5th June: Rain, lack of qualifying runs and a hastily reoganised race schedule caused major problems for the Top Fuel Harleys at the Main Event last weekend. Several of the teams were running brand new bikes and desperately needed a qualifying run or two to check out and fine tune the engines. One of these was the Zodiac Overkill team of Ton Pels, who qualified No. 3 with an 8.1, way below their normal performance but as crew cheif Vincent Pels put it "We didn't want to waste the engine on the first pass it ever did."
The problems facing the Harleys were most graphically illustrated by the double no-show in the semis. No. 1 qualifier Rob van Geffen should have been pitched against Per Jern, but Rob burnt a piston on his qualifying run and just didn't have time to rebuild the engine. Per was on a solo run in round 1 (Ben Beneke having suffered a seized cam bearing and melted ignition rotor!) when an ominous flash from the intake signalled that his new bike had let go big time.
A couple of the guys suffered from more than their fair share of plain bad luck. Anders "Charlie" Carling failed to qualify as a fuel leak forced him to shut down on the start line. Under normal circumstances this would have been a minor annoyance, easily fixed but in one-shot qualifying, it's a major disaster. Per Bengtsson couldn't take part in his semi-final clash with Ton Pels due to a broken wheelie bar - certainly the last thing I'd ever expect to fail on one of these machines.
Finally, matters were not helped by the track conditions. I know the track crew worked from 6:00am on Monday to dry out the strip and they did a magnificent job but the moisture in the ground prevented the track from warming up properly, as demonstrated by the number of methanol cars suffering tyre shake. Ideally the Harleys should have qualified after the methanol and fuel cars but on the other hand that would have given them even less time to prepare for the eliminations. Sometimes you just can't win.
This all makes Ton Pels' solo 7.102/192mph in the final all the more impressive and bodes well for the Zodiac team's chances in the FIM championship and for their ambition to qualify for the World championship next year. We wish all the teams better luck in round 2 at Alastaro next weekend.
