Mid-June was a busy time for Eurodragster.com as we covered the Sweden Internationals at Tierp Arena and, on the very next weekend, the SPRC Summernationals at Santa Pod Raceway. Luckily we specialise in being busy although at time of writing Your Reporter is looking forward to a weekend off.
It has become traditional that when the Eurodragster.com staff go on their travels one of the team is pulled over by Security. The really amazing thing, though, is that it is always the same member of the team: our Pit Reporter and Blog Editor Simon. You all know Simon and I ask you, do you know a less suspicious-looking person? I can only assume that the security guys operate on the principle that it is always the quiet ones but, whatever their reasons, on the journey to Sweden Simon was pulled over at Heathrow and his hand luggage was taken apart.

The Sweden Internationals was a most enjoyable event even though we lost some of it to rain. That will of course have satisfied those people who seem to prefer the prospect of rain to the prospect of a good weekend's racing; that is their right and their privilege but I really, really wish they would leave the rest of us the hell alone rather than spoiling the anticipation of close qualifying, hard racing and new records. From Your Reporter's point of view a very hard weekend's work was made a lot easier by the kind co-operation of timekeepers Oscar, Joachim, Lena and Petteri, the banter with track announcers Christer - whom I managed to corpse again - and Björn, and the unending efforts of Pit Reporter Simon and photographer Patrik Jacobsson. I must also thank Emelie, Suzzi, Kjell and Patrik Larsson who helped with various logistical issues. We'll be back in August, without Simon who will be covering a race in the UK although I bet that he has a security-related incident on the day that the rest of the team fly out. Two late nights and a huge news backlog later the venue was Santa Pod Raceway for the Peak Performance Day and SPRC Summernationals. 

A star was born commencing at Friday's Test Day in the person of Noah Stutz, already a very competent Super Comp racer, who undertook his licencing passes in Eurodragster.com sponsor Urs Erbacher's Top Fuel Dragster. Noah opened his account with a 0.894 sixty foot time on the Friday to huge acclaim from all present. With tuition from former European Champion Urs, tuning from European Championship tuner Robin Grice, and a crew of a size not seen since the days of John Ellul, Noah could not have been in better hands and he repaid their effort and trust with a storming set of licencing passes, keeping his head when the tyres shook and when dead cylinders pushed the car towards the centre line. To be honest he made it look very easy even though all sensible people realise that it is not.

photo: Noah Stutz impressed everyone with a storming set of Top Fuel Dragster licencing passes.

Another Friday highlight was the nuptials of Noz and Rich of the famous Podington Peas, a small group of nut-gone drag racing fans who attend pretty much every event and who give very vocal support to the racers, often clearly audible over the motors. Noz, Rich and the Peas certainly have their priorities right as they came straight from the wedding ceremony to Santa Pod; Noz and Rich were to be seen around the track and in the pits still wearing their wedding dress and suit respectively.


photo: Noz and Rich of the Podington Peas were married then went straight from the ceremony to Santa Pod Raceway.

The SPRC Summernationals itself was an excellent event at which the Sportsman racers yet again showed us just how good they are at what they do. Qualifying was tight especially in Pro ET whose top five were separated by 0.0088 seconds and Sportsman ET whose top three were separated by 0.0098 seconds. You may remember that Junior Dragster racer Belle Wheeler won the Eurodragster.com / Bad Habit Racing Perfect Light Award with a 0.000 in qualifying at Big Bang; this time it was the turn of Belle's elder sister Paige to take the money with a 0.000 of her own in Junior Dragster. Paige and Belle are of course sponsored by Alamo Rent-A-Car, who sponsor Eurodragster.com's Event Coverage and Blogs, so it was kept in the family in more ways than one.  Rain put paid to eliminations at lunchtime on Sunday but up to that point it had been a superb weekend.

Unfortunately, we will not be attending the FHRA Nitro Nationals. The main reasons for this are time off work and money - as you may recall from an earlier Diary, things are a lot tighter this year finance-wise and something had to give. I am sure that with Åsa's and Petteri's help we will be able to bring you results, Patrik has already offered pictures, and FHRA are offering a reasonably-priced webcast.

We will be back at the track for Dragstalgia at Santa Pod Raceway on 13th-14th July. If you like your Nostalgia racing then we'll see you there; if you can't make it then stay tuned to Eurodragster.com for our Webster Race Engineering / Nimbus Motorsport webcast and photo galleries presented in association with Alamo Rent-A-Car.