Tim Anderson Racepak at Tierp Arena

When Leif Andreasson first mentioned the possibility of building a new drag strip north of Stockholm in a city called Tierp, I immediately replied "Racepak and MSD will be there...if you get it built". Knowing the reception we received three years ago at Mantorp, I felt a new track, of this quality, would be just what European drag racing needed to bring it to the forefront of motorsports.

As the plane lifted off from Southern California and headed towards Atlanta, then Amsterdam and finally Stockholm, I had various thoughts. All the photos indicated the facility was beautiful, but lingering worries of the economic conditions had me wondering if racers, fans and sponsors would respond by showing their support of this new track? The racing events I was attending in the US, prior to leaving for Tierp, did not build confidence. I had found reduced fan and racer attendance at every event in the US. Would Tierp be any different?

When we arrived at Tierp on Wednesday, I was immediately struck by the sheer size of the facility, from the grandstands to the property, it was all much larger than I expected. As I made an initial walk around the facility, I could see the number of competitors and vendors was large, and growing by the minute. As we began to set up our display area, racers immediately began stopping by requesting technical support. As I was to find out, this was just the beginning.

Thursday arrived bright and early. Early as in 3:00 am in the morning, since that is when the sun RISES! We made our way to the track and I suddenly found myself facing a technical support signup sheet that was to continually grow throughout the weekend. Doing as best as possible, I made my way from trailer to trailer, attempting to solve all the problems, answer all the questions and provides spare parts for as many customers as possible.

Joe Pando MSD was in co-operation with distributer Hansen Racing on site

This trend continued throughout the day and night and was repeated on Friday during the day and night. I felt I was falling further behind as the list was growing faster than I could remove the names. We worked as long as possible, before retiring back to the hotel in Uppsala for a quick sleep, then back to the track on Saturday morning. As we neared the track on Saturday, the question of fan turnout was finally answered. We encountered a traffic line as soon as we exited from E4, which was exactly what the new track needed, but not really what I needed as we were late getting in. We continued to work to support the Racepak and MSD customers throughout the day on Saturday again in to Saturday night.

As Sunday drew to a close, I realized this was the most busy I had ever been at any race event. While I was happy we were able to resolve so many issues, answer so many questions and provide needed parts, I still felt bad as I was not able to get to everyone that needed help. However, our goal for next year is to provide two Racepak technical support personnel for this event, in addition to attempting to attend additional FIA events.

Overall, it was a very successful event for Racepak and MSD and we are very thankful for the opportunity to provide support to our loyal European and UK customers.