Pite Dragway 2007
25/8 - 26/8
Now it's time to tell the story about team Hot Wok going far far north...
I will try to be breif 'cos I have some videos that I need to edit too.
Anyway.
After the big disapointment at Mantorp park a couple of weeks earlier with the gear ratios being far too high, no launch controle and a badly slipping cluch, it finally fealt as we were getting someware.
We got a new set of gears. Lowest possible ratio was the order.
We knew the ratios of it but not how it would turn out at the track.
The launch controle was reprogrammed by Johan Eriksson aka. Muppen (or the muppet in english).
A new guy in our garage called Bean helped us renovate our cluch to as far as new as can be.
We were told Pite Dragway should be a good track for records.
We chose to go there and participate in TSDS Sport Compact. When involving TSDS basicly means lots of trackbite and a good race. We heard there was a test n tune event in Sundsvall, only 400km from Stockholm, but usually the traction at an event like that is rather poor so we prefered going the 850km to Pite.
I couldn't get the friday off from work so Fille, Elmer, Nalle and Foppa had to take the car and tools by themselves, while I flew to Lule, a town close to Pite on friday eventing.
The boys stopped as often as they could to try all MAX-restaurants they passed.
MAX is a Swedish brand hamburger bar with its origin verry close to Pite...
...so it was like theme. =)
Högakustenbron is a verry famous bridge that they passed during the journey.
Aparently the boys made one stop at Frasses burgers too. Seems like Frasses were 50% ok and MAX were 100% ok.
I landed in Lule just about the same time the rest of the team reached their destination.
Fille had a friend, Ronny Eriksson, that lived less than a mile from the track, so he let us stay at his place during the race. Ronny won the cup in the Street Class at TSDS North so it wasnt a coinsidence he lived that close to the track.
As the boys went to pick me up I was met at the airport by an N12 enthusiast who needed some parts. Me and the enthusiast called David went to a MAX-restaurant in central Lule for a break while waiting for the team to find their way out of the woods srounding Pite Dragway...
After staying up talking with Ronny half the night everyone went to deep sleep.
When we woke up the rain was pooring...
We went down to the track to sign up for the race and install ourselves anyway.
As we were looking at the wettest track in history we found another Stockholm team AVR.
They had pizza while we were enjoying the small but tasty burgers the Racegrillen.
During the afternoon the rain stopped and the track started to dry.
A rumor had ben released that a Volvo 850 had run a nine in Sundsvall while we were looking at the rain...
...but luckily it was prooven a false one. The Volvo mentioned had ran 10,10 so yet a tenth left.
We in team Hot Wok and team AVR got rather disturbed by the rumor,
but were pleased the nine was still to cach.
Now to the years most emberresing of all:
After several hours waiting it was finnaly starting to get to our turn to qualify.
No one thought the cluch would hold on for much more than two, maby three runs,
so it was no time for testing. It had to be the best run of the year at once.
Team AVR sneaked away to the upline far before we were permitted just to make sure they would get the chanse of being first.
(Before us that was)
Sneaking or no sneaking, but things didnt go there way anyway. They only ran a mid 10...
...or maby I should say they actually ran a mid 10.
I had almost 14PSI of boost at the starting line, the launch worked perfect,
but the traction was far, far from expected. After a lousy 2,16sec. 60ft with hysterical wheel spin, I engaged second gear. In second gear it fealt pretty ok considering the takeoff. I engaged third gear just before crossing the finnish line...
...just like I did on Mantorp.
-Hey, hold on a moment now? Shouldnt the ratios be LOWER now?
Just as I thought that and had passed what I thought was the finnish line a new set of plastic cones apeared to me.
Fuck! I passed the 201m line and took my foot off the accelerator under the impression I was at 402m!
My only excuse is that I had a new set of gears that I didnt know at all, it was at a track I had never ben at, and that track had concrete on its sides but only to 201m.
As the concrete ended at the same spot as a large amount of cones appeared, it was not that verry obvious as it may sound to keep the throttle open yet another 201 meters.
Especially not under the pressure trying to master a insanly car that you only run flat out a couple of times per year.
Either I am a complete idiot or just a nerv wreck...
...of wich I leave for you to decide.
:)
Just like adding salt to the wounds after my mistake,
there were just one qualifying round that day. The TSDS crew blamed the weather and claimed it would be unfair if not all teams would be allowed to run two rounds.
I claimed that since the weather on saturday evening was great, it was unfair closing the track two hours early just because of such a pitty reason.
They didnt care much though. You will get your track time tomorrow I was told.
Slightly unsatisfyed we went in to city central of Pite to check it and Sunes hamburgers out.
Sunes had the best hamburgers we had during the whole trip. By far.
Nalle even got his beloved onion rings without making a special order for it.
Usually his onion rings ends up on some other customers table so he have to wait for ages.
Sounds like a small problem in the world of dragracing, but for Nalle onion rings is the key factor in race food.
No rings for Nalle is more or less a disaster.
After enjoying the finest burgers known to man kind (fealt like that then anyway) we went home to Ronny.
He had blewn his engine in his one and only round. He had a spare engine but none of his crew were interested in helping out blaming it would be too much work. The blewn engine was a Chevy BB and the spare was a SB. The car was slightly rebuilt to fit the BB but the task didnt seem too hard to handle...
...so we in Hot Wok convinced him to help out.
Were used to fixing our own car, but since we didnt brake anything we were so to say off our regular duty.
Several hours and several beers later I had to hit the sack.
Too many things from the spare engine were lost and it was just not a quick swap as we thought.
That meant no race for our host on Sunday...
...but on the other hand there was no race for nobody on Saturday. The race was cancelled around 2 pm due to rain. (feels like we heard that one before?)
Ronny had already enough pionts in the cup to claim the first place,
so no one could see him crying over it.
Team AVR went to a club on saturday night in Pite and stole some inflatible animals.
They kept godzilla and gave is a duck...
...so we took our duck, loaded our trailer and went towards Stockholm.
Nalle was the only one in the team with what appeared as duracell powers.
Probably after getting his onion rings so easy last evening, so we let him play it off at a two player video-game by him self for a while.
Great thanks to the team that consisted of (from left)
Björn (me), Fille, Foppa, Elmer and Nalle.
Videos from the trip will appear within short
/Björn
