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23:00

Good evening and welcome to our summary of today's pre-FIA European Finals Run What You Brung presented in association with American Car Imports.

If you read this morning's Eurodragster.com News update you will have seen that a report on today's Run What You Brung was contingent upon the number of racers testing. There were very few racers indeed at the RWYB so we concentrated on photographs and you can find out from the few mouse-over captions what took place.

In a nutshell, though, Anita Mäkelä was hit by instant tyre smoke on her first run in the R20+ Energy Drink Top Fuel Dragster and then on her second pass got about twenty feet, hit shake, pedalled, shook again and shut off. 0.082 reaction on the second run and 0.936 to sixty feet. B&H Automotive/LA Racing Parts Street Eliminator racer George Scanlon put in two passes, the first was a troubled run with ominous rattling noises and black smoke as the pick-up came past your reporter at two hundred feet or so, then lots of white smoke in the shutdown area. George came back later on and clocked a great-looking 9.710/144.31 so obviously no real problem on the first pass, just looked a bit worrying. Fellow SE racer Ron Haslett put in one pass, looked like a checkout, 12.471/109.52.

Rosie Hunt and Jacob Kopasz were also testing for next weekend in their Junior Dragsters. Jacob's dad told us that they were working on slowing the car down. It was previously a Junior Modified Advanced dragster and so is quite capable of running sevens, but Jacob is only old enough to run Junior Modified and thus has to run to an index of 8.90 seconds. Rosie Hunt clocked a best RT for the day of 0.035 and Jacob 0.052. Rosie got just about as close as it is possible to be to the JMA 7.90 index with runs of 7.8934 and 7.8983, but then clocked 7.980 on her last run of the day. Jacob ran a couple of 8.461 passes and an 8.591 so a little more slowing down to be done yet.

In the RWYB we must mention VW Action promoter Brian Burrows who took what he said would be his last run down the quarter mile; if you have to retire from driving then why not do it in style and Brian did just that with a launch in the Shockwave Fuel FC. We must say that this did not look like Brian's first ever run in a Fuel FC, a very well controlled burnout and then no fear on the launch although we suspect that his foot was pushed back off the throttle as there were two hits, 1.084 to sixty feet.

Also of note in the RWYB was Malta's Simon Giordmaina who was testing on his Super Street Bike in advance of next month's Extreme Performance Bike Weekend here at Santa Pod. Simon put in a number of passes and we believe that he took out his Personal Best with runs of 8.482/177.12, 8.300/176.42 and 8.275/177.13.

Super Pro ET racer Paul Harvey returned to the track after a couple of years off and the Ford-powered dragster clocked 9.036/154.26 on Paul's second run of the day.

Finally for the RWYB highlights Jake Mechaell made a number of runs on his 9.50 Bike and particularly notable was that every single run had a Reaction Time in the 0.0s and all but one run were 9.5s or 9.6s with a best of 9.545/140.80.

The Supercharged Outlaws are running in as part of VW Action and had a session this evening. Headlining the Outlaws this weekend is Vic Hammond's return to the track after a lay-off which must be some twenty years. We're missing an entry list for the Outlaws and the timing system only has a couple of names but quickest is SO9 at 8.289/124.80 followed by SO7 at 8.525/159.66 and Lee Gallimore at 8.713/145.70. When the guys run tomorrow we will make a note of who is who.

We have posted 110 pictures of today's action; you can check out the gallery via the Event Index. If you don't see all 110 thumbnails when you load the page then click on your Browser's Refresh button.

Tune back tomorrow and we'll bring you the news from the Peak Performance Day which should be busier.