Pistonhead Open #4 Finals 1-2 September 2012
With only one race left of the season in Piston Head Open 2012,
it fealt as if it was time to get the parts working.
We are still in top of the series, as we have been all season, but only with a mere 15 points to second place holder Andreas Åhlmans.
Andreas usually performs really well in the qualifications and I usually dont.
That means if Andreas does a really well Q and I dont there will be less than one won run
for him to pass me and win the series. Winning the series is a really big deal for me,
and obviously for all other competitors too. Winning means glory, fame and free runs next year.
To go to the bottom with our trigger issues a new trigger wheel were made.
To minimize the number of parts I included the fuel pump belt sprocket in it.
The wheel went into the freezer and the sprocket on the coffe mashine prior installation
to obtain a perfect press fit.
Might not look too high tech, but I can assure you it is.
Meca Vällingby gave me a set of needed fluids for the weekend.
This time I went for the whater wetter instead of Bars coolant leek-fix cans,
since this engine block dont mix oil and whater like the old one did.
The weather did not look promising towards the weekend.
Not at all.
Me and Fille prepared the car and all stuff needed during the weekend on friday afternoon,
and were set to go to the track as soon as Nalle arrived.
The first thing Nalle sayed as he arrived was, hell we are just not going to the track in this weather!
Me and Fille looked out and saw it was raining cats and dogs. We looked at each other and...
...hmm, Nalle really had a point there.
The forecasts told that it should stop raining around midnight so we went home and aimed for
an early takeoff saturday morning instead.
06.00 we were back and there were only showers.
At the track it started pooring as soon as the track became dry.
We spent all day in the pit drinking coffee or signing autographs.
Around 17.00 the track was finally dry and we got our only Q run around 17.30
No one ran a descent run after whaiting all day in the pits,
so it fealt the ladder could just as well have ben set from a lottery.
Lottery or not, we were Q6 and Andreas were Q4.
Kristian with the powerfull Volvo 740 had left the track for some reason
so I had a solo in my first run and then all we had to do
was to win against Sörens Corolla in our second run.
Then we would have a good chanse of meeting Andreas in the finals...
Broke third gear in the solo.
That did feal a bit stupid...
One hour after the timeslip were printed the gearbox were repaired and all put together again.
I would not be suprized if we are the fastest Volvo M56 gearbox repair team in the world,
but I bet there is some loony somewhare out there ready to do it even quicker...
Sören knocked out Robin with the Opel Corsa like expected, so it was us against Sören.
Last time I ran agains Sören was at Emmaboda earlier this year.
That time my intake camshaft went straight off. This time I had other plans...
A 0,099s in reaction made me first to leave the line by far,
but the launch made det engine insanly strong and I left the line with smoking tyres.
A short shift into second gear made Sören to be able to pass me and I just could not pass him.
Now all we could do was to hope Andreas would not get to the finals, but obviously he did.
Unfortunally something broke in his Liberty gearbox in the semi that he could not repair.
I did not hope for that. I was more hoping for a redlight or some like that.
As the competitor Andreas is he went up to the tree for the finals,
even though he knew he didnt stand a chanse against Sören with his broken gearbox.
Sören won without any suprize.
Big congrattulations!
After we were kicked out of the ladder we did an adjustment on the clutch that we wanted to try out.
Between the elimination runs we were allowed to do a test run.
Just to make sure I did the weekends longest burnout.
Unfortunally the outcome of our adjustment didnt quite match you expectations,
but we got a good datalog and a result of the new clutch setup that we had two weeks to analyze.
There is two races left of the season and we just HAVE to find 2011's performance in some way.
After the race both me and Andreas did the maths and tryed to figure out who won the series.
We both came to the conclution I won it with one or perhaps two points thanks to my
reasonable and Andreas poor qualifying, so his one more win didnt help.
A couple of days later the official results came up: resultaten upp på KjulaDragway och saken var klar.
We took the total victory in the 4to6 series at Piston Head open, Kjula Dragway 2012!
In two weeks its time for prize ceremony at Pistonhead open Slight return, wich is a stand alone race.
Thats where we will celebrate! =)
Between saturdays showers I went thrue the pits taking pics of some cars I find cool.
Some are not really cool, they just belong to friends of mine... ;)
Photo: woken.se, Malin "Mallan" Ulfves, Kjell Brelleman och Emelie Rosendahl
