We have to cancel the race at Gardermoen There was to little time to work getting the bike ready, finding the problems we have and travelling. The weather in Norway was bad and if we had worked day and night to be there we have had been disappointed because of the bad weather.
We decide in an early stage to repair the bike and try to figure out what is wrong. We know that there is no mechanical problems but we do get a lot of mechanical damages when we are torching the heads.
By a discussion in the team and with people around us we find out that there are some areas that we have to make modifications to eliminate the risk of failures.
What we also decided was to cancel the Europen Finals at Santa Pod. We wanted to do testing before season is over and that must be on a good safe track - like Santa Pod - but we find out that we had one closer and that was in Alastaro in Finland the weekend before England. FHRA did run their finals. We did contact Tapio Valia in Finland and FHRA and they wish us welcome to come over for testing.
So, with the bike in perfect shape did Greger Johansson, Matte Tärnström, Carina and me go by the boat over to Finland. The weather was perfect all three days. Only one round was cancelled because of light rain. We did burn a lot of fuel during 16 warmups in the pits, adjusting and checking. The engine did run much better on idle and the response was there too. We did three shorter test runs, one per day. No sign of torching heads. But we got misfiring on front cylinder under load from the first round and by adjusting and checking we got less misfire every round. We couldn´t get rid of it before the weekend was over. But anyhow did this test weekend give us a lot. A very big thanks to FHRA letting us be there.
We did watch the race in England on the internet and for us that needed to get runs were glad we did get them in Finland. We did see many racers doing very good ET:s at Sunday mornings qualification and it was really exciting to follow the races and counting points. Congratulations to Svein-Olav Rolfstad who became 2008 Super Twin European Champion. There are many that is going to chase him next year.
Must mention Sverre Dahl Norway that now is running the new Karling/McBride clutch and setting a new European Speed Record with 371,93 km/h (231,11 mph) in Top Fuel Bike.
