This event also saw the welcome return of Steph Milam who had a year out after injuring her back at this meeting last year. Husband and crew chief Dave had taken the opportunity to upgrade the engine and they had high hopes of better performance.
Garteh Ellis in the ex-Larsen car and with part of the crew on site to assist. Impressive drivers job, by young Ellis!
Round One of qualifying opened with Gareth Ellis having trouble staging. He rolled the lights, which affected his ET (7.4757/222.54), and then developed tyreshake because of an aggressive clutch setting.
Adam Flamholc made his first ever FIA run and established a baseline from which to tune his combination and Steph Milam was doing the same for her new engine set-up, getting off the loud pedal just after the 1/8th mile.
Jürgen Nagel also had staging issues and problems with his ignition, traced to the distributor moving, that slowed him to a 8.9276/139.39. The last run saw Jonnie Lindberg set the pace with a strong 5.8984/252.24, launching hard and carrying the front wheels to 60'.
The next session was better attended, with seven of the teams making an appearance. Johan Lindberg being the only exception, and the Lindberg team would work until Sunday lunchtime (after working until 4am and having a few hours of sleep) to finish building his car. Jürgen was much improved, having sorted out his new ignition system, recording 5.9547/247.73 which included a brief pedal at the 1000' mark. Leif Andréasson made his first run, with the plain black Monte Carlo body that only arrived at the track from the USA on Thursday. He had attempted to run in the first session but a failed oil pump kept him in the pits. It was a loose and slightly out of shape run, but still ran an impressive 5.5817/256.56 that would be good enough for number 1 qualifier. Gareth Ellis ran a new Personal best (6.0286/232.60) getting close to the wall after the finish line.
Adam took 0.4 of a second off his first session time and Rob Turner opened his efforts with a 6.3793/173.74, shutting off at the 1000' point. Steph had a better start and was going well until there was a bang at about 1000' as the engine leaned out and the blower lifted, also torching a cylinder head and doing minor damage to the body. That was the end of her weekend.
Once again Jonnie Lindberg was the talk of the session, running an incredible 5.6096/263.58 through tyreshake which would be a new European speed record if he could back it up.
The third session opened with an unusual occurrence. Gareth Ellis did his burnout but then forgot to set the gearbox back into first before reversing. He was unable to keep control of the steering and the car almost did a J-turn, coming to a halt facing the outer barrier. It was pushed back behind the start line but he wasn't allowed to re-start, having crossed the startline on his burnout.
Jürgen had problems with the lights on the Christmas tree and didn’t get a time or speed for what looked like a good, improving run. Adam (5.6787/ 256.55) and Rob (5.8160/233.78) then had a terrific side-by-side qualifying run that ended with only 15cm separating them at the finish line.
Jonnie Lindberg..
.. and Johan Linberg
