National Finals, Santa Pod Raceway, UK
Following on from the rain and dreary conditions that have ruined most of the British summer, it was a relief, if somewhat belated, to arrive at Santa Pod with barely a worry about what might fall out of the sky over a race weekend. Indeed the main issue at the UK National Finals was early morning fog (Saturday’s qualifying action being considerably delayed by a pea-souper) and perhaps too much sun, although it wasn’t that warm. After the rainouts at the two FIA rounds in the year, and let’s not forget the Easter Snowball, the Santa Pod management had decided to bring a six car Pro Fuel Shootout to the traditional closer of the Sportsman championships to give a final chance this year for the fans who had survived the rain, mud and snow of the track’s 2008 season to see some nitro action under racing conditions.
Nitro Shootout
The return of Risto Poutiainen to the wheel of one of Rune Fjeld’s stable of Top Fuel Dragsters earlier this season has reignited the Finn’s passion for the sport to such an extent that he’ll be back fulltime in 2009. With consistency required to win the Nitro Shootout (the aggregate of three runs determining the final shootout pairings), Poutiainen produced a couple of fives in the preliminaries before clocking low ET of the weekend with a 4.9169 to take the event win over a no-showing Barry Sheavills.
Another looking to get back into Top Fuel fulltime, Barry Sheavills had little hesitation in accepting Fjeld’s offer of a ride in the dragster that Jari Halinen had driven on the FIA tour this year. Sheavills placed second in the aggregate charts just a whisker behind Poutiainen with a 5.11 best, but a blackened crank and a paucity of spares (understandable with the RFM team handling four cars this weekend) meant he was a spectator whilst Poutiainen ran for the title. Sheavills is back hard on the sponsorship trail with the desire to return to the Euro tour ten years after his FIA championship winning season.
We’ve been hammering on about the resurgence of Nitro Funny Car in Europe for the past couple of seasons, sometimes more in hope than anything more tangible. The past couple of events have provided a solid basis for our optimism, and the Nitro Shootout saw John Spuffard back over 300 mph with a 3rd place scoring a 5.0913/301.99 from the Showtime Mustang, the quickest Fuel Funny Car pass outside of North America.
As if to underline the return of the floppers, Thomas Nataas had earnt the right to contest 3rd spot with Spuffard after chalking up a pair of 5.2s (a 5.2024/280.60 being the best and a PB for the Norwegian in the short cars) in the Bjorn Andersen owned Batmobile Mustang. A 5.2801 got him to the finishline just behind Spuffard’s 5.0 (needless to say the quickest pairing outside North America) and the sight of fullbore side-by-side Funny Car passes with the header flames high over the roof is enough to make believers of us all again.