FIA/UEM FHRA Nitro Nationals, Alastaro, Finland

Words and Photos Ivan Sansom & Rose Hughes

The visit to Finland for the Nitro Nationals is an eagerly anticipated stop on the European tour, although the 2012 trip was marred by a visitation from wet stuff from the sky that delayed the semi-finals and then put paid to all the pro classes' finals despite the efforts of the FHRA track crew to get the event completed. Prior to the final deluge, eliminations had been conducted under cloudy and humid conditions that produced some interesting challenges for tuners and track readers by way of contrast to the hotter days that had gone before. A fair few surprises and shocks were produced along the way and it wasn’t a particularly good weekend for those that came into the event looking to build on leads in the points chases.

We mentioned in an earlier race report that some worrying undercurrents that could prove to be detrimental to the European tour were starting to manifest themselves, and, with some surprisingly light fields evident in Finland, visible evidence of financial issues starting to bite both tracks and racers alike is revealing itself. The miserable wet summer that most of northern Europe is undergoing is proving far from helpful in getting the paying public in through the gate (the forecast for this event weren’t good, and predictions of a complete washout on the Sunday no doubt impacted greatly on the gate receipts), and we’ll be lucky to ride out this storm without some significant casualties.

FIA Top Fuel Dragster

The FIA Top Fuel series is developing into something of a domestic squabble this year with Finnish drivers being the only ones to trigger the win-lights during the last event in Sweden. The odds favoured a similar outcome on home territory with six of the nine entries coming from Suomi and shortened considerably when they occupied the top six places in qualifying. Sophomore fuel racer Antti Horto ended up on top of the heap with a 4.123/293.64 mph (both figures standing up as quickest and fastest of the event) from the Aubox/RFM rail and defeats of a smoking Patrik Pers (with a 4.138) and RFM team-mate Jari Halinen (with a 4.312) put him into his second Alastaro final round in consecutive seasons, matching the performance from last year where he was runner-up to Tommy Johnson Jr before the latter’s suspension.

The sole non-Rune Fjeld car in the semi-finals at the Nitro Nationals, the ART team had earlier put Janne Ahonen into second spot on the qualifying sheets with a 4.191. Donnie Bender and Simo Patoharju gave Ahonen enough berries to get past Chris Andrews in the opening round of eliminations in a 4.272 to a 4.665 decision and set up a semi-final against the championship leader Risto Poutiainen in the Multi-Lotto car. Poutiainen’s winning streak that started at the season opener and had run through the first two events of the year came to an abrupt end when the blower belt snapped at the stab of the throttle; a 4.314 from Ahonen coughing up lane choice to Horto by two thousands of a second, but putting the ski-jumping hall of famer into his second career FIA Top Fuel final.