaedc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6078"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.dragracingeurope.eu\/fiaedc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6078\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6089,"href":"https:\/\/www.dragracingeurope.eu\/fiaedc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6078\/revisions\/6089"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dragracingeurope.eu\/fiaedc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6078"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dragracingeurope.eu\/fiaedc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6078"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dragracingeurope.eu\/fiaedc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6078"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}