The Lucas Oil dragster travels to Sweden for the Veidec Festival at Mantorp Park - the third round of the 2007 FIA Top Fuel championship.

Welcome to a lovely day in Sweden! The weather is great here as you join us in the fully set-up Lucas Oil pit. All of our crew are here and are making all of the final preparations for the weekends race. Most of our Top Fuel competitors are here and the rest of the pits are rapidly filling up as I type. Andy Carter, who flew in today with his family, summed it up nicely when he said "Its going to be great weekend!".

Welcome back to Sweden. For the most part it was a very nice day here yesterday, we had a very heavy, but brief shower around 8pm but it moved off quickly. There has been rain overnight and this morning the sky is grey but as I type it is dry. Yesterday we spoke to Crew Chief Per Andersen who told us “We have been making lots of tuning changes during the past two events, but the car has been responding to them really well. We are very pleased with how things are going and are looking forward to this weekend.” The first round of pro qualifying is scheduled for around 11am. Tune back and we will bring you all of the latest news direct from the Lucas Oil pit!

Good morning and hello to everyone at Lucas Oil in the USA, Lucas Oil UK, and all our associate sponsors thanks for tuning in. Unfortunately its raining heavily here at Mantorp Park so everything is on hold for now. The crew are making final preparations ready for qualifier one. Last night we arranged a promotional photo shoot for Lucas Oil with Norbert Kuno’s Lucas Oil Pro Mod and our Lucas Oil Top Fuel dragster. Many thanks to Andy Willsheer for allowing us to publish the photo opposite.

Dan Welberry, Marketing and PR man here!
This is my first experience of racing outside of the UK. I’ve been promising myself this trip for a number of years and now I’m here, it’s lashing down! Our good friends Sue and Peter Binden, owners of print sponsor, Pioneer Print are here to share the experience with us. Apparently, everywhere Pete goes, the rain follows…thanks mate!

We’ve travelled here with Richard Stirling of Top Nitro fame. It’s been a pleasure to share the trip with him and we’d like to thank him for his superb photography. This weekend, we are handing out our new hero card. The main image is one of Richards launch shots from the Main Event which looks stunning with full header flames. Make sure you pick up yours at the European Finals, where Andy will be on hand to sign your copy.

The next update will be after qualifying round one.

Welcome back to Sweden. Following our last update the rain stopped and with the sun shinning and a busy jet drier the action could begin. Qualifying started around midday. The Lucas Oil Top Fuel dragster was warmed up, Andy was suited up and we were ready to tow down when some big black clouds blew in and the rain came pouring down again. It’s raining heavily as I type and the crew are all waiting patiently for qualifying to resume.

During the down time we took the opportunity to catch up with a very busy member of the crew – Richard Bruton. Hailing from Newcastle, England Richard has multiple duties on the crew, he mixes the fuel, checks pistons and valves and packs the chutes. Richard straps Andy into the dragster and can then be found on the line backing Andy up and bringing him to the line.

As new boy to the team and the only Brit on the mechanics side, we asked him how he has fitted in with the 06 championship winning crew.

“Everyone has made me feel very welcome. They’re a great bunch of guys who all speak good English. However, when they do speak Danish, they always make clear to me what has been said.”

Richard has a long history in the sport and we were keen to find out about his involvement over the years.

“I’ve been around drag racing since the early 80’s, originally working with the sportsman classes. The Rover V8 challenge was where I cut my teeth, I then moved up to Super Gas followed by Top Methanol dragster.”

Away from the track, Richard’s love for heavy horsepower is carried over to his daily driver, a supercharged 350ci Corvette! He is also in the throws of putting together his own race vehicle, a nostalgia Fuel Altered/Funny Car which is apparently 70% complete.

Richard has also been seen walking the track with a very strange looking piece of equipment known as ‘The Shark’. We asked Richard to explain what this unusual piece of equipment was for; “The Shark is a Per and Karsten invention exclusive to the Lucas Oil team in Europe. It’s used to measure surface traction of each lane of the track. These readings can then be downloaded into our team data centre for analysis. This information is extremely useful in aiding our run set-up.”

We asked Richard if there was anything else he’d like to add? He simply said “Wai-ai man!”

The rain stopped around 3pm, the sun came out and it turned into a sunny and warm afternoon. The Top Fuel session started at 17:25. Tommi Haapanen and Mikael Kågered both ran into the 4’s before it was time for the Lucas Oil dragster to come to the line. Andy pulled through the water box in the right hand lane, the car sounded good but there was no smoke from the tires and the burst panel blew, Andy idled down the track leaving Thomas Nataas to solo to a strong 4.97 second pass. Urs Erbacher took the number one spot with an extremely strong 4.80.

Good weather is forecast tomorrow and everyone in the team is confident of running well on what appears to be a track capable of holding strong passes.

It’s a lovely sunny day here in Sweden,  just a very few high white clouds. Three qualifying sessions have been scheduled for today at 11am, 2pm and 6pm. Tune back later for all the news.

The early morning sunshine was quickly replaced by cloud and with Andy strapped into the car ready for qualifying pass number two the rain started to fall. The car has been towed back to the pits and Andy is currently giving very informative guided tours of the Lucas Oil dragster to guests from associate sponsor Landmeco.

Following on from our chat with Richard yesterday, we have used the down time today to speak to fellow crew member, Henrik. Henrik is part of the Danish contingent and comes with a very impressive Drag Racing CV. His home town is Fredrikshavn in the North Jutland region of the country. I started by asking him how he first became involved in racing. “I started out by helping a good friend of mine who ran a 1970 Barracuda in street. I also crewed for another friend who was running a 66 Nova in Super Gas.” Over the years, Henrik has also turned the spanners on friends cars including a 63 Corvette, an Oldsmobile Cutlass (which is running here this weekend) as well as driving his own 63 Impala in various bracket classes. Prior to joining Andersen racing, he had two very successful years crewing in Pro Stock. After this car was retired, Henrik was unsure as to what the next season would bring. It was at this point that he was approached by Per and Karsten and in his own words, “You don’t turn down an opportunity like that!”. In turns out that the Andersen Racing team owners had been watching Henrik for a while and were delighted to be able to offer him a place on the team.

So how similar is Top Fuel to any of his other racing experiences? “This is completely different, even to the Pro Stock car. The only similarity is the same ¼ mile, everything else is different. In Pro Stock we had a team of 4 or 5 guys, here we have 8. Obviously the amount of work required is greater, everything has to come apart after every run.”

It’s fair to say that for a rookie crew, 2006 was an outstanding season. How are things going for this year? “Obviously, taking the championship last year was fantastic. We were all new to Top Fuel apart from Per and Karsten. We all came together well, knew our jobs and did them well. This year is no different, even with new members coming in we are working well together. This is a strong team! I am sure we can repeat our success of last year if the rain stops! It’s been so frustrating but we’re here to win it all and take the points.”

We hope to bring you a some words from one of our Swedish team members later today.

Once the rain had cleared, we had a few pairs of Pro Stock cars to run through and then it was Top Fuel time! We were in the first pair with Persaker in the other lane. A fantastic run for the Lucas Oil car, 4.73 at 492.32kph (305mph)! That’s a new track record if we can back it up, a new personal best for Andy and one half the European record, again if backed up. Andy said “This sport is such a series of highs and lows, the low yesterday, then the waiting this morning and now we’re back on a high. This is just one battle, we want to win the war and the points… there’s a long way to go yet!” The weather has obviously effected today’s schedule and as I type, we’re unsure how many more sessions will be run today. Obviously we’ll keep you up to speed as soon as we can. We would like to point out that is was Joran that ran into the sand, not us as reported at the track!

We’ve just completed the third session of qualifying in Top Fuel and what an amazing session it was! We have today witnessed the fastest ever field in European Top Fuel racing. The previous fastest field was way back in 2004 when Andy was also number one qualifier. The bump spot this weekend is an amazing 5.07! We knew before the session that if Andy could back up his earlier run, the Lucas Oil Top Fuel car would be the proud owner of a new European ET record; a stunning 4.73 – 506.18 (313mph) did the job nicely! We can now take the speed record if we back this up during tomorrows eliminations. It’s been a great day and we would like to thank our primary sponsor Lucas Oil and all our associate sponsors for making this possible.

We now face Joran Persaker in the first round. Tune in tomorrow for all the latest news from the Lucas Oil/Carter Motorsport/Andersen Racing pit.

Well the first round certainly lived up to expectations, a couple of oil downs and a few spots of rain kept us waiting in the staging lanes for a long time… but it was well worth the wait! Andy was paired against Joran Persaker, the Lucas Oil team choosing the right hand lane. Both cars left the line together, a very small pedal from Andy at 200ft, but the Lucas Oil dragster was pulling away from Persaker by half track, well ahead at the finish Andy crossed the line first with a fantastic 4.74 at 496.03 kmph. We face Thomas Nataas in the semi final.

You may remember Andy’s quote after Q2 about Top Fuel being a series of highs and lows. Sadly, the low feeling has returned after Thomas won the semi. As Andy performed a strong burnout, the burst panel let go leaving him little choice but to run the Lucas Oil car through to the top end. As Andy had not quite cleared the track, Thomas was instructed to simply launch and take his place in the final.

 

As you can imagine, we are all very disappointed but the cars performance has been awesome over the weekend and to take the record back has been a fantastic achievement.

 

As mentioned previously, we have Sue and Peter Binden of Pioneer Print with us this weekend. Despite the weather they are having a great time taking in the atmosphere in the Lucas Oil pit. On Friday Pete was very kindly invited to the start line by the Veidec Festivals press officer L O. We would like to thank him for being so accommodating and making this happen. Also we would like to thank Ulf of the European Pro Mod website for helping us out when our internet connection failed.

 

Thank you for tuning into our updates this weekend. We would like to say a huge thank you to all of our sponsors for their continuing support… Lucas Oil, NGK Spark Plugs, Binamic, Pioneer Print, Crane Cams, K&N Filters, Yuasa Batteries, BMRS, Sigma Signs, Antiqus-2000, Rainbow Conference Sets, 3T Creative, Norfolkline Ferriers, RCS Cables, Teng Tools, CAAR, Autotel and AACI.