As Jimmy became the 2012 runner up, he wasn’t too happy to break the series of seven (!) Champions titles in a row he had managed during the last years. So he went over to US and had a deep chat with his friends in KB Racing. That resulted in a deep secret covered in black.

-    I got a new engine from KB Racing and the deal is to not show anyone what it is. So I have to stick with that, Jimmy says and the team keeps the engine covered up. That seems to work just fine so I´m satisfied. New European records in both time and speed (6.568sec/211.07 mph) is a good start to the season.  Main Event was a much better start this year than last year. But we could be more consistent so that’s something we have to work on.

One of our goals this season was to be the first Pro Stock at 6.50 times and first over 210 m/h of course.. and that goal is now reached, already! We have had a very good contact with Jason Line over many years and we´ve been talking about racing with a KB Racing engine for a while and this season, a good opportunity came up and we can´t be anything else than satisfied so far. And the goal is of course to win the Championship. The car looks much better with the No 1 at the screen, Jimmy says with a smile.

Thomas Lindström wasn’t far behind Jimmy at the Main Event race, he started out the first qualifying round with a first half of a European record, 6.626 sec. at a speed of 208.96 mph. A mistake Jimmy made during the first round meant he  didn’t get off the start line properly, but next round everything went straight for the senior of the two combatants.

Thomas did whatever he could to match  Jimmy during the weekend, and finally ended up as runner up. He will never give up and the focus is to beat Jimmy, no matter what, this season as well (yes Lindström technically is the reigning champion still).

Lindström states;
-    We’re going to do whatever we can to win this year’s Championship, says Thomas. Very good news for us right now is that we just made a deal with a new sponsor, Navterra. Their CEO Matti Klintberg wants to be a part in our battle of winning the European Championship.

Navterra is an export distributor of cars, parts and accessories from the USA. Navterra has unique license agreements with US car auction companies, and a proprietary online platform that gives overseas dealers access to bid on off-lease, rental, dealer inventory and finance company cars for export. In addition, Navterra has partnerships on parts & accessories and specialty car manufacturers that give overseas dealers an unmatched range of North American sourced automotive products. Their Import Guard Process protects all products against poor quality and damages, and their US government licensed freight forwarding division ensures that all shipments arrive quickly and cost effectively. Read more about the company at www.navterra.com

Jimmy Ålund (left) and Thomas Lindström

During the winter the R/T team also got a close collaboration with Allen and Roy Johnson, who are part of the international success for the Hemi engine in the Pro Stock class.

-    After our trip last autumn, to their shop in Greeneville and a trip to Las Vegas to watch them win, we have had a close cooperation. Their engine is a winning concept, for sure, and 2012 was the year when Roys engines was the world’s best, no doubts. So we’re really happy to get this opportunity to use one of their “power plants” in our Dodge, continues Thomas.

This season Stefan Ernryd, at Ernryds Cars, is taking the roll as Team Manager and by that participating more in adjusting´s and tunings of the car.

-    This means that we now have a very competent and wellknitted team that is going to give whatever it takes to win the championship. We have had the same team members since the start of Team R/T and that’s the basis of success. We got the right man at right place, but the most important when you compete at championship level is to have fun. And it’s very rare that we have a dull time in our pit. It’s more like lots of crazy happening and laughter all the time, which is a good guarantee our team will last for many years ahead.

-    After a good weekend at the EDRS Nationals 2013 Test and Tune at Tierp Arena mid-May, where we got our personal best at 6.62, we went to Santa Pod and Main Event with good confidence. There the track was much better than we expected and we got 6.60 times all seven rounds and just within a few hundreds of a second.

So we’re very satisfied with that event. The car responded just as we wanted and I give the whole team credit for that, even though we had some troubles. Now we’re looking forward to next race the Sweden Internationals June 13-16th at our home track Tierp Arena. And we are going to keep the No 1 at the windscreen! 


Thumbs up by team R/T, Thomas Lindström and crew will do what they can to stay at the top this season.

The winner and runner up at Main Event the first round out of six in the European Championship 2013.