The racing weekend that was - wk 36

Formula One, at Monza:
In an exciting race that saw pole-sitter Lewis Hamilton bounce back from an error on the first lap to take the win, his teammate Nico Rosberg made some uncharacteristic error.....twice, such as running wide at Turn 1. Hereafter he could only consolidate his second place finish with the Brazilian Felipe Massa finishing in third place.

Ausie driver Daniel Ricciardo put on a good race, also recovering from a bad start. He put a brilliant move on Ferrari driver Raikkonen by tucking into the former's slipstream going at 215 mph and then passing him going hard into breaking.
Click here to watch the move's video.

Ferrari driver Fernando Alonso laments the fact that they left the tifosi down, after a ERS failure sidelined him on lap 27. At the time he was running in 10th place and had just completed a pitstop.

Race's top five:
1. Lewis Hamilton, Britain, Mercedes-Mercedes
2. Nico Rosberg, Germany, Mercedes-Mercedes
3. Felipe Massa, Brazil, Williams-Mercedes
4. Valteri Bottas, Finland, Williams-Mercedes
5. Daniel Ricciardo, Australia, Red Bull-Renault

The next race will be the Singapore GP On September 21 next


Dragstock XI at The Rock, Rockingham Dragway, NC:
Unfortunately the event had to be canceled due to weather as heavy rain put an early end to the race Sunday afternoon. Qualifying and the opening round of eliminations for all PDRA classes were completed Saturday night. The PDRA has announced that the event will be completed in conjunction with the season finale at Virginia.

During qualifying Pro Nitrous racer David Campbell suffered a violent starting-line explosion caused by probably a dropped valve. As the car coasted to a stop near the 1/8 mile finish line, the car was engulfed in flames, and if it were not for the safety safari pulling David out of the inferno things might have ended tragically for the Oxford, NC, native. He had somehow become disoriented by the fumes as he tried to stop the car. Thank goodness for the safety gear he was wearing he walked away from this very scary incident. Kudos to the safety safari!

The PDRA will return to action October 10-11 with its Championship Finals at Virginia Motorsports Park.


Mirock Superbike Series, at Atco Raceway:
The Aruban duo Terrence Angela and Jerry Jones both made the headlines in the 45th Annual Orient Express Motorcycle US Nationals.

Angela finished in the runner up spot loosing to his teammate in the finals, but did make back-to-back 6 second passes. To watch the video, click here.

Basari Racing Aruba's Jerry Jones won the Street ET category. Congratulations to both riders!


FIA/FIM European Finals, Santa Pod:
FIA Top Fuel Dragster: Thomas Nataas
FIA Top Methanol Dragster: Timo Habermann
FIA Top Methanol Funny Car: Gareth Ellis
FIA Pro Mod: Mattias Wulcan
FIA Pro Stock: Jimmy Alund*
European Funny Car Series: Kevin Kent

Mr Alund substituted for Greg Anderson in NHRA's Pro Stock category and won the coveted Four-Wide Nationals at zMAX Dragway in Concord, NC in April 2014, hereby becoming the first European NHRA winner.

In bizarre racing accident, Top Fuel Drag Bike rider Filippos Papafilippoe collided at almost 200mph with fellow competitor Steve Woollatt and was flung off his bike and landed onto the wheelie bar of Woollatt's bike. To watch the video of this incredible incident, click here.

Thanks for reading.


Photo credit: Foxsports.com.au. Drag Illustrated - Ian Torcher,

Best "save of the year" award for Dixon

In the era of globalization, it is quite common for professional drivers to be invited to race in foreign countries, and help raise the caliber of their event. Locally, we have been fortunate to have drivers like Jimmy Alund (European pro stock champion) and Pat Musi (American pro stock legend) elevate our drag racing here in Curacao.

When Larry Dixon accepted to drive the Santos Cranes fuel dragster at Willowbank Raceway, in Australia, he never expected all of the wheel studs to shear off on one of his rear tires during qualifying. As the tire gets separated from the rail, this pulls a massive and immediate 360 in front of his competitor in the other lane.

Luckily the dragster hits nothing and Dixon, a three-time NHRA Top Fuel champion, was able to drive it back into his lane. Dixon estimated that he must have been doing about 150 mph when he did his pirouette, which was caused by a broken axle.

This is one of the most incredible and wildest drag racing videos I have seen in a long time. The video below was taken by a local Junior dragster racer named Caleb Ober. He among with all the other folk in attendance, will never forget the day when "Larry Dixon suffered the most incredible non-crash in drag racing history", as this has been called in the media.



The video below is from a better angle.



To see the onboard footage, please click here.

The Rapisarda racing crew managed to fix the dragster and Dixon returned to run a 4.60 just a few hours later.

Thanks for reading.

Source: Bangshift, CompetitionPlus.
Video courtesy of:  Caleb Ober (Aussie Jr Dragster racer) , CompetitionPlus

Drag racing in Europe

The sport of drag racing has evolved a great deal since the days of Lions Drag Strip, some 57 years ago. It has even been adopted in many regions around the world, such as Canada, the Caribbean, Europe, the Middle East and Australia/New zealand.

In the near future I will write a blog on the areas of the Caribbean, the Middle East and Australia/New Zealand, but for now Europe will have to do.

Europe knows 5 official championships, of which the following three are the most important:

1. The largest and most popular is the FIA European Drag Racing Championships. The following categories compete in it: Top Fuel Dragster, Top Methanol Funny Car, Top Methanol Dragster, Pro Stock and Pro Mod.

The race schedule taken the competitors to the following event:
- Main Event, 2-4 June 2012, at Santa Pod Raceway, in England,
- Sweden Internationals, 14-17 June 2012, Tierp Arena, in Sweden,
- Nitro Nationals, 5-8 July 2012, Alastaro, Finland,
- NitrOlympics, 10-12 August 2012, Hockenheim, Germany,
- Scandinavian Int'l, 23-26 August 2012, Tierp Arena, Sweden,
- European Finals, 6-9 September 2012, Santa Pod Raceway, England

Alund's new Haas' built Camaro

One of the top teams in TMFC are the Lindberg Bros Motorsports out of Sweden.

In Pro Stock the guy to beat is Jimmy Alund, European Champion in 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, and 2011. No kidding!
A couple of years back Frankie Brandou invited Jimmy to Curacao to drive King Kong IV, which he did in good form.

2. The MSA British Drag Racing Championship holds each year five rounds of Pro Mod racing, all at the Santa Pod raceway (UK) for now. The race dates are: April 6-9, June 1-4, June 23-23, September 6-9, and September 22-23, 2012. 

3. The UEM European Drag Bike Championships is run under the FIM, the world governing body of all motorcycle sports. The following categories are: Top Fuel Bike, Funny Bike, Pro Stock Bike and Super Street Bike Classes.
The competition is held in conjunction with the FIA European Drag Racing Championships and is run during their events,


From what I can gather, the Europeans are quite fanatics of drag racing as well. If any of you have any stories you'd like to share, please feel free to do so.

Thanks for reading.

Source: FIA, Santa Pod Raceway.