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18:20

After speaking to Alan Jackson I had a word with fellow tuner Rune Fjeld. I started with the same question, "How do you go about deciding how to set the car up for a new track?".

Rune Fjeld: Guess! Just try, take a look and see what you think, and set it up a bit soft.

Tog: Do you have a basic baseline which will work anywhere?

Rune Fjeld: No, not really. I got an idea when I saw Knut's cars make their first runs on Wednesday. The start line was OK, there's not that much to worry about. We did get off it and I thought it would smoke the tyres. It didn't. The track is quite good. We just need to learn how to run on it, what it takes.

Tog: When you're learning to run on a track, what is it you're looking for? What happens where?

Rune Fjeld: Yes, every track is different. We still haven't learned to run at Santa Pod yet, this year at least. But that's what it takes - runs.

Tog: What is involved in setting a car up for a track like this? You say you make it soft but what does that actually involve?

Rune Fjeld: Taking things out. Blower, fuel, timing, clutch. We've not took that much out to be honest. It's not a problem actually, most of the time, to make it soft.

Tog: Alan's working with no computer on four of the cars, have you got a computer?

Rune Fjeld: Yes, on Thomas' car. But on a track like this you don't learn that much from it because it's so different from anything else we run on. I don't think the track is bad - you just have to get used to it. The thing is it looks so strange compared to all the other tracks: it's shiny and it's different. It has a patch Thomas described, I don't know exactly where but it's after sixty foot, of coarse concrete and then it goes over to the fine again and I think that's where we have the trouble - it goes over to the fine area and the grip's so good.

Tog: Between Thomas' first run yesterday and the 5.33 what was it you did to the car? Did you just know the track could take more so you gave it more?

Rune Fjeld: I just changed the timing on the mags. It shook at the same time but he tried and it hooked up again. That told us that the track is really good, that you can just hammer it and it doesn't smoke the tyres. So I think we are probably misjudging the track, I think it is probably a lot better than we think it is. I've made that mistake lots of times. But I hate smoking the tyres! Absolutely hate it!

Tog: What's worse for the car? To smoke the tyres or to pedal it?

Rune Fjeld: It depends how hard and how many times you pedal it. Thomas did the perfect thing just for shaking. Smoking the tyres is bad. Especially with the five-disc clutch, that really doesn't like smoking the tyres. Unless you have a brand new crank in it, then it can take it most of the time. But as soon as the crank has had a few runs it's not OK.

Tog: What exactly is it about pedalling which makes it such a dangerous thing to do?

Rune Fjeld: Because you shut the fuel line and then just open it again. There's way too much fuel coming into it. It doesn't like it. And most of the time it doesn't help you anyway. I never like it. In a race it's different, if you can pedal it and win the race, that's totally different but pedalling in qualifying is to me absolutely ridiculous. It has no function, and I just don't like it.

Top Fuel is due on at 8:00 pm our time, so keep an eye on the race report page and we'll bring you the results as soon as possible after they happen.

17:45

It's another beautiful day here at the Bahrain International Circuit. We have a light cloud cover but it really does not seem to have affected the temperature too much. I hear that some of our friends in Sweden are already shovelling snow, sorry to rub it in.

Something a little different for you this evening. We have spent the last two days asking racers "What do you think of Bahrain and the facility?" and "How did that run go?". We decided to give the racers the day off today for good behaviour and instead spoke to the two guys who make the tuning calls, Alan Jackson (for the Carbon By Design team) and Rune Fjeld (for Rune Fjeld Motorsport). I started with Alan Jackson:

Tog: When you come to a track like this the weather conditions and track conditions are completely different to what you are used to. How do you go about setting up the cars from scratch? Is there a baseline setting you know will do the trick?

Alan Jackson: I put a Piteå set up in the cars, because I know that the track there can take a 5.30. That's what we started out with as a baseline, and it seemed to work well off the line. But we seem to be hitting a zone about two seconds out where we hit shake, which is really strange, to have shake at that point. Maybe it's where the old start line is and they moved it back (Yes - Ed), so we have to soften it from that point. So that's what I've done for the next run.

Tog: How do you go about doing that?

Alan Jackson: Two ways. The clutch or the magneto. But we've already got a soft clutch setting in there. In fact on Harlan's car we're on the verge of blowing through the clutch so we've got to do it with the engine.

Tog: People always talk about how the air is; what's the air like here and what can you do about it?

Alan Jackson: Well in fact, nobody's got a weather station. So we can't! But it feels like it's really humid . We had a talk about it and the consensus was that it's about two thousand feet with this temperature and humidity. So it is pretty bad air.

Tog: How crucial is the air?

Alan Jackson: It depends how fit your supercharger is. Some of our superchargers are pretty tired at this point in the year. Harlan's isn't because it's a brand new supercharger. We just have to play the blower card, it's gone up five per cent since we started. It's a shame we haven't got a weather station.

Tog: Have you got Harlan's car on one set-up and the other four all on the same set-up?

Alan Jackson: No, because all the cars are different. They have different sized pumps, Harlan's car has a setback blower, it's my first dabble with that.

Tog: Is the setback blower a big difference?

Alan Jackson: Well, so far we've only had a launch but it sounds different and it certainly is making the power. But even with a soft tune-up in it, I'm very pleased with it actually because it is making the power.

Tog: You've got one computer on Harlan's car and no computers on the other cars. How do you go about making tuning calls with no computer?

Alan Jackson: Talk to the drivers! And obviously observe what's going on. With a computer you can tell exactly where you've got the problem, but obviously we're having to guess a little bit now. I'm sure we're fairly close to it now, we are locked in two seconds out where we're getting the shake, so that's what we're updating the tune-up for for the next one. You notice that all the cars have a problem in the same place. Even Thomas but he just pedalled. The same point every run so it is the track, so obviously it's up to us to find a way of getting over it. But the start line is excellent, it's holding it.

Tog: Would you care to make a bold prediction what this track can hold?

Alan Jackson: If we could not pedal through that point then we could run a four here. No doubt about it. That's the plan. But certainly 5.0s.

Tog: Just before I let you get back to work, what was the story with the fire crew spraying Harlan's dragster with CO2 last night?

Alan Jackson: An ignition lead arced and set fire to some spilt petrol when we were starting it. I didn't know that at the time because I was checking the fuel lever and I saw this massive white cloud and thought "What's going on?". I couldn't see what was happening so I just shut the car off.

Tog: No damage done?

Alan Jackson: No! There wasn't a mark on it, the fire crew did their job.

Tog: Harlan has seemed to have problems selecting reverse on a couple of runs, what is it that makes these cars so difficult to put into reverse? Is there a trick to it, you have to get your timing right?

Alan Jackson: Well, in this case there was a problem with the clutch pack.

Tog: And you said that Patrik has no reverser? The guys will be pushing him back just like the old days!

Alan Jackson: That's right, no reverser. The epicyclics exploded. We've took all the bits out and put it back together now.

Tog: There's no danger it could just stick in neutral?

Alan Jackson: No, what we're doing is we're locking it in forward gear. It will stay engaged because it's direct drive. To get reverse you have to engage the epicyclic gears which is the fragile bit. I think the reverser lever moved on Patrik's last run because he said there was a funny noise when he shut off. So the lever has moved and tried to engage reverse, and that's just exploded the epicyclics.