FIA Euro Finals, Santa Pod Raceway

Words and photos Ivan Sansom & Rose Hughes
Thanks to TSI Timers (Europe) for access to the timing data

The 2013 European season came full circle and arrived back at the starting point back in May having ripped up the record books along the way (of the FIA car classes, as a consequence of it’s sporadic appearance on the tour this season only the Top Methanol Dragster numbers withstood this performance onslaught). Whilst the Euro Finals didn’t quite the heady heights reached at the Scandinavian Internationals a couple of weeks previously, the TMFC ET mark was lowered yet again, the Pro Stock Car low ET was within a mere three thousands of the current European record and the six second barrier in FIM-Europe Pro Stock Bike was finally cracked; all of which show that the new track surface is coming in nicely giving racers the opportunity to use the high quality late season air that traditionally swings into the UK in early September.

FIA Top Fuel Dragster

It hasn’t been a spectacular season for Chris Andrews since joining the RFM stable behind the wheel of the ex-Antron Brown DSR chassis in Finland at the start of July. However, racing in front of his home crowd saw the Lucas Oil/African Oil Products driver pick up his first round win of the year when TF debutant Christopher Polidano suffered a hiccup in the burnout whilst Andrews had flames coming out of the back of the motor on a four sixty. With that out of the way, Andrews then was someway behind low qualifier Thomas Nataas on every increment on the racetrack as the latter flew to low ET of eliminations but had fouled out with a -0.005s red. The final against Stig Neergaard had Andrews sharp on the tree with a 0.079s RT but was in chase mode shortly afterwards until Neergaard’s ride erupted in a ball of fire and a 4.220/292.05 lit the winlight in the Brit’s lane. “Two breakages and a red light? I’d have to say Lady Luck was riding with us!”

In our last race report we’d mused on the absence of a race win for Neergaard and this puzzle was extended at the Finals with the Dane adding another runner-up finish to a streak that surely must end soon. Although fly-in crewchief John Smith and the Eye of the Storm rail had struggled through qualifying, a semi-final 4.060/291.08 was considerably better than Andrews’ best marks of the weekend and he looked to be on another charge before flaming another one in the final.