Dear all,
This 2006 dragster edition in Chimay deserve a longer review than last year, so here we go.
First of all, congratulations to Nigel Parkin the new King of Europe and by the way title stays in UK for the second year!
Spectators and drivers had a fantastic week-end again this year and this is our main objective! But the week-end was for sure not perfect...Important thing is to learn and improve the event next year! For us and for some drivers as well!
Most of the last year fastest drivers came back this year in Chimay. In the final Top16, we can see again Didier Billaut and his Dodge Challenger, Hervé Caen and his fast-but-not-yet-reliable Plymouth Barracuda and Ludovic Rys, the last frenchie in Top16 with his Corsa T16, he will be the only french in quarter final.
3 Brits, 2 Polish, 1 Italian, 1 Swedish and 1 French. Here is the final Top8. On the UK side, John Sleath of course, but also Kevin Preston and Nigel Parkin. On italian and swedish sides, well known Luca Lodi and feared Stefan Gustafsson! Last but not least on the polish side Arkadius Ozieblo (Audi RS4) and Thomas Nagorski (Lancer Evo 9).
All quarter finals will go through without any problem. Semi finals will be Luca Lodi vs Nigel Parkin and Stefan Gustafsson vs Kevin Preston. Due to disqualifications (more info below), Nigel Parkin get through the final and will win it on a bye run. 2007 will be without any doubt the year of the revenge for a lot of drivers!
Let me remind you that King of Europe has been created by dragracers for dragracers because we were tired to go to "business-oriented" competition where the #1 rule is money. Our #1 rules are security, competition, friendship and of course this event is made to crown the fastest european street legal car.
But "King of Europe" means nothing for the spectators, for our crew and even for the winner, if he is not recognized by the european dragracer community as the real fastest european street legal car!!! This year we have discovered the huge gap between last year first event where all drivers came to see "what's going on here" and this year where the drivers came with this event as their main objective of the year. You are now expecting a lot from this competition and we will upgrade the event to this required level.
This year, we had to take very hard decisions about 2 drivers : Luca Lodi and Stefan Gustafsson.
About Luca Lodi, his white Lancia Delta arrived in Chimay without headlights, turn signals, stop lights, wipers, horn and has been rejected at the friday's tech inspection, the italian crew has worked hard during all friday afternoon and evening to get the car in the rules : they succeeded. But a street car has to start on its own, it is clear for everyone, so clear that we did not even write it in the rules, so this could be discussed but on top of that, the italian crew has started the engine on the start line which is a restricted area where no one can access. These 2 reasons gave us the decision to disqualify Luca Lodi.
About Stefan Gustafsson, his front tires were not DOT as requested in the rules, we think that the tires the Camaro was running would not have cheated the competition BUT rules are the rules. His car has passed tech inspection with these tyres so it is part our fault also but Stefan knew very well the rules also and should have known that as a major contender for the crown, his car would have been checked again during the whole week-end by other contenders!
Anyway, some swedish spirits got too hot after the disqualification, i have heard really bad things about some Swedish crew behavior, this is totally unacceptable but Stefan came to our HQ after the show and has widely apologized for that.
We want to keep this "King of Europe" spirit and respect between drivers, let me remember you that when you race at King of Europe with your country flag on the car, you have to be proud and behave correctly when running your national colours.
About disqualification. For us, disqualification make only the current run lost because for example, as far as we saw for Luca Lodi, all the runs did before the semifinal, he came by its own on the start line and got no help, so he qualified correctly up to the semifinal, same for Stefan Gustafsson, until someone complaint about Stefan's car in the final, all other runs of Stefan has been validated. It is impossible for us to tech inspect each car on the start line at each run!
We had some other minor issues during the week-end, like oil on the strip, as well as water from intercooler spray, next year we will have a dedicated guy on track to check for any fluid leak on the car's line up, any leak will lead to pit return! Anyway the crew has worked very hard to clean up oil and get the track up and running again, thanks to them!
Another main hot point has been the sunday's bad weather. It was impossible for us not to have the KOE finals but weather was so unpredictable we were all turning crazy! We decided to call the military airport 50km away from Chimay, after several phone calls, they agree to make us a local forecast but the answer gave us more in trouble than before : "2 hours gap without rain : 66% reliable forecast". "2 hours gap without rain : 66% reliable forecast" : with this sentence, we had to make a choice, start running all drag classes till raining with not enough time for the King of Europe final... or take the Top4 or each SuperStreet Class and bring it to the KingofEurope Top16 without class finals.
Whatever the choice people will be disappointed. So we took the choice to shorten the finals but this made SuperStreet (#5 to #16) and Street drivers not happy at all, we understand and we apologize again for the drivers not able to race, we all know you were coming from so long but rain is the baddest issue you can have on a prepped dragstrip, please understand us.
By the way, even if class finals has been cancelled, we still have class winners based on qualification times, and we will send cup & price money for the 4 classes by regular mail.
SuperStreet RWD 1st : John Sleath - Audi S2
SuperStreet RWD 2nd : Kevin Preston - A60 PickUp
SuperStreet RWD 3rd : Didier Billaut - Dodge Challenger
SuperStreet FWD 1st : Marcin Wawrzak - Honda CRX
SuperStreet FWD 2nd : Witold Karalow - Honda Civic
SuperStreet FWD 3rd : Gianni Santi - Renault 5GT Turbo
SuperStreet 4WD 1st : Robert Pothorcki - GMC Syclone
SuperStreet 4WD 2nd : Tomasz Nagorski - Mitsubishi Evo 9
SuperStreet 4WD 3rd : Arkadiusz Ozieblo - Audi S4
Street (over 12.5) Winner : Christophe Galante - Peugeot 106
Street (over 12.5) 2nd : Lasse Much-Nielsen - Fiat Uno
Street (over 12.5) 3rd : Ludovic Ciuch - Lancer Evo 8
A lot of good stuff also happened in the week-end, like the jump of Poland into major drag racing countries, with 5 cars in the final Top16, Poland shew us we have to watch out for them at the next edition! Getting more major countries involved in the competition can only be good!
The very good saturday weather and the spectators who came as much as last year, close to 9.000! John sleath, like in 2005 has set a new record, it turned the chimay dragstrip from a 9sec open road track to a 8sec open road track with an incredible 8.960!!! Like last year also John had no luck in the big final...
