UEM Dragbike Championship, Round One, Kunmadaras, Hungary
Words and pictures Ivan Sansom
Thanks to Zoltán Hernády for access to the timing data
The first round of the UEM Dragbike Championship took place at the beginning of May at the Kunmadaras Drag Arena in central Hungary, augmented by an exhibition of the FIA car classes organised by TrakBak Racing. With a lot of prep work from the SPRC crew prior and during the meeting, the UEM competitors were also grateful for the extra rubber that the cars put down on the somewhat green track. Kunmadaras could be a gem of a facility if the track is ground smooth, with over 2.5 kilometres of concrete (some 3 metres deep!) that form the heart of the ex-Soviet MIG nuclear strike fighter bomber base. The space to grow clearly isn’t a problem, and with government support (even down to the local Mayor attempting to qualifying for the UEM Funny Bike Cup ladder) to develop the track to draw tourist dollars into the area the future could be bright.
UEM Top Fuel Bike
The restriction of Top Fuel Bike to pure blown inline nitro bikes for 2010 met with a few raised eyebrows over the winter, but the appearance of four bikes for the season opener at a track a long distance from the Scandinavian and British heartlands of fuel bike racing in Europe was a promising sight. It took some time for the assembled quartet to dial into the track surface (one being Petri Paljakka on debut with the ex-Ian King Puma Yamaha), and eventual winner Kai Selkamaa spent most of qualifying lighting up the rear slick just off the startline. A throw of the dice prior to eliminations found a clutch setting that yielded consistent 6.9 second passes that were good enough to defeat Finnish rookie Paljakka and Rene van den Berg in the semis and final round respectively. This first event win at UEM level will give Selkamaa a good headstart in the championship chase as it moves to Santa Pod at the end of the month.
Rene van den Berg managed to get a handle on the track a bit quicker that the rest of the competition, but still could only muster a 7.2 that put him on pole for the first time in UEM competition. The Dutch rider was due to meet Eric Teboul in the opening round of eliminations, but the long drive back to the south of France started early for Teboul before the first round after repeated ignition problems (both inside and outside of the cylinder head, never a good sign) had ended his weekend. van den Berg carded low ET of the class with a 6.869 in the resultant bye and seemed to be a slight favourite to take his first UEM event win, but a fuel leak meant that Selkamaa would have this honour this time round.
UEM Super Twin
Runner-up at this event in 2009, Job Heezen went one step further in UEM Super Twin action, like Selkamaa from second spot on the ladder. Skipping a couple of rounds to conserve parts, Heezen produced the first six in qualifying temporarily taking the Kunmadaras track record with a 6.913. A 7.000 defeated Samu Kemppainen in the opening round of eliminations, and a 6.904/207 over Ismo Mäenpää’s 7.13 set up the final round against Hans Olav Olstad. The turnaround between rounds wasn’t without it’s own drama as an engine mounting bolt had come loose and was fixed just before the final call. Unflustered, Heezen left first with a nice 0.05s RT and didn’t look back as another 7 flat at 204 mph secured an early points lead. Heezen is the hottest ticket on tour at the moment having scored a runner-up spot and back-to-back victories in the last three UEM championship events.
Hans Olav Olstad left Hungary second in the points, but with the Super Twin track record in his back pocket, a 6.876 in a first round defeat of Czech rider Roman Sixta lowering the 6.900 number that he had clocked in qualifying low. A quest for the opening event win started to go away when the PRP motor dropped a cylinder in a 7.23 to 7.26 match up with Lorenz Stauble, losing lane choice in the final in the process which may have been implicated in driving the rear slick up in smoke just past the tree.
Olstad was joined on the long trek from snowy Norway to sunny Hungary by fellow Toten resident Trond Hoiberget. Although a first round loser at Kunmadaras, Hoiberget is running the full UEM tour after winning the Nordic Cup in his first season on the ‘Spirit of Toten’ bike last season. The next event will see the numbers swell considerably when ex-champion Svein Olav Rolfstad rejoins the tour at the next round at the end of May as part of a two bike team with Jan Sturla Hegre, and Vidar Ravnsborg will make five.
UEM Pro Stock
It looked to be easy money to back Ulf Ögge to get his UEM Pro Stock Bike title defence off to the best start possible after ripping off a 7.2 in testing the day before qualifying when other competitors were struggling to get off the startline. However, the Bikeline G2 Buell developed motor problems and he ended up in second spot (7.322) behind rookie Jesper Thiel’s (7.31) on the ex-Tom Tinndahn Buell. Thiel then set low ET of the class in the first round of eliminations; a 7.248 to throw down a marker to the rest of the 16 bike ladder. However, Thiel lost to eventual runner up Kenneth Vik in the quarters leaving Ögge to uphold the G2 honour, which he did with the event win and earned a solid haul of points.
A new rider in UEM Pro Stock Bike, but a familiar family name and race team, Karl Lyren has joined the ranks after a couple of seasons in the sportsman ranks under the tutelage of his father Roger Lyren and the rest of the Motospeed team. With four riders under the Motospeed umbrella, all carrying prominent sponsorship from the chemical conglomerate Veidec as part of a multiyear deal, Lyren will have no shortage of advice from the likes of event runner-up Vik and former champion Anders Abrahamsson, as he settles into the saddle of one of the more formidable seats in the house.
The expanded Pro Stock Bike field also saw a significant investment for local racer Zoltan Toth who has spent a fair bit of money upgrading the ex-Brian Glaesner Euro Top Gas Series bike ready for UEM Pro Stock competition. The Team Totti rider qualified solidly in the sevens and took his first UEM round win (and the first for Hungary) when Gert Jan Laseur red light in their first round match up.
UEM Funny Bike
After taking the ACU Funny Bike win at Santa Pod back at Easter on a very cold and tractionless surface, Christian Jäger arrived at the inaugural UEM Funny Bike Cup event looking for more. He didn’t get too much assistance from the track until the clouds came over during eliminations, but Jäger and the Black Seven team were celebrating a second event win in a row after a string of seven second passes ended up with victory over Italian Davide Ricci.
The UEM Funny Bike Cup is now home to many combinations that previously had run with the nitro bikes in UEM Top Fuel competition. Of these, Rikard Gustafsson and the RG Engineering Suzuki has the strongest pedigree by some distance, having carried Gustafsson to a UEM TFB championship and produced the only 6.4 second Funny Bike pass outside of North America at the end of last season. Rikard’s last trip to Hungary was only notable for a trail of broken engine parts, this year he produced the pass of the event with a simply stunning 6.695/208 mph that was close to two tenths better than any of the other two wheeled competitors managed over the course of the meeting. Unfortunately, he slowed dramatically in the semi final match up with Jäger, but Rikard is still hunting the 6.3s before completing his nitro bike for debut probably next season.
Greek racer Filippos Papafilippou has quite an impressive array of drag racing toys, of both the two and four wheeled variety. The latest is the ex Mac McAdams Pro Mod bike that neatly drops into the mix and match variety bucket that is UEM Funny Bike. A mid seven was a pretty good return in qualifying, although subsequent passes were plagued by shifting problems which left Fil spending a lot of time on each run looking at the shift light. Here’s hoping the Greek contingent manages to travel en masse to some of the later rounds in the year.
