NDRS Finals 2003 Alastaro,
Finland August 29th to 31st 2003 Last updated September 6th 2003
Final race of the Nordic Drag Racing Series 2003. The fight for the title was between Swede Håkan "Halmhatt" Mattsson and Finn Per-Olof "Ålands-Pelle" Eriksson.
For us, the main thing was to get past the first round, since we haven't been able to do that for the last three races!
We started qualifying with a 9,922 which was quite good since we didn't have any weather data from this track before. However, the weather was very similar to the last race at Gardermoen so weather data from there worked fine.
(Is it only about weather data now?)
Our 9,922 was best in the first round, but we were not able to improve it and ended up 7th.
One fact that had slipped our attention was that reaction times had increased this year. (Some of us had seen it but we thought the driver just had been older .....)
We discussed this and our pit neigbours the Lindqvist team helped us analyze the situation (Thank you guys!). We first rised the start RPM's from 4500 to 5400 but that didn't help much.
After some discussion about adjusting the four-link we thought of one thing that might influence reaction times. Last winter we overhauled the front shocks.
So we adjusted them harder. And it worked. Suddenly we were back in the 0,400's !
Qualification SUPER
GAS
NDRS
place
Qual
last
Start
Car
Engine
Eng.
Place
year
No.
First name
Last name
Town
Country
Nat.
Car Make
Car type
year
Type
size
E.T.
1
1314
Pelle
Noren
Kungsängen
Sweden
S
Chevrolet
Nova
-65
Chev. BB
468
9.902
2
444
Toni
Ojamaa
Oulainen
Finland
F
Plymouth
Duster
-70
Mopar
440
9.908
3
481
Kari
Luukkonen
Ylitornio
Finland
F
Chevrolet
Camaro
-70
Chev. BB
454
9.911
4
2
2
Antti
Kivinummi
Hämeenkyrö
Finland
F
Ford
Anglia
-48
Chev. BB
454
9.917
5
3
3
Håkan
Mattson
Järfälla
Sweden
S
Pontiac
Trans Am
-85
Chev. BB
535
9.918
6
5
5
Per-Olof
Eriksson
Mariehamn
Åland
F
Pontiac
Grand Prix
-91
Chev. BB
498
9.919
7
6
6
Morten
Tiainen
Koppom
Sweden
N
Pontiac
Firebird
-85
Chev. BB
461
9.920
8
1270
Mats
Lindkvist
Sollentuna
Sweden
S
Volvo
142
-72
Chev. BB
467
9.932
9
18
470
Lasse
Niskavaara
Jyväskylä
Finland
F
Chevrolet
Camaro
-71
Chev. BB
482
9.933
10
14
450
Heikki
Niemi
Harjavalta
Finland
F
Toyota
Carina
-73
Mopar
451
9.938
11
7
7
Bosse
Hall
Gävle
Sweden
S
Ford
Anglia
-67
Chev. SB
355
9.943
12
2639
Stefan
Aronssen
Hägersten
Sweden
S
Ford
Cortina GT
-67
Chev. BB
540
10.002
13
37
1854
Mikael
Karlsson
Motala
Sweden
S
Ford
Mustang
-67
Chev. BB
461
10.012
14
4
4
Matti
Suuntala
Koria
Finland
F
Pontiac
Trans Am
-89
Chev. BB
490
10.067
15
34
440
Harri
Forsten
Pori
Finland
F
Ford
Roadster
-27
Chev. BB
565
10.330
Our first opponent in the elimination was Matti Suuntala from Finland. He was Finnish Super Gas Champion in 2001 and 4th in the Nordic series last year, and he races an old Pro Stock Firebird.
But he has not raced so much this year and also had some problems to get a new converter to work properly so we had a hope of going past the first round.
He went for a Hole Shot and redlighted by 0,001 sek.!
"Ålands-Pelle" also redlighted in the first round, so "Halmhatt" Mattsson now had a chance for the championship.
Next opponent for us was Heikki Niemi in his Mopar powered Toyota Carina. Another Finnish driver we have much respect for, but he also has not raced much this year.
And again, we won on a redlight! "Halmhatt" Mattsson also redlighted against Pelle Norén so the Championship went to "Ålands-Pelle" Ericsson. Congratulations!
Norén was also our next opponent, and we gave him a good fight, but he beat us "fair and square" on both reaction and time.
But we were very pleased with a semi-final. This also gave us enough points to climb into the top 10 for the first time this year, and we will retain a single digit start number for next year (SG 9) !
The only race left now was the final betwen Pelle Norén and Mats Linkvist. This could not change the result in the championship, whoever wins Norén will be 3rd and Lindqvist 4th.
But since these two are members of the same club and share a garage it was the perfect end of the season for them.
And the winner would get bragging rights all winter!
Again it was decided by a 0,001 redlight! Norén was too hot and Lindkvist won the last race of the series in his Chevy Big Block Powered Volvo.