Racing - FIA European Finals 2005

This picture sequence is our story of the FIA European Finals 2005 at  Santa Pod.

It starts as usual with the tow down to the start line for first qualifying. Lovely sunny weather with little hint of what was to come.

Stefani, Bowser and Tom check out conditions on the start line. Always an unknown at the beginning of the meeting.

All was well because we ran a 6.29 which you can see if you click here.
The first rain came part way through the Pro Mod qualifying session on Friday evening.

Here we are  after the first lot of rain, waiting and hoping it will dry out long enough to finish the session. You can see it's dry under the car but the track never got good enough to run before the 9:00 pm curfew.

 
Saturday morning was time for a start line conference. Andy and Jerry confer with Freddy Fagerstrom and his crew while Luke and Bowser discuss tactics.

The interrupted second Pro Mod session got going around 11:00 am but we had to shut down on our first attempt to run.

We eventually got to run around midday. Click here to see the burnout which led to the 227 mph run. Once again the track was good.

 
 

 

The rain really lashed down on Sunday and most of us thought there was no hope of racing.

We started racing at 3:00 pm and although we won our first round race we dropped a valve. Fortunately we had a fully built up spare head for just this situation. We also replaced the damaged piston and rod.

Here Bowser is replacing the gasket prior to installing the new head.

Total turn round time was an hour and twenty minutes which is a tribute to all the team. It was a case of all hands to the pump so even the IT guy was roped in even though he didn't really know one end of a stud extractor from the other.

 
This is the damaged head with the broken valve jammed in its seat.
After all that thrashing we end up waiting in the staging lanes again.
By the time we were racing it was pretty dark, just the time for dramatic photographs.

Unfortunately too dark for movies.
And then we were in the final round for the first time for a while. This is the moment when Andy won. More by luck than good judgement this picture shows Andy's staging lights are out while Patrick Wickstrom's in the other lane are still on.

We ran a 6.28 and 226 mph in the final.
Finally Andy receives his trophy and shakes hands with Patrick Wickstrom, runner-up on this occasion but NDRS Bilsport Pro Modified Champion for 2005.

Much credit is due to the team. In spite of appalling weather conditions over the weekend they gave us a track which allowed us, and many other Pro Mod teams, to run the best numbers of the year.

Thanks to our sponsors

Poole Clayton Automotive – www.pca1.co.uk Hylomar – www.hylomar.co.uk Supercharger U.K.
Aurora Rod Ends - www.aurorabearing.com Brown & Miller Racing Solutions - www.bmrs.net RCS Ringspann UK Ltd - www.rcscables.com
Date  01-Feb-2006
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