The Summit Internationals at Tierp Arena were both a success and a disappointment.
We started the race weekend with a mistake.
Just before the first qualification run we discovered that a brace for the ignition magnet was loose.
So we fixed that and started the car to double check the magneto ignition which is lower than the ignition we have on the crankshaft sensor. The ignition was good, but in the stress it was forgotten to switch back to the crankshaft sensor. So this meant that the car did not have the power it should have in the first round (7.20 sec).
A simple mistake like that can do so much. This is also a reason why we tell others that we don't have time to talk while we work with the car sometimes. Especially between and after a round. Not to be rude, but we can't make small mistakes like this. Now it was only a bad round. But it can also have big consequences that can cost much more.
Before the next round we only changed the cable and then did run with the same setup as the first run. 5.89 sec on the scoreboard made us very happy the second rund during the qualifications on friday.
After some thinking during the night, we changed the transmission ratio on Saturday morning. Despite that, we got little less wheel speed the first earlier run (5.93 sec) as we did 3 runs on Saturday.
Adjusting the ignition curve and Saturday's second run gave us 5.87 sec.
The third and final run on Saturday was 5.85 sec after a little further adjustment of the ignition curve.
This gave us the first qualifying spot for Sunday's elimination.
The 16th qualifier Stian Rusånes from Norway unfortunately had a broken engine, so Roger Johansson from Sweden jumped in as a reserve against us. We knew that Roger was driving fast with his new engine on half the track before in the qualification, so we didn't know at all where Roger was able to do the first elimination on Sunday.
Roger had to shut off early so Mats could win the first elimination with a time of 5.91 sec.
We removed some ignition as we were afraid of having too much power by driving earlier in the morning with better air and as first class out for the day.
Before the quarter-finals, we gave back ignition again and won over Jere Rantaniemi from Finland. We ran a tight round against him in qualifying, so this was exciting. We went ahead with a time of 5.85 once again. However, Mats saw sparks from the converter bellhousing. We watched the video from inside the car and saw a shower of sparks. Removed the hatch on the bellhousing to see that the ring gear had broken and got loose.
We didn't give up there.
We disassembled and removed the flex plate, while we searched for another flex plate in the pit. We have a lot of parts in reserve, but we didn't have a spare of this one. David Vegter's team took their car apart to see if it fit. Which unfortunately it didn't. Many thanks to David and team for this sacrifice for us. Also thanks to other teams who searched and came up with flex plates. Unfortunately, they were all too big or too small to fit our starter motor.
But we didn't give up there either. We did borrow stuff from Rune Fjeld to convert to an external starter motor on the blower. This was not allowed before in Promod, but since some years ago it is allowed.
During an elimination day, the time between rounds is short, but we didn't give up until we heard Promod start up and running the semi-finals. Over the years we have learned not to give up at first. Things can happen that give us more time, such as oil clean-ups and rain etc. This weekend there was no sign of any rain, but still. Never give up.
We are still happy with this weekend, despite what happened at the end. But that belongs to drag racing. You are not a winner until you cross the finish line first, no matter how you do it.
Congrats to Michael Gullqvist with team for the win.
With 0.0074 sec from our personal best in a hot weather that is not optimal for records, we are happy how the car perform.
Now we will try to get hold of a new, or two flex plates. The idea is that we will go to Hockenheim in Germany in a week from now.
We also need to make a 20 round service on the engine with new connecting rods. It will also be new pistons this time.
We hope for good weather and track in Hockenheim. Looking forward to the next competition.