(Bostic's Busrace in the bottom of this page)
International Street Finals & The Doorslammer Nationals
Mikael Lindberg from Umeå
was the driver who took care of us back in 1985. He had the trucker's
driving license CE so he could legally drive Linkan's "Sur-Olle"
Chevy Suburban with the Whiplash
Camaro '67 on a trailer to Santa Pod in the UK. It was a long haul too! And
he even got a ticket for
speeding (!) in Hille north of Gävle on 700 SEK which is very much -
but it was VERY much in 1985!
Micke also chain smoked during this week, but he never smoked before or after
in his life!
Here are our common memories along with his pictures. Thanks Micke!
BP Harmånger, first fuel stop. 350 kilometers (218 Miles) from home
and exact halfways to Stockholm
if you chose that direction, we didn't, we were going to the harbour of Gothenburg
of course!
The price per Liter of 96 Octane was 4.50 SEK! A third of today's price. (Roughly
it was 2.5
USD per Gallon with today's Dollar?)
In the year before, 1984, we had won the whole shebang at Santa Pod and was
now going there to
defend the title "Fastest Streetracer in Europe" during the meet
that before was called Gary's Picnic
and now also was called "International
Street Finals & The Doorslammer Nationals" in the hands of
strip owner Phelps and Bilsport Magazine. It was yet another boosting of racer's
travelling to Santa
Pod from Sweden and it succeeded.
Sometimes I wonder from where this guy got his self confidence?
Writing the articles like he did in Bilsport and challenged every streetracer
in the Nordic countries to
meet up at different "championship meetings" to try to beat him!?
He gladly put himself in positions
of a sitting duck, and just smiled! Well, Bilsport magazine liked it of course
because it sold magazines
like h***! More than in any other period of the magazine!!
Then the small firm Autoshop also loved it because Lennart "Bagarn"
Bergqvist and Birgitta really
could service him and make horsepower to back up his big mouth! A win-win-win-win
situation if you
include the readers too.
You can see the Bilsport # 20 on the billboard here. And in Bilsport # 23
I had the whole report
from this race published! I was a writer for Bilsport, always was a freelancer.
Look in the bottom...
And I believe this particular day of the photo was September 25 because the
headlines on the
billboards says "This evening's great fotball party" and I Googled
it up, Sweden played Germany at
home in Solna that Wednesday and got a 2-2 in qualification for the Fotball
World Cup in 1986.
But we couldn't care less.
Stefan "Linkan" Lindqvist's Suburban was just perfect for us when
going long distances with the
Camaro if we also got a driver with the license! Last year we had Thomas Öhman
but this time he
wanted to stay at home because he became a father on June 18 when Sebastian
showed up! Anyway,
here we are in the lines in the harbour in Gothenburg after a drive yesterday
from Umeå. Kind of chilly
in the end of September we thought, "Bagarn" and me.
These four characters spend a lot of time together during these years. And
it payed off! These blue
Autoshop sweatshirts where made for occasions like this! It was our National
team clothes
in the Swedish colors! Normally Autoshop sweatshirts were red with white print
and those were very
popular and widely spread! Then we had the black ones for streetracing in
the dark. And even white ones
with blue stars and Chevy Bowtie which were for our close circle only, for
exhibitions.
I was helping Autoshop with marketing for years. Sweatshirts designs, logos,
ads...
Wow look! A big boat, a ferry to Engand! Bagarn waved and was happy. And confident.
He probably
shouted something like -Let's drive aboard the ferry and have
a beer!
I felt like I was followed sometimes. But it passed...
Birgitta Jonsson. As married with "Bagarn" she became Birgitta Bergqvist
and after their big Win in
Engine
Masters in 2005 she was named "The Queen of
Orlando" by Popular Hot Rodding, twenty
years after these pictures were taken on the ferry to England! Who would have
believed that back
in 1985? WelI, I would. And note my pink dance pumps on the floor there...
:-)
The ferry landed in Harwich back then. Now we were on English soil and the
air was warm!! We had
to switch to left hand traffic which was very exotic for us! We drove to the
first open pub and
it was this one! Also exotic!
But where was that? The Wheatsheaf where? Can anyone recognize where it is?
(On the way from
Harwich to Wellingborough).
Powershifting 5 gears of the Dough Nash had Bagarn's nitrousassisted 355 ci
to sound terrific in this
"stadium"! Especially in a solo run like this! First night had the
all-in ladders Eliminations! And there
was also a £500 given to the quickest ET of the weekend! Here you could
really win some serious cash!
Linkan and Annette (Hazze
Lindolm's wife) enjoying the warm Indian Summer in the pit. To the right
the front of Hazze Lindholm's "Pro Stock VW". Hazze Lindholm had
a lot of fabulous Volkswagens!
Hazze also had a cool old VW pickup! Norwegian Jan Waerness towed his Chevelle
all the way
from Norway to Santa Pod by tow-bar (which never has been legal in the Nordic
countries?).
Anyway, he was now here to compete in Pro Modified which then was a class
where they
threw all "difficult, too modified" machines in...
When going here, I think Waerness was aiming for the "European record"
in A/MS (Modifierad Standard)
wich was a 9.31 and owned by arch-rivals Bo Redin and Ralf Hermanssson with
their Hemi Dart! This
was the year when they chased each other on all dragstrips and it was always
very close between
them. A fight that was followed and loved by all within the sport. Jan Waerness
later moved to the Pro
Stock class in a Camaro. (Note that tow bar in the front here, and tiny transport
wheels in the rear)
The cult 1968 HEMI Dart of Redin and Hermansson was as rough as it was quick!
Bagarn always said
"Let's go after them!" and meant Whiplash with the small 355 ci.
And well...with more time and money...
Ralph Hermansson to the
far right didn't say much. Actually, I think he never opened his mouth! I
guess
he was the one who got the sponsorship from the well known (?) "porny"
magazine Lektyr? And what
are the Tres Amigos eating there in the background? Fish'n'chips? Mmmmmhhhh!
Bo Redin from Dalarna talked
all the time! Funny too! He was the master planner and engine guy.
This was worth a picture to take home and show the people of Umeå! A
punk girl with whitened face!
Birgitta talks to her man
Lennart "Bagarn" Bergqvist while I'm entering Whiplash. Here you
can see our
invention "the 12 V bottle heater for nitrous bottles" which we
thought was needed to get the bottle
pressure up on chilly days. It all began with wrapping my seat warmer from
my old Volvo 145...
A separate battery warmed the bottle in between rounds.
When our friend Dale Vaznaian from NOS saw it he asked politely if he could
use it and we said "You're
welcome!" because he was always so helpful to us. Today the bottle heater
is a Standard of the
nitrous industry, but it began right here! More
about this bottle heater.
Going low 10's and high 9's all weekend with Whiplash. 9.85 as the quickest
but then we still had
Stage 3 of nitrous jettings to use! And we finally used it in the third run...and
what happened then?
Linkan and Bagarn on the grand stands of Santa Pod enjoying drag racing in
the UK. We all just loved
every second of this fabulous adventure! No complaints!
Birgitta moved around the pit in her clogs and the black Autoshop shirt which
shouldn't really
be shown until the dark...
Jörgen from Umeå and Bo Redin's girlfriend. She actually lost all
her stuff overboard on the ferry back
home, so I frankly smuggled her back into Sweden in the back seat of the Camaro
under a blanket!
My brother Björn had an assignment in England during the week for SAAB
Design which he was
the boss for back then. Of course he stayed to join his little brother going
racing. He always have made
drawings and paintings and now he made some nice sketches of race cars. I
have copies somewhere...
Where was Andy "Tog" Rogers at this time? Up there? Don't think
so. The Eliminations started in the
afternoon and went on during the dark evening. It was so cool to be racing
on an illuminated drag strip!
At this qualification we ran our best 9.85 which of course could have been
even better with "Stage 3"
NOS nitrous. 15-20 years later 9.85 was our aim with the much heavier Blackout
Impala SS, to run
quicker, and we finally did with 9.84
in 2006 also here on the same dragstrip!
Skinne brothers Nova. Dropped down like a bomb among the streetracers in 1985
and ran 9's. It was
not at all a street car but it was fun anyway with fresh Norwegians like Per-Kristian
and Tor-Öyvind.
They were quickest of this meet in the Street class but when they tested the
nitrous the first time the
pistons melted and put them on the trailer. 5 years later the Skinne brothers
raced their Pro Stock
Trans Am in Gainville Florida USA! 1990 Gatornationals! They are still in
2011 the only Europeans that
has qualified in the Pro Stock class, much thanks to the cooperation with
"Bagarn" and Birgitta at
Autoshop, then in Orlando.
Drive shaft and u-joints were destroyed just out from the start in third round
so we lost to the eventual
winner Dave Pollen who ran low 10's. After the bang I clicked off the engine
and all pumps and fans
but there was still a funny noise in the Camaro and I couldn't understand
from where...? Until I opened
the door and the sound became louder - it was the cheering crowd who was standing
up and roaring
because I had lost to Dave Pollen! Ha, suddenly everything felt very important!
Nice hat Bagarn...
Me in my National Team uniform! Behind me Peter Olsson who was a "rookie
of the trip", came from
Alvesta in Småland and ran a 10.48 off the trailer with a Chevy 454
in his Trans Am, but he broke
before the race started. I'm not sure but it looks like Yvonne Rasmussen in
blue, she also raced here,
and Jöran Persåker and many others (read about all racers in the
Bilsport arrticle further down)
Legendary hotel in Wellingborough (called Vällingby by the Stockholmers).
A very nice place! Almost
every Swedish racer have a story from here, at least the ones who don't sleep
at the track. I should
have some memories from here but I can't remember them. :-)
I do remember how I was speed collecting old nice pint glasses (with the Queen's
engraving) on the ferry
to UK. Not a couple of glasses but 50 glasses! We and our friends emptied
glass after glass and I hided
them in my shirt and walked to the cabin and filled a suitcase over the evening!
In my room at The Hind
I put that suitcase
on top of a cabinet. But I forgot it was open when I later tried to take it
down - so
all these glasses formed to a white glass powder mountain on the carpet in
an instant! I had to call
roomservice to come and clean it up! Three of the glasses didn't brake and
I still use them today!
Jörgen, Hazze, Jimmy, Björn, Bostic and Linkan. The pub on the right,
inside the door, closed before
midnight and threw all people out on the street - then they opened up for
the hotel guests only and
was open as long as we ordered! You may understand how that ended! In 1984
the staff went home in
the morning hours and kept everything opened "Drink what you want"
You may also undertand what
happens with a group of Scandinavians in a pub without staff!? Driver Thomas
Öhman even borrowed
the bowtie from one of the bartenders. And...yes, we payed bundles of money
for our "free drinking"
and the spectacular tips we left may have surprised the bartenders?
Santa Pod Raceway, England 1985. This was the second last race I had with the Camaro. I now also
rented Mantorp (!) in October to have a last chance to put it in the mid to low 9's where it should have
been all along. Sold the Camaro in 1986. Kept the engine... Whiplash is now here
FIA European Top Fuel Champion Andy Carter raced in the Street ladder? Well, almost! He broke before
the Eliminations. And he raced a Ford Popular back then! Click on this picture to get a larger one
showing both Elimination ladders (hand drawn by me for the article in Bilsport!).
ENGLISH REVENGE! (After my killings the year before.) Click the pic above and you will be moved back
to 1985, to the # 23 issue of Bilsport Magazine, and read about the big race and the values we had then
and look into things we thought then, how we were reasoning... That color "cerise" of the Click-word
is about the same color that Mika had on his low 10-second wheelstanding Buggy!
Bostic's Busrace
Bostic's Rowdy Race
Mantorp Park - October 8-9 1985
I rented the Mantorp strip for two days (!) and invited all others to come and split the cost of
hiring and we put up a drawn ladder at the end of the day...but it was much more important
than that and most people around didn't know that but I will now tell you the story!
Rent Mantorp Park? Yes, no worries! The idea came already on the ferry home from Santa Pod since we
weren't at all done with the performance of Whiplash. I just had to get more quartermile timeslips this
autumn! But I'll invite the other guys to come and split the cost and I fixed a matching award which said:
TOP ELIMINATOR - BOSTIC'S BUSRACE - MANTORP 1985
Nice to see both Kines-Thore (now John Faxon) and Lennart "Bagar'n" Bergqvist and Stig "Loppan"
Larsson in the same picture as me. They were all sponsors in different ways. And we pulled "it" off!
Umeå Mafia! :-)
The whole Mantorp dragstrip for yourself! Thanks Mantorp and Loffy and everyone that were involved
to make this come true! I have no idea who the guy to the left was but he looked kind of cool in
that 80's hairstyle "Mullet" which in Sweden was called "hockeyfrilla" (icehockey + hairstyle)
Our true story.
We where here for one reason! To better our "lousy" (Bagarn's word) performance! Our 9.854 was not
at all good with 2800 lbs since the 140 mph (226 kmh) speed indicated the mid-9's! And that was on
NOS Cheater "Stage 2" nitrous, before even using the highest Stage 3 level!
It all pointed to mid-9's at least!
We where quite angry at Santa Pod when realizing that the whole season had been spoiled because
that salesman of our slicks had said that our "31 inch tall slicks grew to 32 inch before the
finishline" but they showed to actually be merely 30" when measuring them!!!
No wonder we had bad traction and lower trap speed than it should be!
These slicks were marked in a wrong way at the factory so I guess they bought cheap!? You can never
rely on anyone! (And after this I haven't, I have measured everything!) Bagarn was furious at Santa Pod
when we parked near Redin/Hermansson's Hemi Dart and we asked them "Heck! Do you have 35"
tall slicks?" - No, they said, they are 32"... and we just looked at the go-cart slicks on my
Camaro and went measuring!
...A salesman who just wanted to sell some shit and make some small money...he was
name-called over the phone and then never contacted again, and he disappeared from the business...
Was it worth it, piece-of-shit-Salesman?
Damn, I'm getting angry thinking about it 25 years later! Well, a whole year was destroyed! One year of
too low top end speed and a year of much less traction and ET. And that was our last year!
On the picture above you see real 32 inch tall slicks which I borrowed from Bo Redin to make this test!
However, it was cold in the second week of October so the 2" taller tires with 6.3" more circumference
(100.53 to 94.24!) didn't do the job as planned! They spun quite heavily, especially with NOS Cheater
Stage 3, it was too late of the year. Sorry! Well we bettered a thousand of a second to 9.853!
I had also fabricated a deep front spolier in aluminium to increase the speed but I don't think it helped.
It was over!
Whiplash vs. The Wallin Brothers... and I was clearly ahead when the drive shaft broke on 300 meters!
Magnus hit the finishline first. Well deserved and into the final vs. Peter Olsson who had fixed his
broken Trans Am since Santa Pod.
After the race was over it I locked the keys inside the Camaro! So Little Lisamarie was sent in via the
the trunk and somehow stretched and reached to open the door from the inside!
A couple of laughs are good for the spirit in the group when you know you have broken and lost and
have at least 8 hours to travel over night! We didn't hurry. This was the last time we raced together
and we wanted to enjoy the time. The Bergqvist family would move to Orlando within a couple of months
and I was on my way to Gothenburg to start to work with film producing with Chris Condor.
Thanks Lisamarie! Bagarn made a quick estimatation of the cost for bettering a thousand of a second
- with renting Mantorp for a weekend, full gas trip, new slicks, hotel rooms for 7 people, food and more...
I do not remember the exact cost but it was millions of SEK crowns per hour! That estimation kept us
laughing all they way home to Umeå that night. "The Millionaires"!
And the next day it snowed!
What would we do without the interested drag racing people who stand behind our dreams? The
officials, the families, the fans, the constructors, the business and aftermarket people, our neighbours,
our work buddies, the journalists, the photographers, every fílming enthusiast, the people on the
grandstands and the - sponsors?
THANKS to our lovely people who stand behind each driver and each organized race event!
Year after year...
The play was over for Whiplash, this was the very last race for us with that car. A good revenge for the
broken Santa Pod for Peter Olsson who won the Final race over Magnus Wallin...
Congratulations!
...but I got the nicest sunset pictures. :-)