The Veidec Festival 2007 will go down in European Drag Racing history as one of the best meetings ever held over a 1/4 mile. With only one Top Fuel car outside of the 4 second bracket in an 8 car field and the entire Pro Stock field in the 6's, this event truly was one to remember.

For the Lucas Oil/Carter Motorsport/Andersen Racing team, it will go down as a series of incredible high's and low's. With the rain having played such a major part in the season to date, it was important to all teams to stamp their authority on this meeting, so the pressure was really on the championship front runners. I don't think i'm speaking out of turn when I say there are now, no easy rides in Top Fuel with all the competition having raised the game to an exceptionally high level.

Qualifying was a real testament to this with personal bests from a number of our competitors. After a disappointing first session, where our burst panel let go, we were well aware of the requirement to lay down a good number in Q2. 4.73 seconds and 305 mph later (a new Mantorp Park track record and PB for Andy), the Lucas Oil team were a great deal happier and sitting on top of the pile as number one qualifier. We were also one run away from a new European record if we could back up the ET. After Q3, Andy had successfully taken back the European record having posted another stunning 4.73 with an awesome 314.53 mph, another track record! He was also heading the quickest field in European Top Fuel history, just as he'd done at with the previous quickest field in 2004.

Round one saw us pair off with Joran Persaker who had posted a great 5.07 in qualifying but still found himself on the bump spot! The Lucas Oil bracket car ripped off another cracking 4.74 to put him on the trailer and at this point, expectation was running very high. Per and Karsten Andersen had done an amazing job in setting up the car. Running 3, 4.7 second passes like that is no easy task and going into the semi's we really believed the event win was ours for the taking. Thomas Nataas was our opponent for this one and another 4.7 would have done the job nicely. Sadly, the burst panel had other ideas on the burn out and our Swedish adventure was over for another year.

I remember sitting in the pit after the race trying to write the update for our website. I just did not know what to say! We were all gutted but on reflection, it hadn't been a bad weekend overall.

Yes, there were low's but the high's included;

• Number 1 qualifier
• Heading the quickest ever European Top Fuel field in history
• Resetting our own track record at 4.73
• Setting a new european record at 4.73
• Setting a new track speed record at 314 mph

Going into the finals, we are now second in the championship behind Lex Joon. It's going to be a tough task to get round him but it's not impossible. After all, we've been here before right?!

We look forward to meeting up with our UK fans at the track where we'll have our new hero cards available. If the Veidec Festival 2007 is anything to go by, the European Finals is going to be awesome!

Our next static display with the show car will be at this weekends 'Ultimate Street Car' event at Santa Pod. Visit www.andycarter.net to keep up to date with all the Lucas Oil/Carter Motorsport/Andersen Racing dates.

Dan Welberry
Marketing and PR
Carter Motorsport

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