FIA/UEM Sweden Internationals, Tierp Arena, Sweden

Words and photos Ivan Sansom & Rose Hughes

Another weekend on the European tour severely impacted by wet stuff falling out of the sky, reducing qualifying to two sessions for all but one of the pro categories, and eliminations pushed back until gone 3.30pm on the Sunday. Fortunately the curfew had been extended permitting the FIA Top Fuel final to blast off after 9 thanks to the hard work put in by all of the track crew at the Tierp Arena. Understandably some racers and more than a few spectators looked at the rain falling and forecast and skipped off home early, they missed out on some of the best racing seen on the Euro tour in the past few years. Although we’ve trips to Finland and Germany to fit in first, we’re already looking forward to a return to Tierp at the back end of August.

FIA Top Fuel Dragster

Two weeks previously Risto Poutiainen broke his duck on the European tour with the Top Fuel win at the Main Event at Santa Pod. Seventh spot after two qualifying sessions wasn’t exactly the best way to start a repeat, but his points position was improved before the meeting started when 2nd placed Stig Neergaard announced his withdrawal from the sport (hopefully temporary) and put his multi-car operation up for sale with immediate effect. However, a first round win over a flaming Håkan Fällström (with a 4.138 from the Multi Lotto.com/GoMob.Fi rail) and a tyre churning semi-final match up against Anita Mäkelä at the semi-final stage (Poutiainen regaining traction on a 4.548/280.79 whilst Anita threw a belt) set up an all Finnish final (following on from the all Finnish final four) against Jari Halinen. The last pair down the track didn’t disappoint as Poutiainen recorded a second win in a row with a 4.185/282.68 and completing a dominant weekend for the Rune Fjeld Motorsports team. The normally taciturn team owner Fjeld even cracked a smile after the second event in a row where all of his cars made the semifinals. “The only comment I can make is that we couldn’t have done much better, the only thing would have been to qualify 1-2-3. We were struggling a bit with Risto’s setup, but it ran ok apart from dropping cylinders all the time. Let’s hope we can repeat in Alastaro, although I think that will be hard.”

Runner-up Halinen is bouncing back from a problematic 2011 in some style, with Laurie Bamford and the Sisu Polar crew dialing in a 4.226 for Halinen’s first low qualifying effort. A 4.139/291.27 set top speed of the meeting in the opening round win over Micke Kågered and then a pedal job at the semifinal stage took out the third of the RFM cars with Antti Horto at the butterfly. A 4.289 came up short against Poutianen in the final with the motor cutting out just before the finishline, although when we caught up with front man Jamie Willis he summed up the mood in the camp thus “the team couldn't be happier, a long winter's work is reaping rewards, 2nd in points and the runners up has us desperate for Finland to hurry up, we fully believe we can go all the way. Risto should beware, we're getting quicker and with Jari having a 100% record of leaving the line first in eliminations, we're gunning for that top spot.”