Santa Pod Raceway’s 60th anniversary season got properly under way with The Main Event over the bank holiday weekend, featuring the first round of the FIA/FIM European Drag Racing Championships. For Pro Modified competitors, it was two races in one, the FIA opener combined with round two of the Motorsport UK British Drag Racing Championship.
However, heatwave conditions, with density altitude registering almost 2600 feet, took the edge off the performance figures: 5.818s was the event’s low elapsed time (Marck Harteveld, Netherlands) and 249.59mph the top speed (Jere Rantaniemi, Finland), when 5.70s and over 250mph might have been expected in such company.
Harteveld’s low ET came from his opening salvo in Saturday morning’s first qualifying session, a testament to the fresh engine internals installed overnight by his crew following a bruising mechanical mauling endured during the previous week.
The Pro Mods had battled through three separate races in eight days. A weekend earlier had come The Doorslammers, an annual ‘outlaw’ race for a huge prize payout with normal championship rules and regulations relaxed.
Then, in midweek, the new Carl Cox Motorsport Series posted further significant winnings. Cox, superstar DJ and motorsport entrepreneur, has instituted a three-race series through the summer with the aim of supporting the Pro Mods as well as allowing him to race his own Pro Mod-style car – American-built and far too ‘outlaw’ for Europe’s FIA rulemakers – alongside his European peers.
The Main Event, by contrast, with its Motorsport UK and FIA championship contests, offered tighter regulation and less financial reward. In Monday’s eliminations, a 16-car field vied for points and the glory of race victory, headed by Harteveld on pole.
Nine-time champion Robinson progressed to the final
Photo by: Dave Jones/Callum Pudge/Santa Pod
In the first round, the expected winners all progressed. The only real uncertainty lay in the match between Britain’s Andy Robinson and Switzerland’s Bruno Bader, two venerable titans of the class whom no one would wish to see facing them in the opposite lane. Robinson triumphed, 5.876s to Bader’s 5.945s.
Round two produced two British winners and the unexpected departure of three Dutch challengers, all tipped as potential race winners. Low qualifier Harteveld couldn’t hold his Voodoo Hemi Plymouth Superbird on the line and left before the lights ran, handing victory to local hero Jon Webster. Robinson eliminated David Vegter in a straight fight while compatriot Michel Tooren was a no-show.
Tooren had been clocking eye-catching short times while getting to grips with the electronic fuel injection powering his new Chevrolet Camaro but had finally succumbed to the mechanical pressures of three races in eight days. Estonian Andres Arnover took the solo win. In the fourth match, reigning European champion Rantaniemi, bidding for a hat-trick of FIA crowns, advanced past Norway’s Stian Rusanes.
The semi-final presented a rare mix of three turbo cars – Arnover, Rantaniemi, Webster – and Robinson’s lone supercharged machine. Arnover edged out Rantaniemi while the all-British match featured two rival racing car constructors driving machines of their own manufacture. Robinson’s Camaro is Britain’s quickest Pro Mod (5.820s) and Webster’s Ford Mustang the fastest (250.98mph). Here, Robinson beat Webster, 5.922s to 5.947s, for the right to face Arnover in the final.
Arnover is the reigning Motorsport UK champion and scored his third Santa Pod victory since last season when nine-time conqueror Robinson lit the red light by just 0.018s, earning immediate disqualification.
Santa Pod began its anniversary celebrations in glorious weather but speeds and times were lower than expected
Photo by: Dave Jones/Callum Pudge/Santa Pod
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– The Autosport.com Team
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