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20:00

Leif Andreasson (TMFC) said "We tried to step up today but the car bit back. We had tyre shake in the first run and some ignition system problems prevented us from putting a run in later. We are changing everything in the ignition system to be sure of everything. We have a bye in the first round and as Ulf is the other side of the ladder, it is likely that the championship will go down to the final. We have struggled a little in the latter half of the season after breaking the rear end and hitting the cones. We're not sure that this is our last date this year as Jo Carobot (who runs Top Methanol Dragster in Malta and was in Many Baguela's team) has invited us to the invitation race in Malta in October and we are trying to get additional sponsorship to cover us for that. Our sponsors also want us to run in the U.S. but having done that four times before I know how expensive that is. One plus of being in TMFC is that it is cheaper than nitro and if we did run in the U.S. we would be competitive".

Gittli Koller of Peter Schofer's team said "We are pleased with the 5.51 today, although the tyres shook and Peter drove through that. We are still no.2 and are pleased for Rob Turner running his first 5.4. The race is open tomorrow and we hope for safe runs".

Gittli's car like many others is displaying stickers saying "In Memory of Svein Gottenberg" which are raising funds for Svein's widow Anna. Gunnar, Svein's crew chief is attending this weekend.

Rob Turner and the entire Turner Motorsport team were delighted with their first 5.4 after trying for a couple of years. Rob said "The car shook a little at the start but then went smoothly. It's an important achievement for us but it came when we least expected it. We shut off both times yesterday after tyre shake and weren't particularly going for it and just wanted to run a mid-50. We've now got a handle on the track. With a five car field we are against Christer in the first round". Rob is planning on racing at the National Finals to sew up the MSA Drag Racing Championship for another year.

Dave Wilson said after the car disappeared in a cloud of smoke, "There was a lot of damage. A fuel line came off after tyre shake and no. 6 cyliner went hot and the top of the con rod let go. There was bits of conrod everywhere and we will have to install the spare motor, which is identical to the one we ran 5.4s today".

Michael Malmgren said after qualifying no.1 and getting both ends of the record, "You couldn't ask for any more from a race weekend so far and the car has run consistently. The car got loose on the last run but still ran a 6.88. It felt really fast to 330' but the left lane was better in that session and we were in the right lane. Our objective is of course to win the race and it is so competitive, I don't mind who we have in the first round.

Courtesy of PiPPi we have some bike pit notes. Sverre Dahl (Top Fuel Bike) burned his clutch out earlier after stepping up in a major way.

Steve Woollatt is out of the event after the Puma motor torched another cylinder head beyond repair in the time available.

Hans Olav Olstad (Supertwin) has made contact with local machining firms to get his cylinder head repaired, but we do not know whether he was successful in this.

Whilst Rickard Gustavsson has won the Top Fuel Bike championship and qualified well, he did suffer broken sprockets on the bike's crankshaft. When PiPPi asked if he had the spare parts, Rickard replied "Do you travel naked to the UK?"

Jimmy Ålund said "We are bullish about tomorrow and the weather has helped all Pro Stock competitors this weekend. We did struggle a little at the start but now have got some good runs and have something to tune from. The championship is all but sewn up but we want to have a good race tomorrow". Jimmy continues to consider options in buying a Pontiac GTO for next year.

Glenn Mikres, tuning consultant for Urs Erbacher said after the 4.74/218 "We knew a run like that was coming after we ran a 319 speed in Norway. We have struggled to get through the programme as Urs had to pedal yesterday and it affected the timers and the data. This morning we heard that Urs' brother had a motorcycle accident and we decided not to run but fortunately he is recovering well. The motor was set up soft on the run this afternoon; it ran an 0.89s 60' time and we have scope to improve at the start of the run. The team is a bunch of great guys and I have really enjoyed working with them this year".

Håkan Nilsson said "It would be good to meet Urs in the final, but it's going to be a tough race for us. We're against Thomas in the first round and that is effectively the race for the championship. If we take him out we will meet Lex in the semi final and Lex cannot win the championship. So the races will be very competitive. We have just changed bearings and the car has been reliable. We are very happy with the season. We had shake at the start, which came back yesterday, and haven't used many parts. The 4.80 we ran this morning was far from perfect and I think we have a 4.6 in the car. After this year, we want to continue the same programme for next year".

Richard Sundblom (Pro Stock) has rebounded after an epic tale of the team travelling from Finland to SPR. He said "The front wheel bearings of the trailer seized in Holland and we repaired it; the trailer was too tall for the ferry at Hook of Holland so the team had to drive to Calais. They eventually arrived at 5:30am. The motor has been with us since 11pm yesterday evening, a big thankyou to Malcolm Francis of Air Sea Logistics for arranging that for us. Our first run off the trailer was a 6.963/198. Tami Brander and I said if we ran a six we would become betrothed to our respective partners Annneka and Anja and are planning a double wedding in the near future! Thanks to Tami Brander who built the car himself; it works so well and went so straight today".

Jaska Salakari stepped up to a best time so far on his new KTM Supertwin bike of 6.70. "We know we can do better still", Jaska said. "Our 60' was only 1.22 and it was only after the clutch came in at 2.85s that it started to happen. I lifted at 5.9s and our data said the bike was travelling at 219mph. If you project the run to a full pass it would have been a 6.3. Our biggest problem to date on the bike has been fuel pressure on the starting line and we are confident we have solved it. The reason I lifted is that the last time I ran this fast was six years ago and I am still getting a feel for the bike at speed. We are against Charley in the first round and it's an opportunity to reverse the result of the race - we had a flat tyre at the finish line and Charley's bike broke a primary belt and ran a winning 7.6.

Thomas Nataas said of his first round pairing against Håkan Nilsson, "That was the plan! We finally got down the track which gives Rune and the team some data to work with. Nothing is easy in Top Fuel, Håkan has the record but still has a lot to do to win the championship. It's going to be interesting".

16:30

Smax Smith said after his motor-destroying 5.501 pass this morning, "We were no.2 at the end of Friday and have the fastest mph so far with 296. We only had slight damage on the first pass and were confident of running 300mph and the incrementals at the start looked good for that. Then one or two clutch discs exploded and the motor zinged. The clutch exploding is a worst-case scenario for the mechanics because it is so immediate you just cannot catch it. We've got spares and will be fixed and running tomorrow. At the same time you've got to be apprehensive because of all the new parts we will have had to put on the car. We've had to change the block, pistons, rods and quite a bit of the drivetrain." Smax is pleased with the McDonald Brothers team. "We've got the whole package now and deserve to get some major sponsorship", he added.

Over the Pond, Smax is delighted to have an opportunity to re-ignite his nitro career in North America. "The team I drive with is owned by Spiro Kontos. It started as a nostalgia Funny Car team but then IHRA reintroduced Nitro Funny Cars and Spiro wanted an experienced driver to go into the hot seat initially. I have also been able to help with the tuneup, which the McDonald bothers and I worked on. We had lots of problems testing and licensing with breakage at an earlier event and the Toronto IHRA event being rained off. Our plan now is to test at Grand Bend next weekend and do the full pass to complete my license. In two weeks time there is the rain-off date for the Toronto race which we hope to compete in." Plans for next year may include a two car team with Spiros. Smax also said that his license in Canada would enable him to compete in the U.S.

Ian King (Top Fuel Bike) said "The bike broke a magneto on the first qualifying pass and ran a partial pass to get in the field in the second session. This morning, a crankshaft seal started weeping and I was shut off. We will run later."

Roel Koedam said "Yesterday we tried hard and smoked the tyres and had to back off. We ran a 6.27 this morning and want to step up further. This will be my last event in Top Fuel and it would be good if we could win here. The bike is being shipped to Australia in a month and it will be run for the first time there in December". Roel is looking forward to racing in Supertwin. "Ton Pels is my best friend, so there was no hesitation in making the decision," he said.

Steve Carey was delighted with a NPB of 6.88 in the first session today. "We are planning to leave the settings as they are and to go and repeat", he said. Steve wished to thank John Torring from Wolrdwide Aviation in Bournemouth who is oil sponsor for next year. "Thanks also to my crew chief Paul Webster, team member Paul Kennard and Jax for making the tea." The bike was bought from Roald Dogge of Holland in 2002 and has a Phil Baimbridge motor.

Sam Chaplain was quite happy with her 8.5 best this weekend although she hasn't qualified. "A bolt came loose and Roland had to replace the magnetic pickups. We plan to debut the new bike at the start of the next season or possibly at the end of this season depending on time. Alternatively we may run our new engine in our old bike to test it. Our aim is to run the equipment reliably."

Otto Knebl must have the long distance award coming 1,300km from Prague for his debut at SPR. Running a funny bike, Otto said "We ran a PB of 8.4 at Hockenheim and an 8.5 so far this weekend. This is a perfect track with perfect people. The bike uses a Kawasaki motor and frame made by Otto who owns the Knebl Drag Factory for building competition bikes in the Czech Republic. When you consider thath Otto's wife runs the Czech Drag Series for bikes, you realise that this is an important part of the sport's development in Eastern Europe. "The Czech Drag Series runs three races in the Czech Republic at Hoskovice (a disused airport with a smooth concrete surface) and one in Hungary and there has been a lot of growth in the last three years. The championship is all bike classes and we have guests such as V-Rod series and Euro Top Gas Serie. However we are building a VW Beetle with a US engine to race in VW races across Europe next year".

Richard Gipp said that his 7.22 ran this morning was a new PB, "but it's not enough to qualify. We've had some gremlins in the gearbox. I will be running at next weekend's Extreme Performance Bike Weekend at SPR and at the finals. After that the bike will be sold by its owners Dave Varey and Sarah Jane Head." Richard's plans for 2007 involve running the UEM Pro Stock Bike championship with Chris Hope. Richard has two 1640cc motors prepared already for that purpose by Roger Upton and Straightline Racing.

Chris Hall described his weekend as "Interesting" with "Opportunities to solve problems". On the first run, his wheelie bars broke, resulting in a wild ride across the track. On the second pass, the clutch came in too early and the tyres spun. "On the third run, there was not enough clutch and I drove through it which destroyed it. The good news is that the motor is ok but we are off on the clutch settings". Chris will work on developing the bike over the winter with new meachnical parts and a facelift.

13:00

Before this morning's pro session we spoke to some Top Methanol and Pro Mod competitors.

Jorgen Leanders (crew chief for Ulf Leanders) said "We may have overestimated the track, although we had some new tyres and they take a couple of runs to reach their full potential grip. The car drifted around a bit on both runs and we could see on the computer that the tyres were still spinning by 20% at the finish line - I think we ran immediately after a cleanup. Our best time was a 6.03, but it wasn't under power and we want to get closer to our personal best of 5.66". Ulf said "We will try once again. The G force was not as much as we've had before. The run was exciting but we only touched the wall after the finish line and then only a tiny kiss at the rear of the car."

Kjell Sjöblom said "It hasn't gone so well as we suffered from tyre shake on both runs and we found the right lane tricky. We have taken some weight off the clutch. We touched the wall at 1000ft but there was very little damage just a dent on the headers and not nearly as much as we had in Finland earlier in the year." Kejll ran a PB of 5.88 at Sunsvall a couple of weeks ago and is looking to repeat that here this weekend. For next year the team are planning a new, taller, trailer.

Dan Larsen of Eurodragster.com sponsor Dansk Auto Hi-Fi said "We need to find a way out of the slump that we had at Mantorp and Gardermoen. We are not running the numbers that we should due to tyre shake. After the problems that we had this year, we are due a good year and want to go for the championship in 2007."

Anders Magnusson of Leif Andreasson's TMFC team said "Leif's first run of 5.72 was a personal best for this chassis but the second one was not as good. We hope to go faster this time and if we don't then we will put a conservative setup on for the final qualifier. The championship is so close, with us 10 points behind Ulf Leanders and whoever gets the furthest will win the championship.

Krister Johansson said after running a 5.88 with his Injected Nitro dragster, "We think we are on the right side of the mountain! We ran the car really soft and all eight cylinders kept lit down the track and it was a really clean run. We now want to improve gradually, a tenth at a time."

In Pro Mod, Urban Johansson said of yesterday's qualifying, "In the first session, most ran well but very few ran as well in the second round. We are hoping to run better this morning but the track conditions are tricky to run records in. To end the meeting with a teen would be great."

Ulf Rapp was pleased to have run his first six since he suffered a lot of engine damage at Mantorp. "We ran our PB of 6.65 there and were fixing the problems at Norway. We set it up soft to get down the track. On our first run we had a broken sprag in the gearbox and on the second our clutch was slipping. Se we have put a new clutch in and are aiming for our best time here. This is my first full season of Pro Mod after running a limited programme for five years. After this event, we are going to Malmo to run the Swedish Finals. The timing is tight as we arrive in Gothenberg at 8am on Thursday and racing starts at 6pm. Roger Johansson and Jorgen Karlsson will be racing with us there." Ulf plans to run the championship next year and is lining up sponsors to help in that quest.

Championship contender Micke Gullqvist has been the surprise non-qualifier so far in Pro Mod. "The trouble is that we do not have a good tuneup for the track. The car is very sensitive to clutch adjustment in first gear and our objective is to be able to get into second without tyre shake. We have been going both ways on the setup with both the clutch and engine and will run the car softer in the third session. We would like to meet Urban early in eliminations to have the opportunity to beat him and win the championship. We can leave the best ET points until tomorrow".

Bert Englefield was pleased after running a NPB 6.56/215. He said "After shaking in the left hand lane first time out, we calmed the car down off the startline and are now looking to step up and lean the fuel out in the mid-track."

Danny Cockerill was delighted with personal bests of 6.38 on his first run and 221mph in the second session. He said "The car shook on the second pass but not bad enough for me to lift". Over the winter Danny is planning to update the motor and increase his stock of spares.

10:00

Courtesy of PiPPi here are some pit notes from the Pro Bike pits.

In Pro Stock Bike, Tom Tinndahn said of his 7.22, quickest PSB ET in Europe ever, "The run was good but not perfect. I feel there's more in there still." Tom is also the only PSB rider in Europe to race a Buell.

Luigi Chinarello was delighted with a NPB of 7.65 on his second run, a big achievement for the Italian racer.

Anders Jakobsson said after a 7.572/176 good for no. 4 qualifying position, "I'm unhappy with my riding and need to increase my concentration to improve the performance."

Martin Newbury was also unhappy after running a couple of low eights on his Kawasaki, citing problems with both the clutch and shifter.

Len Paget suffered transmission problems but had fixed these by yesterday evening and is keen to step up today.

Orjan Gustavsson was pleased with back-to-back 7.47s in yesterday's two qualifiers.

Martin Bishop has placed his older Suzuki motor in the bike and has matched it with his older clutch on which he is fighting the clutch settings.

Anders Abrahamsson is PSB champion but unhappy that has not run a 7.2 so far. "I've lost the tuning window", he said, with a best of 7.38.

Eurodragster.com Home and News Sponsor Paul Watson is unfortunately out for the rest of the weekend following back problems recurring on his first run.

In Supertwin, despite quite a few bikes not performing to their full potential, the field could be the fastest ever if a couple step up.

One of those is Jaska Salakari, who can run 6s with the KTM-based motor, but has had problems with directional stability. Another is Ronny Aasen who has run a 7.2 but can run deep into the sixes, Ronny suffering from wheelspin.

Joachim 'Acka' Riemer didn't make the second session when he had a problem with an overly tight camshaft on the warmup.

Per Bengtsson ran an exciting 7.06, the bike suffering from tyre shake and wheelspin. Work on the clutch could see him return to 6.5s form today.

Gunther Sohn in his first full season improved his personal best by 0.15s to 6.73, even with tyre spin at the eighth mile mark. He said "We are still learning, and on that run we had taken fuel out of it which helped us run better." Gunther looks to be a real threat in 2007.

Hans Olav Olstad is unfortunately out for the rest of the meeting after cylinder head damage.

Better news from Anders 'Charley' Karling who suffered a seized crank yesterday and has been able to rebuild and will be running today. "I have no idea as to the cause, but it is all fixed now and there are no other technical problems", he told PiPPi.

In Top Fuel Bike, Ian King ran a 6.74/171 on what was supposed to be a half pass! "I was going to shut off at half track, then realised it was a good run so I kept on it a little longer before I clicked it", he said.

Eric Teboul lost an oil seal on his first run which resulted in a disappointing time and oil on the track, but luckily the bottom end of the motor was intact after the run. However the blower broke later in the day and that was Eric's meeting done and he's on his way home as we type.

Which has implications for the champhionship - especially as the other rival to championship leader Rickard Gustavsson, Luigi Ferretti, has still not showed at the track. Could the championship be there for the taking?

09:00

Good morning and welcome to Saturday's pit notes sponsored by American Car Imports. The weather is once again clear and sunny and the track going through its final preparation. The portion from 60' to 200' was scraped last night and this morning powdered glue applied and then sprayed for the first 200'. We're starting with 90 mins sportsman qualifying and then moving into round 3 of pro qualifying at 10:30am. We'll give you the news from the pits soon.

In Roger Johansson's pit we spoke yesterday evening to crew member Kent Holts and guest from the U.S. Brandon Switzer. Kent said "We've been trying out different things but have suffered with tyre shake. We are confident that the car can get down the track tomorrow. It's basically doing what it's supposed to and we just need to make some small adjustments to the suspension. We are using the same setup on both Roger's and Jorgen's cars".

Brandon Switzer runs a three car team in the IHRA with partners Shannon Jenkins and Mike Castellana under the Speedtech banner. He said "I am here to help Roger this weekend and it's my first time in Europe. The depth of the competition is impressive. We've made some changes to the motors - I run the same Fulton nitrous engines in our cars - and they are making more horsepower. We now need to get the clutch and suspension setup right for the power."