2010 FHRA Nitro Nationals Friday Risto Poutiainen escaped unhurt from the Top Fuel crash earlier today that wrecked his new car. "The way I experienced the whole thing, Stig came in front of me in my lane hitting the center cones at the ¼ mile sending a lot of debris in my face. Then we managed to keep a distance of a few yards between each other until his chute came out a fraction of a second before mine and it came out right on my car and my face!. After the first roll the engine started to rev violently, so that is totally wrecked as well. We do have the old chassie on the top floor of the trailer and we should be able to get it all together for Mantorp. Pictured is Risto (right) together with Jarmo Markkanen, watching the team go over the remains of the car Stig Neergaard said that just at the moment he pulled his chutes he got a big kick in the backside. "I don't know how many times the car spun round", he said. "I took my hand off the steering wheel because I broke a finger when I crashed in England. The car stopped upright and I got myself out. I have a piece of Risto's car embedded in the front wing of my car". We asked Stig whose motor we heard exploding and he said that it was Risto's. "My motor never went above four thousand revs on the whole run", he said. "When I got out of my car Risto's motor was on fire". We asked Stig what his first words were to Risto. "He was in the ambulance and I looked in and asked him if he was OK", said Stig. "He said that he was fine and asked me if I was OK". Stig and his crew are looking at the dragster, which is not too badly damaged, before deciding whether to try to rebuild or whether to use one of the spare chassis which Stig is carrying. Peter Schöfer is third qualifier in Top Methanol Dragster when the first day comes to an end. "We do have a problem with one of the channels for the computer" he says. It always make things complicated when you don't have all the data to tune from. So we were actually very happy to improve our ET in the second run of day despite the lack of data! We didn't do any big changes and won't do that for tomorrow either, just fine tuning the jets and the ignition, Peter says. In the picture are the crew members Kirsten and Wolfi In Timo Lahti´s Pro Stock pit we meet Mikko Österberg who is the owner of the car and he clearifies some of the questions we had! Mikko has owned the car for three years, and it was Richard "Nixxon" Sundblom that had the engine and was the driver. Both guys decided it was time to have one race teams of their own. Mikko bought a Bill Jenkins engine from Tomi Laine to make the car complete. Timo Lahti used to drive a Fiat 127 in comp eliminator and was contacted by Mikko to drive the Pro Stocker. "Timo is still doing observed runs for his license, so the 6,88 this morning was a little bit of a surprise. We know the car is capable of even quicker ETs, but didn't expect that so soon" says Mikko with a big smile. Hans-Olav Olstad is low qualifyer in Super Twin after the first round of qualification. But he ended the run in the sand at the end of the track. "I was surprised when the bike finally went as it should" admits Hans-Olov. "I locked up the front wheel for a fraction of a second. Travelling in 328 km/h you do come a long way in that short time" says Hans-Olov. Luckily both the bike and the rider is in good shape and it will only take a very long and cleaning of the bike to get the team ready for tomorrow. Kennet Vik had a blue line violation in the first round of Pro Stock Bike qualification. (A team member touching the bike or car after a blue safety line close to start line.) "It should not have happened, but it will certainly not happen the next run", smiles the team. Kennet, who has been into motocross as well as bodybuilding previously, is now working hard with mental preparation both before a run and before a race weekend. He has learnt from his other sports how important that can be. Jan Snöbollen Palmqvist is very happy after the first round of qualification in Pro Stock! "We had our #1 engine in US during Main Event and got it back a few days ago. Actually we had it in the dyno at Midsummer Eve. And it paid off now, since we are low qualifier so far", he says with a big smile. "The run was not an optimal run, so we can run quicker. let's see what the weather does to us in the afternoon!" Stig Nergaard lost his blower belt after 150 meters after dropping a cylinder. (One cylinder stop firing ). "I will give it a little less fuel and a bit more blower next round and see where we end up", Stig says. The planned licence runs with Rosy Millberg in Denmark has been canceled for this year. Göran Persåker will drive Stigs second car at Mantorp Park, Hockenheim and European Finals. And if everything turns out well the both drivers will take the trailer and their cars to USA after the finals! Svein Olaf Rolfstad did not make it to the first round of qualifying. "We had an oil leak from one of the heads, so we decided to stay in the pits and fix that problem", says Svein-Olaf. We have also had a problem for a while now with the engine not revving as it should. We have tried almost everything, but it seems like the engine don't want to rev more than 5598 revs! So for the next run we have excluded all the electronics and bolted on an old no-fancy-controlls-at-all system to see if the problem really is somewhere in the ignition, Svein-Olaf wraps it up. Vincent Pels from the Pels team, behind Roel Koedam, explained what was going on technically for the Super Twin Bike at the moment. "We do have a problem with the seats the exhaust valves are sinking. Thant means that the hot exhaust destroys the valve guides, causing the valves to get totally stuck. In the last run that happened and it also snapped the belt because of this. We do have a set of spare heads so we will be able to run this event. But to Mantorp Park we will probably have inserts for the combustion chamber made out of bronze! When the head problem out of the way it is hopefully just tuning problems to get the bike run really good numbers." At Jimmy Ålunds pit area it is a bit hectic when we visit them in the morning. "Jimmy contacted us about 14 days ago and suggested the cooperation" says one of the car owners Stefan Eriksson. "We have been working day and night in Skutskär, having constant contact over the phone with Jimmy 340 km away." Markus Svensson from Clutch Service tells us that: "When I set that car up a couple of years ago, it stroked me that the car can't have many runs on it. If the team does everything right they can run good numbers with the car! For this first round everything is set up very, very basic." Jimmy Ålund, which actually looked a bit more stressed than usual on a morning like this explained: "I didn't want the other guys to have the advantage of two races! This is a long shot, absolutely a long shot, but its fun!" Micke Gullqvist has the Camaro from the R2B2 team in his pit area. He explains whats going on: "When I started the cooperation with the R2B2 team it became obvious that I should have the same type of engine in my 57 as the team used in their cars. So we started to fit the spare engine for the Camaro that Melanie Troxel ran in England. At the same time I wanted to make a number of small changes that have been annoying me for a while on my car. Not any big things but they all took longer time than I first expected. So when time was running short, very short, we decided to go to plan B. So we brought the Camaro to Finland instead. This is the car that I first tested in US and it is the car that I raced in Gainsville running 5,82/400 as best. In Anita Mäkeläs pit there is no stress this morning. "It has been a bit stressful since we were missing two fuel pumps up to Thursday afternoon", says Tommy Haapanen." One of the fuel pumps needed a repair after England and the other one went to the states as well for overhauling", fills Anita in. One of them was supposed to go with Kevin in his luggage, but the smell of nitro made the drug dogs at the airport go crazy, and it had to be sent by courier instead. Which might have been a very good thing since the flight company lost his luggage on the last leg of his journey!" "Finally everything came together", says Micke Callin when we ask about his event win at Main Event. "It has been tough since we had so many problems since we went into Pro Stock, but finally it all came together, engine, chassie and my driving. So how does it feel to come here with everyone chasing you? "Im just enjoying the situation, knowing that Pro Stock is one of the tightest classes. We haven't done much to the car from England, besides giving it a really good polish", smiles Micke and adds a hamburger to the barbeque!