Stig Neergaard was having a pretty good weekend of his own, despite the team struggling to get former TMD pilot Paul Ingar Udtian licensed in time for qualifying. A runner-up finish for Neergaard will provide some solace, giving some purpose to John Smith flying in direct from Englishtown to make the tuning calls during eliminations in person, and Udtian managed to hit the performance marks required before the end of the meeting. Quite why this was permitted by the race director with a bunch of semifinals still in the staging lanes was something of a puzzle and the mood of quite a few of the UEM riders wasn’t helped by the trail of fluid that was left behind, but it was one of very few miss-steps made by the hard working track crew during the course of the day.

After the retirement of Andy Carter at the end of 2011, it’s now down to Chris Andrews to represent the UK in Top Fuel. Having purchased a very fresh car from Morgan Lucas last year, Andrews also picked up sponsorship from Lucas Oil for the F&A Racing 2012 championship tour. Andrews’s first round of FIA competition since 2005 resulted in a loss to Neergaard, but the car was responding the way the team wanted and they appeared to be happy with their work.