Suffice to say that it was a frustrating weekend. It did however have its good moments: for example on the Saturday we entertained Chris and Mike Garner, who had come all the way from the Isle of Wight for a day's racing. Mike has been going drag racing since the 1970s and we thought that so many years' loyalty to the sport should not go unrewarded, so we invited Mike and Chris to join us in our office above the right lane bleach box where they were able to get a totally different perspective on the racing, to get their sinuses comprehensively sluiced by nitromethane (particular thanks to Anita), and to hold on for dear life when Martin Hill ran his Jet Funny Car. They were also able to chuckle quietly to themselves watching Your Reporter typing frantically and trying to keep up, particularly with Pro Stock Bike for reasons explained in the last Diary.

As I have said before one mustn't get the idea that it is one long holiday here on Eurodragster.com and one proof of this was the E-Mails and Facebook postings throughout the FIA Main Event moaning about various things, the common factor of which was that none of them were actually anything to do with us. Your Reporter is, and has long been, European drag racing's lightning rod for reasons which he doesn't quite get and probably never will. Over FIA Main Event weekend the subjects were mainly 1000-foot Top Fuel (again) and having to pay for the Web TV. As you may have seen on the race report Your Reporter eventually cracked and posted a paragraph asking for the moaning to stop. The response from one reader was an extremely abusive E-Mail which did leave at least one member of the Eurodragster.com staff briefly wondering whether it was worth continuing.

I should quickly add that we also received a lot of appreciative feedback about our coverage and not just from the Eurodragsterholics; for example one Pro Mod crew member wrote that, thanks to us, their driver knew his incrementals before they had given him the timing slip. I just love stuff like that. So this does all balance out and of course we must take the bad with the good.

I do appreciate the irony of moaning about people moaning so let's look forward to the Sweden Internationals at Tierp Arena. At time of writing Simon and I are leaving the UK in six days and we will be giving the event the full treatment of live reports, pit notes and Roger's pictures. Unfortunately we have no Kirstie or Ed for this first of two Tierp visits this year but Kirstie is already booked in for August and Ed is making noises about flying over.

I was lucky enough to visit Tierp Arena twice in 2011 and it was a privilege to attend the opening event, the NDRS Nationals, last May. As usual I was made very welcome. Having been sent artist's impressions on the day of the announcement of Tierp Arena, and having been sent a number of news items about the Arena during its construction, I was looking forward to seeing the place for real and it did not disappoint. I have long admired Swedes for various reasons, one of which is that they always do a job properly and that of course includes Tierp Arena.

Having said that, by the end of that opening weekend I had been asked so many times by proud locals "What do you think then?" that I became a bit mischievous and more than once shrugged my shoulders and said "Oh, no big deal… you see one race track, you've seen them all". The trouble was that, unusually for me, I could never keep a straight face. I was however outdone by Pro Mod racer-in-waiting and Honorary Eurodragster.com Staff Member Spencer Tramm who on his first day at Tierp Arena walked through the arch from the pairing lanes, looked around, and said "It's like Route 66 Raceway built by Ikea".

Looking at the entry list it is going to be a busy Sweden Internationals weekend for the Eurodragster.com staff, but it will be busier for the race officials and racers, and of course for Track Announcers Christer Abrahamson and Björn Sundkvist who face the additional burden of having Your Reporter sat next to them gabbling away in English far too quickly for their comprehension because he only has a few words of Swedish (although he understands the Swedish for "Do you want one bed or two?" – ask Christer about that).

We'll see you at Tierp Arena for what will doubtless be a great weekend or, if you cannot be there, then we hope to see you on Eurodragster.com.