Super Street Bike racer Ian Cotton, who hails from Scarmasdale in Lancashire, managed to have five runs in yesterday's sportman qualifying. He said "I had a year off in 2009 recovering from an operation and this year am doing both Straightliners and Santa Pod. The bike ran beautifully but my best was 8.4 as I am getting back into riding and need to improve my balance on the line. It has a Big CC turbo installation, lock up MTC clutch, GT40 turbo with Motec engine management and AMS boost controller. My tyre is a Michelin Power 1. There is a great camaraderie among the Super Street Bike teams and great to have 25 of them here."

Super Twin racer Per Bengtsson (pictured left with mechanic Lars "Putte" Tydinger and Anders Karling) said "With the weather here, We may end up qualifying at night and here you can see down track when the engine is running but after the shut-off at the finish line it is totally dark. For this event we want to tune the bike to run as quickly as possible." Per's bike is running twin magnetos like a fuel car but the tuning characteristics are completely different. We use the Racepak a lot and Putte has provided the data for tuning for me for over 20 years. We have had long discussions over the winter about tuning decisions. We want to pull higher revs and go quicker in the first 100m but also to be safe with the engine and keep traction. The times matter more than our race results. We are developing our Bentec clutch and two speed transmission for customers."

Super Twin racer Vidar Ravnsborg raced here from 1999-2002 in Super Twin. He said "This is my third season on this bike which was owned by our much-missed friend Svein Gottenberg. The bike is set up much as he had it and want to keep it like that. The engine is an Overkill, unsupercharged, and Bentec transmission. We will start at 98% nitro and increase the percentage if the performance is not enough. Last year I improved my PB at every race I was at and ran my first six. This year we will be running nine races, two at Santa Pod, the Nordic Cup which has four rounds at Gardermoen, Sundsvall, and Orsa-Dala (a new 400m track)."

Super Twin racer Hans Olav Olstad, pictured with daughter Benedicte is pitted alongside Per and Vidar and has bought two new clutches for 2010 after breakage at the Euro finals. He said "There are group of five Norwegian bike teams who travelled together on the ferry from Norway to Denmark and then from Denmark to Harwich. At Hungary we spun the clutch for 400m due to the track and broke three floaters on one run due to the slippage and heat. But we were no.1 qualifier and ran the quickest at 6.87 even though we had the worst lane in the final and spun the tyre. We had to detune the bike, running two thirds of our usual fuel pressure and to run as quick as we did is great." Hans Olav will be racing in all six UEM rounds, the Norwegian Championship race next weekend, the Mosten bike weekend and Hockenheim.

Funny Bike racer Bob Brooks is a great engineer and he has made several new parts for the YMR (Yellow Metal Racing) bike. "We have a new aluminium manifold, a home-built clutch (including perspex debris cover) which will be easier to service, new fuel system with HPS 2.1 blower and self-built drive and injector. This is our first race this year and we are hoping to go for low sevens or quicker. We will be returning to Hockenheim and running the main events at SPR."

Funny Bike racer Kev Charman (pictured with Luca from Team Whiterace, son and shortly-to-be JDB debutant Jake, and partner Lizz McCarthy) is racing a bike loaned by Italian Davide Ricci of Team Whiterace. Luca from the Whiterace team said "Davide has had the bike for three years unraced after importing it and wanted to have it go down the track." Kev said "We had a lot of problems in Hungary and had to rebuild the engine overnight. Then when we got back to the UK we had a handling issue and crossed the centre line on the test day. Perhaps the power was not loaded up. So after four passes a 9.0 is my best time out of four passes. We are looking for high sixes. The bike is methanol turbo with EFI and has run in the Prostar series." Luca mentioned that the Ferretti brothers have built a new Top Fuel bike which is hoped will be racing next year.

Super Street Bike racer Stephen Mead managed only one qualifying run. "The oil pump is scavenging oil out of the bottom of the turbo and there is an issue with the cam position sensor", he said. "On the one run I did do the fuel was too rich. I need to get closer to my best of 7.7 and get an all seven second field." The star-spangled bike was built by Stephen and Walter Sprout, who rode the bike at the Summernationals last year, has been helping with the setup online from the US). The bike's clutch is a Hays unit (Steven is the official importer) and the engine management system Motec. Stephen's tyre choice is Mickey Thompson although a Michelin is available ("The M/T is more forgiving but not as well wearing - if we launch on the Michelin with the rpm too high it will spin"). Stephen is joined by Simon Giordiana from Malta.

Super Twin racer Roman Sixta is attending his second Main Event. "We bought the bike a year ago. Before that I raced in the Euro Top Gas Bike series for five years and was 2006 Champion. I bought the bike from a Norwegian racer who had part built it and made the fuel system and ignition myself." The engine is an unblown Fastcat with Bentec clutch. Rollinger Mirek who is crew chief and answered our questions said that the team are still working the bugs out and the best so far is 8.7/170mph.

Super Street Bike racer Dave Smith said his runs were "7.5, a shift error, 7.8 and then a blown head gasket. My fastest speed is 192mph which is fastest and I was doing 155mph at the eighth." The bike includes a Motec management system, Dave pioneering this in the UK, a home-built clutch which was the first UK Hayabusa slider clutch. I prefer to make parts rather than import them." Dave said that he will have a new bike ready for Hockenheim. You can see the trophy I won for fastest mph at the last meeting - there is one for ET as well and they are passed on at each meeting."

Super Twin racer Jan Sturla Hegre at 22 may be the youngest racer in the class in the world. "I have been coming to the track since I was ten years old helping the team. I raced a junior bike and then a two litre Harley with slicks and wheelie bars. This bike, which was raced by Svein Olav Rolfstad last year, has 800hp but we have detuned it by running 76% nitro. It works fine and the bike ran 4.8 at the eighth and 7.83 to the quarter on my licensing pass at Gardermoen three weeks ago." Jan will be running all UEM rounds, continuing with a low nitro load for the first two races, and the Norwegian Championship race next weekend.

Super Twin racer Svein Olav Rolfstad has a new bike with matching team colours including Sunoco sponsorship logos. The Weekend frame has an OCR engine built by Bill Furr with a Bentec two speed trans. The unusual feature of the engine is the Jesel heads, usually known as a Pro Stock head manufacturer but using a similar design with oil flow system on Svein's bike as opposed to the more usual grease lubrication. Thanks for information go to Frode Larsen who runs the Super Twin web site.

Pro Stock Bike racer Martin Newbury (left, with Richard Gipp centre and Martin Bishop, right) has a new bike this year and has changed engine allegiance from Kawasaki to Suzuki. Wife Cindy said "We bought the bike from Martin Bishop and will fit a 1655cc engine to the PMFR frame with Hayabusa bodywork." Martin owns Psycleworkz which has CNC machinery that undertakes billet work for Puma Engineering, Big CC Racing and other racing firms. The team will run the remainder of the UEM championship, Hockenheim and ACU rounds.

A number of his fellow racers came to the rescue of Super Pro ET racer Mathijs Kraetzer when the heavy rain threatened to overrun his pit area earlier. Tracey Doyle was first to arrive with a dustpan, brush, and washing up bowl, and she was quickly joined by Jack Brewster, our very own Kirstie, and several other colleagues who brought no end of bailing-out implements. In true Dunkirk style Mathijs' pit was cleared within ten minutes and then the happy band moved on to the S&K Racing pit to perform the same feat.

As Melanie Troxel's car was unloaded in the pits, a big crowd built up to watch the unloading. Customs formalities needed to be undergone before the car was allowed in the facility and we are sure that Melanie will be breathing a huge sigh of relief. Plans are for three pro qualifying sessions tomorrow.