FHRA NitroNationals, FIA European Drag Racing Championship, Round Three, Alastaro, Finland

Words and photos Ivan Sansom and Rose Hughes

After the washout in Sweden a few weeks previously, the travelling circus that is the FIA European Drag Racing tour arrived in Finland looking for more conducive conditions and a return to form for the Alastaro track after problems caused by the resurfacing of the track in 2014. Whilst the track was showing signs of being in finer fettle than last year, the heat and cloudless skies through qualifying on Friday and Saturday slickened things up somewhat and, just to throw a spanner in the works, eliminations on the Sunday were conducted under much cooler conditions. This change may well have contributed to a number of surprising early departures on race day with some major shake-ups in the points tables at the halfway point in the season.
 
FIA Top Fuel Dragster

Mikael Kagered

Eleven teams arrived at Alastaro looking for the event spoils with the most prominent non-qualifier being Duncan Micallef. Of those that made it through to Sunday, the Bahco Tools Express rail of Mikael Kågered emerged victorious, bouncing back from a couple of frustrating passes in qualifying (ending up in fifth spot with a 4.386) to defeat a returning Janne Ahonen in the first round on a holeshot win with a 4.320 keeping ahead of the multi-medalled ski jumper's quicker 4.316.

Semifinal time and Kågered plain out ran low qualifier Stig Neergaard with a 4.203 to the Dane's 4.318. Final round opponent Antti Horto and the Eagle Motorsport/RFM entry had had a much more solid series in qualifying, ending up in second spot behind Neergaard with a 4.285 and stepped up with low ET (4.192s) and top speed (284.08mph) of the event in taking out fellow Finn Jari Halinen (who had seen red by 0.018s) in the opening round of eliminations.