..But alas, something went wrong by cleaning the track and despite many hours of hard work by the track crew, the Rico Anthes Quartermile never came back to the level seen in recent years. After all kind of traction problem on Saturday and times far from the normal performance level, the majority of the FIA drivers decided it was not possible to run eliminations. Only Top Methanol Dragster and the UEM classes ran eliminations on Sunday.

It went wrong short before the German Formula 1 Grand Prix as Hockenheim had to remove all the rubber from the dragstrip, including the starting area, which is not a part of the Formula 1 track. But with the removal of the rubber the track surface was badly damaged and although the trackcrew did everything they could before and during the weekend, the track did not come back to a level good enough for safe and fair racing. Friday qualifying was cancelled by the racers and racedirector. Saturday saw three rounds of qualifying, but despite all the hard work, all classes had insurmountable problems to get from the startline and make a decent run. So Saturday evening in four of the five FIA classes the majority of the racers voted it was unsafe and unfair to run eliminations. Only in Top Methanol Dragster the majority voted to race. For the UEM classes the track improved enough on Saturday to run eliminations.

In FIA Top Fuel Dragster Stig Neergaard was back on track and the Dane was low qualifier, with reigning champion Urs Erbacher in the number two position.

Leif Andreasson was low qualifier in Top Methanol Funny Car with local hero Jürgen Nagel in second. It was good to see Danny Bellio back after his crash at Tierp. The Dodge of the Belgian team is in the famous bright Hemi orange colours now. Like at Santa Pod David Vegter was number one in Pro Modified with reigning champion Michael Gullqvist in second. Pro Stock pole went to Ulf Wagnhester. In these four FIA classes only qualifying points will be awarded for the championship.

In Top Methanol Dragster it was impossible to adjust the nitro cars to the track conditions and so it was no surprise Chris Polidano, Dave Wilson and Krister Johansson were the numbers five, six and seven after qualifying. Dennis Habermann took the number one spot, Manty Bugeja second, Peter Schöfer third and Timo Habermann fourth. As there was a significant difference between the right and left lane, to keep lance choice was essential in eliminations, as Dennis Habermann told after the race. The local hero did what he had to do and after defeating his tire smoking brother in the semi-finals, Dennis had to race Schöfer in the final. Despite his car control and great driving job, a tire smoking Schöfer could do nothing against Dennis Habermann who took the win in 6.0 seconds in the right lane. There is a protest against running the class, but as long as the FIA haven’t decided, points will be awarded according the elimination results.

In UEM Super Twin Bike Samu Kemppainen was low qualifier, with Nate Gagnon in second and Job Heezen third. But Heezen and Kemppainen had traction problems in the first round and lost their runs. In the semi-finals number four qualifier Christian Jäger was too fast for Roman Sixta, while Gagnon had no problems defeating Hans Olav Olstad. Local hero Jäger had lane choice so Gagnon had to gamble in the left lane. The Canadian tried it at the tree but was too early and pulled a red light so Jäger took the win.

With his new great looking bike René van den Berg was the surprising number one qualifier in Top Fuel Bike. But at the start of the first round of eliminations the Dutchman had to shut off after a fuel leak. In the semi-finals Ian King had no problem with a tire smoking Peter Svensson while Steve Woollatt advanced to the finals by defeating the last remaining Funny Bike in eliminations, Nils Lagerlof. King had lance choice but still went ‘up in smoke’. But in the other lane Woollatt had even bigger traction problems and King could catch up with his countryman and take the win in 7.1 seconds.

Pro Stock Bike had less problems with the track late Saturday afternoon as in 7.26sec Fredrik Fredlund was low qualifier, with Ulf Ȍgge in second and Kalle Lyrén in third. A big upset in the quarter finals as Gert-Jan Laseur took Ȍgge on a holeshot. The Dutchman was away first (0.070 for Laseur and 0.270sec for Ȍgge) and although the Swede had the better run (7.349 and 7.539sec) the Dutchman took the winlight and had a bye run to the final. In the other semi-final Fredlund had lane choice in his run against Lyrén and took the win in 7.30sec, which gave the Fin lane choice for the final too. In a great 7.18sec, by far the best run of the weekend, Fredlund took the win, but Laseur was happy with his first runner-up position in an UEM Pro Stock Bike race too.

The NitrOlympX was also a round of the EDRS European Drag Racing Series for the EDRS Funny Bike Class.

Check out Eurodragster.com live reports, pit notes and photo galleries from the NitrOlympX by clicking the link.

Qualification Results:
FIA Pro Stock
FIA Pro Modified
FIA Top Methanol Funny Car
FIA Top Methanol Dragster
FIA Top Fuel Dragster
UEM Pro Stock Bike
UEM Super Twin Bike
UEM Top Fuel Bike
EDRS Funny Bike

Elimination ladders:
FIA Top Methanol Dragster
UEM Pro Stock Bike
UEM Super Twin Bike
UEM Top Fuel Bike
EDRS Funny Bike