Tierp…We love this track.

The truck is once again heading to our favorite track, Tierp Arena, Sweden. Arriving wednesday afternoon with our main sponor Stefan Ernryd behind the steering wheel. This will be an important race, cause if everything goes good, we can safe the championship lead, and if things going bad, we can ruin our chances of beeing 2012 prostock champion.

Friday was first qualification day, and after a rainy thursday we didnt really know if the track could hold the power in our Ernryd cars backed up Dodge Stratus. The first run where a dissapointment for the whole team….After a straight and good burnout, the engine where not running on 2 cylinders, and we where forced to shut down. In the pits we found the problem, a 50 euro problem, in a million euro car….One of the valves in the carburetor got stuck, and flooding was a fact. we changed and checked the whole fuelsystem carefully, and then started it up, with no prolems. One round down the drain….

Second qualification went better, but not good. The track was better then we thought, and the loss of the first round didnt give us any valuable data to use when tuning the car. 6,75 s took us to qualification nr 4….but we where not happy knowing we have much more to give. Friday night we changed gearing in the trans and in the rear axle, optimized the engine and checked everything so that we would be good to go on saturday.

Friday night where also a time for celebration…Thomas Lindström and Nina Norin got engaged, he proposed at the grandstand and the answer where a non doubtable YES… The masterchef Andy had a couple of bottles of the finest Champagne in the cooler, and the smile on Thomas face where enough to know that he is one lucky bastard. Enyoy life and take care of eachother, cause love that strong is almost impossible to find.

Saturday, and third qualification run….The track got better and better and we should have calculated with that, but even if we put in more clutch then tha day before, it got loose, and shutdown after third gear was the result. Getting back and looking at the computor made us confident that we could make good numbers…the question is how much should we tune the car…we are just outside the window…and small steps is the way…but with one round left before raceday we needed to do something major to claim the pole that Jimmy had with a good 6,68 run. We took a decision…and we took the right one…… Straight like an arrow we went down the track….leaving Ålund and callin behind us looking at the scoreboard…. 6.6660 s and 314 km/h made it!!!! The number of the beast…. Low et at the event, trackreckord again, and number one qualifier in Prostock car. The crowd on the stands just got wild, the team got wild, and the driver got wildest of them al…..We made it!!!!

Saturday we also had a big sponsor day, 63 invited sponsors came and got a full day of racing, 6,666s runs, food, drinking and a wonderfull time in our VIP tent. Ernryd cars,  IAL skadejour, Verkstadspartner, Bilia, Jungarve bygg, DK lyft & Transport, Kyl&Värmepumpsteknik, Snap on, Wrapzone and others. From all of us in Team R/T to all of you, a very big thanks for the help during 2012. Without you , nothing of this would not have been possible. You are one piece of the puzzle and you  deserve the credit for our 6,6660 s round, and our championship lead.

Sunday, Race day

Rain seemes to be the thing this season…and no difference on this race…Eventally it stopped raining and the track crew made a hell of a job getting the track ready for buisniess. About 14:00 the track where good to go, and in our first elimination we had Christian Sagelv in his Ford, Thomas fell asleep when the tree went green, and finally got the car launched, but then sagelv where 1,5 carlength ahead…chasing him down the track, and we took the win…..with one thousand of an second, aprox 8,8cm….made this to a really really close one….One more lesson learned…..dont sleep at the tree…..Lucky for us, we got a mopar engine that outrun them al on fifth gear 😉 6,75 s 314km/h was o good run, but on race day, it is important to be quick at the tree…cause its not the car that goes fastest that win…it is the first car who cross the finnishline that does.

Elimination 2, up against Nixxon, Finland vs sweden.  Nixxon made a cherry at the tree, and gave it all away to us…just like we did in Finland against Mats. We made a good 6,70s 314km/h run and now we are back on track…..

Final against Jimmy Ålund, second time this year we meet in the Final, and last time we won…So he is eager to even the odds, and eaven the pointslead. But one thing is for sure…he need to do his best to straight things out to his advantage… Sadly the rain came over us, and canceled further racing. The good thing is that we gained more points this race and advanced the pointslead to 45 points ahead of Jimmy, Callin is on third place. And they both want to take us out in the Final race, Santa pod, England. We will do our best to stand on our feet, and don let them to take any ground. We got a mopar, and we all know that it takes a mopar to catch a mopar.

Hockenheim…….

We came to Germany and Hockenheim with high expectations, the weather where supposed to be sunny, no rain in sight. Some rumors regarding the track started to circulate on our way to the track, that they had some kind of a race one week ago…and there was no traction…we just ignored it, as we always do with other peoples opinions regarding a track. As our mentor tells us.. Just stay coo l boys….and we did….

When we had installed us in the prostock pit, we went up to look at the track, so we could start to tune the car. This was Wednesday night. It was no rubber on the track, no shiny, sticky surface that we just love racing on, only plain asphalt with loads of trackbite on it. As the beginners in prostock we are, and the trackpreparation boys we dont are, we just thougt that they would drag some slicks on the track, and that they had a plan regarding getting the track ready for a championship event. We went back Thursday morning, and no still no activity on the track. Now we are starting to be concerned…. Why are they painting checkerflags on the startingarea instead of dragging slicks on the track. The rumors and answer was simple…they didn’t have any slicks to use.

The problem with the track was that due to safety regulations to the FIA Formula one race, they needed to sandblaster the whole track, and then they cleaned it so througly that the binding in the asphalt disappeared. This seemed to destroy the whole surface, and the rubber couldn’t stick to the asphalt. This should have been noticed and taking care of a long time ago if they had a plan, we don’t think that they had.

There was no qualifications on Friday, canceled by the hockenheim staff. On Saturday it was planned to be 3 qualification rounds in FIA car classes, but most of the teams only went out once just to get a approved qualification round. We had some problems in the first 2 rounds mainly cause of the track condition, we have never driven our car on a surface like this, and both the driver and crew didn’t really know to handle the situation, and when we broke every golden rule in dragracing, to do the same procedure every time…but on this track that didn’t work…it ended up with a 9,90s and 275km/h (this was topspeed in prostock this weekend) in the third run, that took us to 3d place in the qualification. On the evening they canceled the elimination rounds for the Sunday, and the race for us where over.

Leaving Hockenheim as poinleader and gained 3 points against Jimmy is nice…but not to race for the points take the edge of that little happiness. This weekend sucked bigtime, For all racers and crew who spend a lot of time, effort and money to go to this poorly arranged championship event….it sucked bigtime for all our fans and the 50 000 people that where on the grandstands. The thing that we are most disappointed at is the lack of interest from the Hockenheim staff…No info what so ever during the whole weekend. This is truly the worst event we ever been at. We hope that they, and all the teams, and all the organisations that is involved in this maybe can learn something.

Been there done that.