Rain stops play at Santa Pod European Drag Racing Finals

Rain dictated the outcome of the FIA European Pro Modified Championship at Santa Pod Raceway last weekend. After a summer of unparalleled dryness, drag racing’s mortal enemy chose decision day at the European Finals to intervene in the continent’s drag racing title chases.

Sunday’s opening round of the 16-car Pro Mod field was scheduled for 10:30am and began at 5pm, once the jet-engined track dryers had primed the course. The eight first-round survivors stood ready at 8pm for round two under the lights when rain resumed to curtail the event.

As a result, there was no change at the top as the incoming points leader secured the championship. Estonia’s Andres Arnover led defending champion Jere Rantaniemi, from Finland, by a single round of racing. All Arnover needed to do was stay level with the Finn on the eliminations ladder to carry off the crown, which he duly did.

But the second round, had it gone ahead, offered intriguing possibilities for a dramatic ending. Had the two contenders overcome tough opponents, the ladder would have paired them against each other in the semi-final. A win there for Rantaniemi would have carried him to the final round and a chance to snatch the title at the death. It would have completed a championship hat-trick for the Finn. There are more what-ifs, however.

Arnover’s second-round opponent was 2026’s rising Pro Mod star, the Norwegian Stian Rusanes. Rantaniemi was due to face Dutchman Marck Harteveld. Had Rusanes beaten Arnover and Rantaniemi defeated Harteveld, it would have presented the Finn with two clear opportunities – the semi-final and final – to overhaul Arnover’s lead.

Thanks to the rain, however, all this remains supposition. The fact is that Arnover is the FIA European Pro Modified champion for the first time, having won the Motorsport UK British championship last year. The FIA championship currently encompasses just four races. Arnover has led from the start, beating Britain’s Andy Robinson to win the Santa Pod opener in May. In August, he lost to Rantaniemi in the final at Tierp in Sweden, then would have faced Rusanes in the Hockenheim final had an earlier on-track delay not pushed the race up against the circuit’s strict Sunday evening curfew.

Arnover stepped into Pro Mod from the Nordic Top Doorslammer scene as recently as 2021. His scarlet, turbocharged, 1967 Ford Mustang-bodied machine is the most potent vehicle in European Pro Mod and Santa Pod plainly suits him.

Last year he clocked Europe’s quickest-ever Pro Mod pass, 5.695s, on the Santa Pod concrete and the following month at the unregulated ‘outlaw’ Doorslammers race, turned up the turbos to hit 262.65mph, Europe’s fastest speed by a door car. Here at the European Finals, his 251.87mph, with turbos legally adjusted, was the meeting’s top speed while Dutch racer Michel Tooren qualified on pole and set low elapsed time at 5.743s.

After the FIA Pro Mod championship began in 2006, supercharged cars dominated until 2023. Now Rantaniemi and Arnover have claimed the crown three years in a row with turbo power.

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– The Autosport.com Team