BLACKOUT

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This report is dedicated especially to our friend Karl Ellwein who walks the talk!

Thursday July 10 - Going there

This is Kent Edin's way of going to the races with his race ready "Gentle Giant" Impala SS. And Karl
Ellwein is going with him. Karl built him the engine but they've just met in real life and now they have a
lot to talk about while travelling north on the E4 highway from Umeå to the Pite Dragway, a few hours
ride in legal 90 KMH / 55 MPH. If you wonder about these places - please take a look at the Tour Map

Karl and I actually planned to drive our Impalas to Piteå but my friend in Umeå Thomas Öhman said
"No way!" and offered us a transport in this truck and trailer! He even worked a couple of days on his
vacation to be able to borrow this humongous 24 meter / 79 foot rig which felt like a pro transport for a
Top Fuel or a Funny Car team! When our "heavy" Impala SS cars were loaded we still had free space
for 32 tonnes (metric ton) / 70548 lb more to load! Totally insane but wonderful service!
Karl said: "That transport tandem trailer was so cool. That was the biggest and best transport of
sportsman racers of all time". (More about it at The Norrland or Bust Tour later).
Thanks Thomas Öhman and the NSA-Företagen! (NSA-Companies)

"Kvalelvan...?" No, Karl Ellwein. "Kvalelvan...?" The friendly officials took good care of Karl at arrival
and it was also nice to see that they had their finest art drawings on display =) Karl made Kent's
comfortable motor home to his home during this race.

It was raining when we arrived to Pite Dragway. Luckily Thomas found a ramp for us to unload the cars
We took a chance on that...hehe. Our pit area was really far away from the center of action (see below)
and the slower the class - the further away. We began to build our pit but it had been much easier
without the constant interruption of the locals...thousands of them! And big too!

This former Swedish Air Force "secret" airfield was built in 1966 as one of the support bases for Kallax
in Luleå (a few minutes away in a plane). Back then the Air Force was running J35 Draken and in 1968
the awesome J37 Viggen was introduced. Their main mission was to take down Soviet bombers, but it
never happened. These were Swedish designed and built planes with SAAB bodies and Volvo engines,
as JAS 39 Gripen today. It's the powerful J37 Viggen on my brother Sune's gouache painting "Morning
Alarm". I did my military service at Kallax 1977-1978 and a few years later I designed the logotype for
Pite Dragway. It's nice that they still use it, and they have added something very important (below).

They've added the title of their biggest race, the forest, the midnight sun and one of the locals.
The staff working at the race track restaurants proudly wear these uniforms.

This is not Africa, this is Pite Dragway! No Malaria. But bring your Mosquito-nets...they help!
You'll find them at IKEA.

Friday July 11 - Qualifications

At the drivers meeting (which starts every morning here) I met many good old friends, like Ulf Skytte
from Umeå with his little breakfast leverpastej sandwich. Karl was more into checking the starting
area and needed to know whether he could deep stage or not. He's used to that, and it was allowed.
SHRA written on the cones, stands for Swedish Hot Rod Association and at this track it's the Luleå
chapter. SHRA chapters are all over Sweden.

Write your numbers. We brought our flags from TBDGIT. Yellow Nordtrafik decals were put on to thank
them for taking care of the return train trip Umeå - Gothenburg for us!

I was devastated for a minute when rear wheels suddenly stuck hard! I instantly thought it was broken
gears, I know it feels like that. Kent quickly found out that one of the extra long wheels studs was loose
on the right side and had been going, rotating, into the brake stuff and stopped at a parking brake return
spring! Thomas Öhman (picture) was happy for that explanation. All of us were.

NSA - National Security Agency? Now Some Action? New Sting Ahead? Next Stop Autoshop?
Norrland's Speediest Alternative? No Sleep Anders? We had a lot of good guesses what NSA could
mean before Thomas told it was the initials of the owner of this 5-company concern:
Nils Stefan Andersson in Umeå. Thank you very much Stefan from all of us!

The inspection wasn't that hard at all. The officials just nodded and didn't open their mouths. Karl and
Kent passed early in the morning so they could go first round of Qualifications. I had to work more to
make my car race ready and ready for inspection so I missed first round...

Fighting face of Kent Edin. Dedicated to go 9's. And it will happen for sure...if not 8's? Sure sounds like
it and everybody's waiting for it to happen! But the "Gentle Giant" Impala SS still seems to be out of
power in the start - 60's only at 1.7 - 1.9 seconds - while it's picking up strongly towards the end,
even with misfires. This first run didn't give any official times because of a timing malfunction.

A historic moment. The first time an American drag racer will run the Quartermile at Pite Dragway - the
World's Northernmost drag strip, only 2 hours south of the Arctic Circle! But the official guys in red...

...saw a drop underneath Karl's SS after the burnout so he was waved back. A small trans ventilation
cry, an easy fix back in the pit. But then wait again for the class call. And it was long waitings...

Many cleanings, long waitings. Then some showers, more waitings. Oil again, rain again... Etcetera.

It was truly fun to meet Kent again after some 20 years away from each other, and of course to have a
close look at his "Blackout Blueprint Copy Car" with the totally mean sounding Ellwein Engines-built
"King of Spades" stroker 383, as well as some new solutions like Janne Norberg's beautiful
2" headers with the removable front pipes for easier access to spark plugs! Overall a very neat car!

It was nice in our common race tent lit by the sun. Many hours of waiting in here, without any info at all.
We ate food and we drank coffee. Ate again. Coffee. Killed a couple of hundreds of mosquitos, but some
of them were successful in their attacks. Coffee. Food. Coffee. Some had more fun than others.

Suddenly it was evening and we were invited by Janne Norberg to SHRA-Umeå's Free Race Dinner for
their racers! (I was active with this club in the very beginning in the 70's). It was arranged by restaurant
professional Anders "Hompe" Holmberg at his trailer. There we also took a close look at his unique
Super Stock - SS/AH - 1967 Plymouth Barracuda with the absolute latest Super Stock HEMI just
fresh from the USA! Janne Norberg Racecars has built the chassis and "Hompe" had a 9.29 run today!
More: www.hemizone.se

Look - a witch! On the truck in the background. My lady Agneta and Sune Edin's lady Birgitta Näslund
seem to sing the same song?

00.28 AM. All is well. Even if only one SS ran today and he didn't even get an official time...
But we're here!

Saturday July 12 - Qualifications

The Good Morning call at the Driver's Meet held by the rather harsh but still goodhearted and fair Race
Director Allan Sandström (or Sandstorm as Karl pronounced it). Swedish is a difficult language so
you can't really translate for the American guest everything that's said...

At last! First American drag racer to run at Pite Dragway! And he had Kent in the right lane!
For Karl, for Kent, for me and for all of us that made this happen - this was a true Rock'n'Roll moment!
Karl: 12.978 @ 170 KMH / 105 MPH (no nitrous). Kent a new PB: 11.075 @ 203 KMH / 126 MPH
with misfires.
This is the ET Pro 10.00 - 15.00 bracket class where the qualifying is based on reaction times and Karl
got a quite slow 0.210 while he found out that these lamps were not LED-lamps which he is used to.
In Karl's own words:
"Sitting in the driver's seat and trying to have comfort with the track and officials and christmas
tree... when the tree activated I felt like a rookie driver. My car slid a bit forward when I applied
some brake-torque and the yellow lights were moving and I had the reaction time of a snail".

There is really a difference and as the weekend moved on Karl actually did measure this difference of
the tree standards and adjusted his staging/driving to his normal reaction time which is in the
lower zero-hundreds! A "pro" in action! More about it here: www.racetec./led_lamp_tech.htm
More valuable thoughts from bracket King Karl:
"You would "see" the LED and you would react as normal but since the LED is instant-on you
would have a naturally quicker reaction time and most people are too quick and are
red-lighting when first encountering the LED tree...(back when all the tracks installed them).
So most everyone in USA had to relax and see the LED but NOT push the throttle right away,
put some delay in their physical reaction....in order to not be red-lighting all the time.
So I know if you saw the LED tree you would be instantly reacting quicker and you might be
.050 or even .100 too quick (red).
So if you are normally .050" green react.....when you see the LED tree for the 1st time you'll
be (-) 0.050 red react. It's a good thing for me (the LED tree). I had really gotten used to it and
when the trees were incandescent it was very hard to get a reaction time down from .060
(that was about my average then). I think I average .030 now with LED..."

I had entered the ET Super Pro 7.50 - 9.99 bracket class. I felt lucky that I would get back into my 9's
of course, which also would be needed to enter the Eliminations. Burnouts are always OK. And fun.

But the run itself wasn't fun. The programmed electronic 4L80E transmission still refused to shift to 2nd
gear in time! Engine was overrevving and leaning out. Just like in that single test run back home in
Säve a week ago when I let off the throttle. This time I stayed with it and later it shifted. Bah!
11.290 @ 201 KMH / 125 MPH. R-time: -0,087 And the whole car was shaking at speed!?
Well, I shouldn't complain...

KABOOM!! Ulf Skytte had a scary moment in his Big Bad Black 1969 440 Plymouth Roadrunner in 3rd
Qualification run when his brand new (!) factory built Turbo Action 727 just blew up!

Ulf was at least happy that he had a good transmission blanket. And he could always think about when
he ran the 2nd Qualification run in a quick 10.962 @ 196 KMH / 122 MPH.

Anyway, this was one of the reasons for another long cleaning. Sorry Ulf! But the Road Runner team
could still engage themselves in an A/A Competition Altered where Ulf is a co-owner of the chassis
in which another Ume racer -"Linkan" - is aiming for 300 KMH / 186 MPH. (Below)

"World's Most Handsome Man" according to himself. And his mother. And me. Stefan "Linkan" Lindqvist.
Still the funniest guy in Umeå. A friend to me already back in those early crazy street racing years in
the 80's when he had a Nova with turbo. Now he's closing into the goal with 284 KMH / 176 MPH as
closest here. He qualified as # 8 in Comp Eliminator with a 7.463 which is -0.347 under the index.
What's not shown here are his new glasses which actually made him see the world!

Another friend in Comp Eliminator was Kenneth Feldthusen, and his Nilfisk ALTO team. They were here
to fight for the points in the Swedish Comp Eliminator Championship. Best Qualifying was 6.820 @ 309
KMH / 192 MPH which was -0.440 under his AA/A index which placed him # 6th in Qualifying.

Yea, Nitro Funny Cars seem to have a revival in Europe, not as an official class, but as a hired circus!
Nevertheless, everybody just loves them! Here's Gary Page from United Kingdom in trying to escape
from the mosquitos! His best on the quartermile was 5.431 @ 405 KMH / 251 MPH.

Also Englishman Gordon Smith was here. Not the same problems with the mosquitos: 6.236 @ 325
KMH / 202 MPH

Håkan Fällström from Härnösand, well he's used to mosquitos: 6.653 @ 230 KMH / 143 MPH

Photographer Jan "Putte" Lundmark from Umeå was indeed fun to meet again after all these years! Axel
10, wasn't even born last time we met or talked. We did some good work for Bilsport Magazine back
then and he came here to say Hello and to have a small revival as a photographer, now with a digital
camera. He liked our Bolero tomato that we brought along on this tour.

Here's one of Putte's shots from Pite Dragway in 1983 or 1984? The grand stand was on the other side
then. I'm lifting the front wheels of Whiplash in another low 10 second run. 2nd gear before the tree.
Click to get a larger one.

Pite Dragway had an All Time High of entries with 261 cars, bikes and snowmobiles! Junior Dragster
was the biggest class with 31 teams.

Karl beginning to acclimatize. This was the very first race for him where they also ran Top Fuel and
Funny Car. Back home in USA it's been strictly Bracket races in different ways.

Someone walked by Blackout in the line up and noted that at least three nuts were hand-loose on their
studs on right front wheel!!! That explains the shaky first ride. I couldn't find anything myself in the car
that could be a source of these heavy vibrations. Thank you who warned us! And thank you Agneta
who ran to the pit to get the tools needed!

I bettered to 10.966 but still had trolls in the gearbox, now also the lock-up was on-off-on-off-on?!
Can I still believe in going 9's here at all and qualify? After this run I had only one more chance...

I love how it moves in the start! Totally squarish lifts thanks to the Anti Roll bar. But the 60's are not
as good as with the series of 9's at Santa Pod before the Anti Roll bar, but I'm sure that's all into the
transmission and maybe a degree or two of ignition. The converter is tighter. And it seems 15 PSI in
the slicks is a little bit too low. After seeing some of these pictures after the race - published at our
own PitLane - I raised it to 18 PSI at the next race in Fällfors. Thanks Internet! Best 60 foot time at
Santa Pod was 1.41 while at Piteå they were only:
1.509. 1.503. 1.527. 1.563. 1.509 and 1.492. Should come down to the 1.3's on a sunny day.

Trap speed 207 KMH / 128 MPH is nothing to write home about, especially since you expect better
than PB 220 KMH / 137 MPH. Anyway, most important is to not meet the moose up here...
I've seen the moose running over the top end here at Pite Dragway before and caused interruption.
Actually there's a moose trail just behind our camp in the pit and I guess it's the same trail that
Ingemar Norberg walks to his position for top end pictures like this one.

Åse Simonsson races a very special 1965 Olds Jetstar, something called Duramax 6.6L (V8) runs on
diesel! Hence the black smoke! Åse's husband Ingemar works at Marine Diesel Sweden which explains
things. Åse was one of three ladies competing in ET Pro and did best 12.382 @ 186 KMH / 115 MPH
More here http://www.jetstarracing.just.nu/
Karl: "That super slow 5 mph pit speed yellow Oldsmobile, yes, do not get stuck behind it or you
might overheat your engine or tranny because the long drive, our pit was a mile away!"
Åse explained that it was the other way around for them, they needed to get the heat up.

Kent missed this round because he blew an intercooler silicone tube in the burnout so he backed up.

Karl had a 0.075 reaction time and moved up in the Qualifications list. He also bettered to 12.697 @
176 KMH / 109 MPH. Maybe we get one more run before the announced curfew at 9 PM?

You'll see many nice old Volvo racecars in North of Sweden. And it seems to revolve around something
called http://forum.savarturbo.se/. However, this charming 1953 PV in the Super Small Block
class was from Västerås in the south. Johan Johansson drove the hunchback a best of
8.590 @ 265 KMH / 164 MPH! Wow! Looked and sounded unreal.

It is a Super Small Block! A Volvo with turbo. More than 800 horsepower! "Atmospheric Sucks" Hahaa!
Unfortunately something broke here so no runs after Saturday.

Kent had to fix the loose silicone tube. We also had a steady stream of visitors that wanted to know
more about our heavyweight Impalas. I wonder if Kent was prepared for that? =)

Timo Lehtimäki towed bye in his Top Fuel dragster at 7.38 PM. As we were pitted on the return road we
had some control on what happened, actually the only control we had. Hours went by without any info
at all. When raining it was obvious why nothing happened, but during all the other hours? Even the
race radio didn't give the whole picture. The teams asked each other on any news.
"Will we have another chance today - or not?"

Finally after 9.00 pm we had our last qualifying session! And Karl showed us a final cut on the tree after
a day of fine adjusting: No 1 Qualifyer with an 0.006 reaction time!!! 12.693 @ 171 KMH / 106 MPH

Nice hood. Not. I looked for race Director Allan Sandstorm and asked for an OK to change class in my
last Qualification run since I didn't hit the 9's and that would set me outside of the racing tomorrow.
So it was much better to jump to the others in ET Pro. Just wash off the "Super" that was written on
all windows and keep the "ET Pro". And now...please no redlight, I have one chance to qualify for
ET Pro and I won't do it with a redlight or a time slower than 15.00 seconds.
It was a safe 0.416 reaction and an 11.019 @ 207 KMH / 128 MPH. I was in with Kent and Karl! Fun!

Karate brothers Edin, Sune and Kent. Changing plugs again? Kent had only a 12.009 @ 187 KMH /
116 MPH in the last qualifying round. Weak power in the start and then misfires. But we were all in.

Umeå Super Gas racer Mats "Masken" (The Worm) Karlsson stopped by on his moped. I guess that he
wasn't at all aware about Axel and his need for moped speed? Axel also took Amanda Åbergh with him
everywhere he went. Ola Åbergh and Jaana just arrived on Saturday evening and Ola suddenly
found out that both their boys Victor and David were sleeping in his arms.

Karl: "It was fun every time we returned to the pit after a run. I was always happy to see Agneta
because she had the time slips and she was always smiling and then would hide the time slip
behind her back and then you would get a hug and a time slip. After the last qualification run
Agneta was smiling so big and she said, "Karl - N u m b e r O N E!". That was fun".
Of course we had a "No 1 Qualifying Party" for Karl. Amanda and Axel had very fun together, also when
they had the bar-b-que duty. In the background you can see the electricity feed which sometimes gave
us electricity, sometimes not. The organizers' big generator wasn't big enough for so many teams so
they eventually hired a bigger one. Some nights we had heat in our caravan and motor homes,
some nights not. But we always had mosquitos.

Foreigner? Eat this! Foreigners should always taste Surströmming - because we Swedes like this
tradition to see the foreigners reactions! That's it. Even if we don't always like Surströmming ourselves
(I hate it myself, Axel loves it as his mother). And take photos of them! And please note Kent's
new Impala SS racing fashion - lumberjack!

"knirp"...drumroll..."UH!" Haha! We gotcha! We gotcha! We gotcha! Hahahahaaaaa! Hahahaaa a a a!
...eh...
... what are we doing to our poor visitors, really?

Last thing to do before hitting the sack, a long walk to see the displayed ladders for tomorrow's racing.
21 drivers in ET Pro. What? Karl, you're not No 1 Qualifier, you're No 2! Some Angelica Fransson is
No 1 with a 0.002 Reaction time! She must've had that run directly after your!? Eh...who is she? Yes,
who is she? OK Karl, good night, sleep well! Yes, you too...Angelica Who...?
Hm...zzz...z...0.002...zz..zz...

Sunday July 13 - Eliminations

At Driver's morning call on Sunday I could finally translate everything for Karl.

Ola wanted a task in my team and did very good with checking and filling gas, VP Motorsport 109
temporarily handled in yellow cans. Caution! Drops of Gold. But hurry up Ola! We must line up for 1st
Elimination Round and both the fan and Putte are here! =) Hurry hurry hurry!

All 21 ET Pro's lined up, ready to go after 1st round of Junior Dragsters...but rain stopped all action!
No hurry anymore. 21 racers - not 16 - because of the kind "all run" rule and ladder. No 1 Qualifyer
lined up for a bye-run in the front in a blue 12-second Dodge Demon...next to Sune Edin.

Karl, let's go and say hello and congratulate that Angelica whoever woman who took your No 1
Qualifying spot! Ok... Sprooing! "Eh...he...I'm not married..ehehe...I mean Congratulations!...
...I have only a touch of grey in my hair as you may see...ehe.." Karl asked her if she had a
No 1-party last night? No, she said, and Karl then bubbled about that we had such a party not knowing
about her last move after Karl's run. Bubbly bubbly hahahaa! Both thought it was sooo funny.
"Haha! Nice color on your Ford Demon...green, like my jacket...hehe..." Bubbly.

Angelica "0.002" Fransson is from Umeå and goes mid-12's in a 1971 Dodge Demon. Her low reaction
time wasn't a one-off, which we would see through Eliminations...

The third lady in our class was sweet Ida Söderman in her 1967 Plymouth Valiant raggerbile. She's only
16 and the Drag racing rule for teens is not allowing them to run quicker then 16 sec until they turn 18.
Perrti Pitko who was up against her in his 10 sec Morris was upset for having to race such a slow car...
But I personally like those big gap handicaps, with a quick car charging for the slow one.

We lived for half a day in 1st round line up because of the rain. We had a lot of time for everything. Karl
and Race Director Allan Sandstorm could talk a lot about drag racing here and over there, and how to
bake the perfect blue berry pie. I had good time to change battery in the line. "Linkan" lent me his fully
loaded spare battery, since I had noted in my loggings that my old battery only had 10 Volt during
the runs. Not enough to support the injectors...maybe that was the whole problem???

"I prefer warm apple pie" "Oh what kind of apples?" . ..""I know Anders better than you" "Don't think so"
Hours of waiting. Hours by hours...

"Foreigner? Eat this! And you have lingon berries over there" Actually this was Karl's own decision to
test the local speciality Pite Palt. He didn't like the "potato shell" but more the core in the palt.

What more can we do to kill time? Yes, race announcer Björn Sundqvist did an interview with Karl on
thoughts of Sweden, Norrland and the drag racing at Piteå. "All racers and people really make
me feel welcome here" A great part of the interview was about his Swedish nick "Kval-Elvan"
(Qualified eleventh) and he had to explain that, how similar that sounds to his name Karl Ellwein
when said quickly. The audience gave him a well deserved applause for being here with his SS.

Finally...around 1 pm it looked like we could race our 1st round! The jet dryer was out again.

2.35 PM - 1st Round ET Pro

Kent lost his 1st round to Tomas Jonsson. 11.923 @ 187 KMH / 116 MPH showed problems all the way.
But what a SOUND from that Ellwein Engine 383 Stroker!!

Karl took out David Lindblad from Luleå with a 0.147 R-time to 0.469. Karl could easily brake to
12.801 @ 148 KMH / 91 MPH. David's VW did a 13.333 @ 154 KMH / 95 MPH.

I was lucky in 1st round, having a bye-run since my opponent Johan Gunnerfeldt didn't show up in his
Volvo Amazon. But I could at least do a good burnout. Then a tranny-problematic 11.508 @ 175 KMH /
108 MPH. Still in the race though, Karl and me. Kent out. Two out of three.
This total picture was emailed from Ingemar in 3264 x 2448 pixels size in a 314 pixel/inch resolution,
and then just downsized to this 600 pixels width in the standard internet 72 pixel/inch resolution.

This is the very same picture when I've worked it in Photoshop as I usually do with pictures. Zoom in,
crop it and use the blur-tool on the foreground and the background. Why? It's the fun of it!

After zooming in even more in Ingemar's picture I saw Kent's brother Sune behind the guy with the
Steadicam. Sune was actually filming and you can see his take below:

Always fun with a clip. It has sound.
A 19 sec short AVI at 6.24 MB.
Click it!

Solveig showed her new Blackout Mosquito Hat she's been working on during all our waiting hours. It
actually sold very well among the other teams, I think it was manufactured a total of 1300 pieces
something, and sold for 140 SKR each. It paid for the beers, besides from saving us a lot of mosquito
bites. BTW Solveig is one of Thomas Öhman's mistresses. Anita is another one but couldn't show.
Good thing that Thomas' wife Marita never visits blackout.nu

At 6.45 PM Top Fuel final. Pata Pers in the far lane won over hometown favourite and No 1 Qualifyer
Monica Öberg, 5.30 to 6.18. Monica Qualified with a 5.16 @ 463 KMH / 287 MPH. This could be seen
by the people close to the starting area, not by us who had our camp 1 mile away. We think we
heard it? We didn't see "Linkan" redlight in Competition Eliminator 1st Round either, or when
Kenneth Feldthusen won but broke in 2nd.

Karl, what was the funniest thing all weekend? "Hardy Har Lardy Dar! Hahahahaaa!!!"
That means "Rent here - Leave there". It doesn't take much sometimes. A text on a rental trailer.

After 8 PM we were called down to the 2nd Round. Just to be waiting on the rain! Organizers, audience,
racers, we all hate it. Let's front it, we're not Formula 1. Yet. Do you see the rainbow above Karl's SS?

9.20 PM - 2nd Round ET Pro

Karl had a bye-run and did a -0,001 under his 12.66 Dial In! A 12.659 with 176 KMH / 109 MPH. His
Reaction time was 0.025. Next I met Glenn Mikaelsson in his low 10-second 1973 Plymouth Cuda
who redlighted and let me win with a bad break out -0.574! A 10.916 on an 11.49 Dial In. It's really
up and down in the transmission business...
So next round will be Karl and me! Heavy Eliminator vs. Blackout! We knew that it could happen
already last night when we saw the ladder.

10.20 PM - 3rd Round ET Pro

Karl lowered 0.02 on his Dial In, yes it was getting chilly. I wrote 10.90 since I got a 10.91 last run, but
it could be a second slower depending on how the transmission felt about it for the moment.
Now I knew what feeling a Sitting Duck has... However, I decided that I shouldn't be too concentrated
to get a super light - just because of the opponent - which probably would result in a redlight.
Don't even think about that it's Karl at all. Everything is possible if you don't redlight!

Karl went straight ahead in both lamps, stopped deep and was ready. I crawled slowly through my
lamps. The only thing I was thinking was "DO NOT REDLIGHT!"
(Click this nice picture full of atmosphere to get a 1280 x 1024 Wallpaper)

Nice color reflecting there on the rear fender...but the cost was a bad 0.242 Reaction time compared
to sharp Karl's 0.078 - so he had already won by far. Then the strangest thing happened...
His SS just stopped before 300 feet!
It looked like he let off the pedal...so I passed him like a freight train, for a second, then I did something
I didn't think I would ever do - I let off my pedal and looked back on what Karl was doing, like waiting
for him to get it going again! Like giving him a second chance for the race!?!?!?
But he rolled slowly all the way, me too. Me ahead as a winner. Pheew! The most irrational thing I
have ever done on a drag strip (aside from the caravan runs.)

Back in the pits Karl shouted out loud: "Anders! Come here and take a photo"
Can you believe it? One of his business cards got loose and blocked the MAF and that stopped him!
The business cards were there all weekend, stuffed under the radiator panel. Until this run.
Karl didn't think this was funny at all but he couldn't do anything else than laugh. Bad luck.
Or...
...this was a diabolical plan by me, drawn months ahead. I'm the one that told Karl to bring stuff like
this for display at the races for interested people. Then when his car came to Gothenburg I realized
that he had an air cleaner so I got Jonas Mr Al Holt to say that "The air cleaner must come off"

World's absolutely best timeslip, well it's actually a data sheet with everything on it! Agneta points out
Karl's Reaction time from our latest run. Karl was stunned: "The slips were absolutely awesome!
The best format I have ever seen. It gives all of your times in a summary and all of the best from
all the other drivers too". Mats Hansson's timesheet is setting the World standard for all organizers
to follow! Congratulations Mats Hansson and SHRA-Luleå. And all visiting drivers of course!

11.15 PM - lined up for Semi finals ET Pro

Kent, Agneta, Karl and Ola supporting the last Impala SS in the competition. Only three cars left.
I was up against Tomas Jonsson in his Malibu. Then it hopefully would've been Gunnar Westerberg in
his Corvette. I saw them, I calculated them. Of course I would've had won everything - if you ask me? =)
Anyway - it was called off after midnight because of rain! Race was over!

At this late hour I got flashbacks of streetracing and Santa Pod night racing, but it was still light in a
crazy way. Da beers at last! "Cheers Ola, you should join us with your SS next weekend in Fällfors!?"
Ola, taking these pictures was under heavy pressure to take his SS to the next race in Fällfors.
"Be a sport, come on and do your thing!" Little did we know what consequences that would have...

Now some pictures that always will remind us of that wonderful, unique feeling of racing at Pite Dragway.

1.54 AM. All are gone, back to work and other duties, late as hell. But we had a vacation. We stayed.

02.18 AM. Agneta called us in for late dinner, or early breakfast... I've told you before, racing would not
be the same without her. If you also have a racing supportive Agneta, be careful with her.

3.10 AM. The sun hit the tree tops on its way up again. Can you spot the rainbow above Karl's Impala?
We were the last ones down here. I didn't want to go to bed yet. This was truly the longest race.

Monday July 14 - Packing and hitting the road

"Do you want to know what I hear over the public address I was getting close to the starting line?
"Kval Elvan".....some Swedish words......Kval Elvan.....some Swedish words.....Kval Elvan....Kval
Elvan....Kval Elvan....some Swedish words...." but really, here is what it really sounded like....
"Kval Elvan yorgi borgi smörgåsbord Kval Elvan Kval Elvan hårdy hår Kval Elvan lårdy dår Kval
Elvan Kval Elvan..."

To Fällfors on the smaller roads and the next race on the Norrland Tour. But that's another story.

Thank you all photographers for letting me use your nice pictures!
Without you it would've been only my own pictures and it wouldn't have been the same story!

Mats Alfredsson - www.thetwins.info.se
Richard Lindahl - race.ulkhyvlers.net
Ingemar Norberg - www.rodifoto.se
Katrina Greenwood - Polymoog
Jan "Putte" Lundmark, Karl Sundstedt, Ola Åbergh, Krillnecks
Karl & Kent & Sune

For knowing more - everything - about every racer and their times and how
they did in the elimination ladders please go ahead and click links:
10 best times
All Ladders
SHRA-Luleå start page

What we did after the drag race in Piteå? Well, what to do with an American in Norrland?
Click bar below to find out!