Words and photos by Ivan Sansom and Rose Hughes
Art Direction by Marissa Gaither

FIA Top Fuel Dragster

Despondent after being pulled through stage in the opening round of eliminations at Alastaro, Anita Mäkelä (right) had the spring firmly back in her step at Mantorp with a super 4.059 on an early click-off to lead the field by over a tenth straight off the trailer. Whilst subsequent attempts to improve on the time and get even closer to the 1000 foot track record (a 4.049 set by Andy Carter in 2008) didn’t deliver, Mäkelä was looking for a strong raceday showing, and definitely not the meeting ending rain squall arriving just as she nudged into stage in her first round match up with Jöran Persåker.

A Swedish weekend spent with worrying glances towards the heavens ultimately ended in a tumultuous downpour after a single round of FIA Pro Modified eliminations were completed and the second pairing of FIA Top Fuel Dragster were nudging into stage. This was more than a disappointment as the resurfaced track had just started to come in after the weather had also halted proceedings on Thursday and most of Friday, and the record entries in pretty much all the European championship classes had promised a barnburner of eliminations.

Nonetheless the weekend had enough action to merit a full report, and there were some real shocks in the DNQ lists as some of the championship contenders had been caught out by the conditions. Enough preamble and on with the photos and captions... and just a quick refresher, FIA Top Fuel over 1000 feet, all others over 1320 feet apart from UEM Top Fuel and Super Twin Bike