To Hungary for the season-opening UEM bikefest on the onetime Russian aerodrome at Kunmadaras, east of Budapest. The Soviet concrete, laid deep to take the weight of MiGs and Sukhois launching and landing, proved tricky and the surface will be ground before next year’s event, says promoter Keith Bartlett. Yet the track still produced some stellar times.

Thirteen Pro Stock bikers made the trip from as far afield as Finland and Greece, along with Hungarian entrant László Papp. (By the by, László Papp won three Olympic boxing gold medals, 1948-56, and later became professional European middleweight champion, a unique achievement when professional sports were forbidden behind the Iron Curtain. Papp the boxer died in 2003. Could Papp the drag racer be related?) Denmark’s Jesper Thiel beat Sweden’s Karl Lyrén in the final after earlier clocking a best ET of 7.08, just a shade off the European record – plainly few problems with the track in this class.

A dozen-strong entry in Supertwin ended in a Norwegian final-round double act, Jan Sturla Hegre beating Hans Olav Olstad. Only two Top Fuel Bikers made the trip, one of them, bizarrely, all the way from Canada. Britain’s Ian King beat the long-distance Canuck, Nate Gagnon.

FIA Round 1 / UEM Round 2:
The Main Event – Santa Pod Raceway, England – 27-30 May

To Santa Pod to start the FIA season, with a flag-snapping headwind to greet qualifying and a Bank Holiday rainout of eliminations. American star Tommy Johnson Jr. led Top Fuel qualifying in Team Andersen’s Danish car. He and Risto Poutiainen ran identical 317.06mph/510.26km/h speeds, but Risto backed it up for a European record. In Pro Mod, Michael Gullqvist now owns last year’s Troxel/R2B2 Camaro. To no one’s surprise, he nabbed pole position with Bruno Bader second, a sign of things to come.

Top Methanol Dragster welcomed back Maltese competitors: Oliver Azzopardi missed the cut but Monty Bugeja qualified fifth. Pole position: Timo Habermann. Ulf Leanders low-qualified in TM Funny Car. In Pro Stock, Jimmy Ålund topped the list, but only by thousandths from Michael Malmgren, with Sampsa Palos also close. It would have been a good race.

UEM Bike’s leading qualifiers were: Top Fuel Bike, Steve Woollatt; Pro Stock Bike, Jesper Thiel (spot a developing pattern here?); Supertwin, Christian Jäger, in his first major race in the class.

FIA Round 2 / UEM Round 3:
Sweden Internationals – Tierp Arena – 9-12 June

To Sweden and the resplendent new Tierp Arena, risen from nothing through the harshest Swedish winter in years. To some traditionalist dismay, Top Fuel was run over 1,000 feet on the all-concrete track. Tommy Johnson Jr. led qualifying. Risto Poutiainen beat him to Europe’s first 300mph (482.80km/h) 1,000-foot speed but TJ beat Risto in the final with the first 3sec ET over the distance. In Pro Mod, Bruno Bader scooped his first FIA victory, beating Michael Gullqvist in the final.

There was a European ET record (6.298) for Dave Wilson during TM Dragster qualifying but Fred Hanssen and his Texan tuner Will Hanna grabbed the win when Wilson shut off in the final. Ulf Leanders again qualified low in TM Funny Car but shook to first-round defeat against bump-spotter Jonas Staflund, who then confounded the odds by winning the whole race. New boys did the business in Pro Stock: Thomas Lindström was low qualifier, Sampsa Palos beat ‘unbeatable’ Jimmy Ålund to win the final.

Europe’s quickest, fastest Top Fuel Biker, Peter Svensson, qualified low, then won the race without facing a single opponent – three rounds, one bye-run, two no-shows. Christian Jäger topped Europe’s quickest 8-bike Supertwin field while a dozen failed to qualify, but Per Bengtsson and his ‘Beast’ beat visiting Australian Mark Ashelford in the final. In Pro Stock Bike, Jesper Thiel (that name again) qualified low and beat Fredrik Fredlund for the trophy.

FIA Round 3 / UEM Round 4:
FHRA Nitro Nationals –
Alastaro Circuit, Finland – 30 June-3 July

To Finland for broiling heat and tumultuous thunderstorms. Lightning even blew out the track’s electrics for a while. In Top Fuel, the Tommy Johnson/Andersen Racing story continued. Rookie Antti Horto qualified on pole, again over 1,000 feet, but TJ beat him in the final. A first-round win at Hockenheim will confirm TJ as FIA champion.

TM Dragster saw a repeat of Tierp, Dave Wilson as low qualifier but Fred Hanssen beating him in the final. TM Funny Car saw a reverse: again bump-spotter Jonas Staflund faced low qualifier Ulf Leanders in round one, only this time Leanders triumphed, going on to win the race. Normality returned to Pro Stock with a Jimmy Ålund final-round victory over low qualifier Thomas Lindström. Mats Eriksson was The Man in Pro Mod, qualifying on pole and winning his second FIA race. Michael Gullqvist’s runner-up consistency earned him a handy lead in the points.

Peter Svensson didn’t enter Top Fuel Bike so Sverre Dahl took pole and Petri Paljakka won an all-Finnish final over Samu Kemppainen. Seventeen riders entered Supertwin; eight qualified, nine didn’t, and Roel Koedam celebrated his retirement year with a win over low qualifier Jaska Salakari. Readers will not be surprised to learn that Jesper Thiel won Pro Stock Bike.

UEM Round 5:
Sunoco Drag Challenge – Gardermoen
Raceway, Norway – 5-7 August

To Norway for motorbikes and more rain. Action was confined to Saturday’s qualifying. Friday was washed out and Sunday saw a smidgeon of activity before the deluge returned.

Ian King and his new Top Fuel Bike were on a European speed record (236.71mph) if it could be backed up, and qualified on pole. Peter Svensson did attend this time but only made fourth – tyre trouble was the stated reason – and Nate Gagnon was back again from Canada to qualify one ahead of Svensson. Eighteen Supertwinners turned up for this one, producing another all-6sec 8-bike field, the season’s third. Per Bengtsson qualified top ahead of Australian Mark Ashelford (so international, these bike classes). Danish team-mates Jesper Thiel and Rasmus Olesen were both on 190mph-plus (305km/h) European speed records pending back-up. The shock news was that Thiel only qualified third, behind Olesen and pole-sitter Fredrik Fredlund. Might a Sunday defeat have been on the cards? The rain ensured we shall never know.

FIA Round 4 / UEM Round 6:
NitrOlympX – Hockenheim,
Germany – 12-14 August

To Germany for drama of the wrong kind. Top Fuel champion-elect Tommy Johnson is suspended from competition after a prescription medicine he has taken for years, and his usual method of notifying authorities about it, both fail to meet FIA regulations. Thomas Nataas takes the wheel of the Team Andersen juggernaut and duly arrows up the full quarter-mile course to the final round after qualifying low. His opponent there will be Michael Kågered, but rain intervenes and the day is done, business unfinished.

Other abandoned finals would have pitted Pro Mod low qualifier Michael Gullqvist against his Tierp nemesis, Bruno Bader, and TM Dragster pole-sitter Dave Wilson against 2010 FIA champion Timo Habermann. In TM Funny Car, Arvid Grødem would have faced Danny Bellio after beating low qualifier Ulf Leanders in the semi. Pro Stock low qualifier Jimmy Ålund would have taken on Micke Callin.

Peter Svensson hit demon Top Fuel Bike form on his first Hockenheim visit since 1995, clocking European ET (5.964sec) and speed (233.36mph/375.55km/h) records en route to a final-round appointment with Steve Woollatt. In Supertwin, Roel Koedam qualified on pole but it was a different Dutchman, Job Heezen, who would have met Samu Kemppainen in the final. The Pro Stock Bike final would have featured That Man Again, Jesper Thiel, against team-mate Rasmus Olesen.

FIA Round 5 / UEM Round 7:
European Finals – Santa Pod Raceway, England – 8-11 September

And so once more to Santa Pod, for resolution, fulfilment and celebration. First, congratulations to Jesper Thiel, already confirmed as 2011 UEM Pro Stock Bike champion. This time Jesper slipped from contention before the final. Fredrik Fredlund beat him in the semi, then defeated Karl Lyrén for the event trophy. Every other FIA and UEM title was on the line at this event.

Peter Svensson celebrated the UEM Top Fuel Bike championship with a final-round defeat of Sverre Dahl after scooting to the run of the meet, Europe’s quickest-ever TFB pass (5.881sec), along the way. UEM Supertwin leader Per Bengtsson pulled away from his closest challenger, Roel Koedam (riding his last race), to tie up the championship and beat Ronny Aasen in the final.

Question: could Michael Gullqvist nab his second FIA Pro Mod championship without actually winning a race all year? Answer: yes he could. Gullqvist was eliminated in the second round but secured the title when challenger Bruno Bader was dealt out three pairs later by the event’s hot act, Urban Johansson. Urban beat Johan Lindberg in the final, having also defeated Gullqvist a day earlier to win the Exhaust Coating.de Pro Mod Challenge competition.

Jimmy Ålund stayed in the show long enough to claim an amazing seventh FIA Pro Stock championship but shook out of contention in the semi-final against Richard ‘Nixxon’ Sundblom. Nixxon beat Michael Callin in the final. Dave Wilson and Fred Hanssen entered round one equal on points in the FIA Top Methanol Dragster title chase but matters were swiftly settled when Wilson smoked his tyres. Having secured the crown, Hanssen continued to the final where one of his chutes deployed early, dragging him to defeat against Timo Habermann. Joint-leaders also settled championship matters in the opening round of Top Methanol Funny Car, but this time in a head-to-head clash. Ulf Leanders beat Arvid Grødem to win the title and then advanced to the final, only to encounter TM Dragster exile Rob Turner getting seriously to grips with his new Funny. Leanders lost the blower belt while Turner sailed to victory with the last in a series of personal bests.

Now the big one, the drama. This event had looked set to be a straightforward coronation ceremony for the first American driver to annex the FIA Top Fuel Dragster crown (Gordie Bonin is Canadian). But Tommy Johnson’s and Team Andersen’s misfortune and banishment had let five other drivers into immediate, and unexpected, contention. One by one they slipped by the wayside until just Urs Erbacher and Risto Poutiainen remained to contest a winner-takes-all final. It wasn’t quick, it wasn’t fast, but by golly it was exciting. A neck-and-neck pedalfest ensued – first one led, then the other. When the smoke cleared, Erbacher was the victor, securing his third, and second consecutive, FIA Top Fuel title.

Erbacher needs one more TF championship to match the quartet won by Andy Carter, who marked his retirement from drag racing with a farewell cruise down the track, the motor idling, to take the crowd’s applause.

2011 European Drag Racing Champions:

FIA
Top Fuel Dragster:  Urs Erbacher (Switzerland)
Top Methanol Dragster:  Fred Hanssen (Nor)
Top Methanol Funny Car:  Ulf Leanders (Swe)
Pro Modified:  Michael Gullqvist (Swe)
Pro Stock:  Jimmy Ålund (Swe)

UEM
Top Fuel Bike:  Peter Svensson (Swe)
Supertwin Bike:  Per Bengtsson (Swe)
Pro Stock Bike:  Jesper Thiel (Den)