Team Kendall Racing Making Dragracing History at Sunoco Drag Challenge 2009
By tony, Aug 04 in blog with 0 commentsThe team drove up to Gardemoen in Norway early on Thursday to be able to unload all our equipment before it was getting dark just to be finished before the forecasted rain came falling at around 5 a clock on the afternoon. After unpacking we went out on to the strip in the rain to see how the preparation of the track looked and we all were a bit amazed how good the track looked knowing that the great personnel at the track weren’t ready yet due to rain earlier in the week.
The rain kept on falling until Friday around 1 a clock after lunch and at that time the organizers of the race decided to postpone the race until Saturday to be able to finish the preparation of the track which showed out to be a very good decision.
We checked the track on Friday evening and it looked as the track could take a lot of horsepower’s so we decided to step up our combination that we had from the Veidec Festival at Mantorp Park the weekend before, where we improved our previous European records on the 1/8 mile to 4.061 sec/ 304.79 km/h.
Our first qualification round on Saturday we blew the tyre from the starting line which created a bit to high rpm of the engine hurting an intake valve and that was it for this run resulting in an only a 7.72 second run.
For the second qualification round we decided to get down in power and clutch just to be on the safe side and since this run was planned to be early on the afternoon we decided that this was the way to go. The run was delayed until early evening and the air was getting a lot better and so was the track, so we kept our set up as it was and now it was time for Peter to make the run. Peter staged and on he went as never before, from behind it looked almost like the run previous year at Santa Pod in September with a 3.91 sec on the 1/8 mile but then at around this point the bike really hooked up the tyre and the engine produced tons of power, shown by high exhaust flames above the bike. Peter decided to click it of after 5.5 seconds in to the run due to safety reasons and the scoreboard still showed an astonishing 5.938 sec / 359.9 km/h meaning that Peter and the rest of our Team just had make dragracing history, producing the first ever 5 second run on a Top Fuel Bike outside the US!!!!! More or less everyone at the track went wild knowing that this was something real big!!
As anyone of you how read this can understand this is greater then anything we ever have achieved during all of our years in our dragracing history, including the win at Thunder Nationals at Indianapolis 1998. What is even more fantastic as that this have been made on a bike from 1992 with engine parts such as the crank shaft, engine block/cylinder/head still are the same as then, of course the head has been ported but that about it, which means the these parts has somewhere in between 250 to 300 runs on it!!
The following two hours after the 5 second run a lot of interviews from different media group were taking place and the Team with and all of our friend in the pits celebrated until the early morning hours of Sunday.
Sunday morning came and we all had to prepare our selves for the elimination and our first round was coming up. We decided to put in a milder set up then on our previous run to be a bit safe knowing we had a good chance to go to the next run. At the run Peter produced another great run that was resulting in a 6.067 sec / 347.96 km/h win (clicking it of after 5.4 seconds) with an amazing 315.7 km/h at the 1/8 mile (197 mph) showing that despite taking out even more power we could still run faster then the existing European record hold by Roel Koedam.
When it was time to run the semi finals we took out a bit more power just to know where the limit in our combination. Peter made a great burnout as always and took the win over Kenneth Vik with a 6.103 / 337 km/h on a very loose run, black trackening all the way to 1000 feet where he clicked of the throttle at about 5.3 seconds in to the run.
It was now time to meet our good friend Rikard Gustavsson in the finals on his extremely fast Funny Bike and knowing that his very fast reaction times sometime is hard to overcome even with a Top Fuel Bikes higher horsepower output, we decided to keep our set up from the previous run. After just around 45 minutes we were called to get to the starting line finishing up all our preparations just in time with a very hot clutch knowing that it would hook up pretty good we were on our way.
Both Peter and Rikard made great burnouts and the guys staged, the green light was on and we could see early in to the run that this going to be a good run for both of them with Peter taking the win at 6.056 seconds / 344 km/h clicking it of at 5.6 second and Rikard taking the runner up spot on an amazingly run at 6.556 seconds / 323.87 km/h, making this run the worlds quickest side by side run ever yet for a Top Fuel Bike and a Funny Bike!!
Getting back home we have received greeting from different racers and fans all over the world, THANK YOU EVERYONE who believed in us during all these years, helping us with moral support to gain these tremendous results!
Encouraged by our results at Gardemoen we have now started to prepare ourselves for the final race of our race season at Santa Pod in September where we can promise you all that we will to everything that we can to run a new European record if the track is as good shape as it was during the European Finals 2008.
A big THANK YOU to all that makes this possible:
- Everyone in Team Kendall Racing and their supporting families, without you noting of this would be possible!
- Everyone at NDRG that gave us the opportunity to use some of the tremendous power that we have in our bike!
- Kendall Motor Oil in Sweden, supplied by Sollebrunns Oljeservice www.sollebrunn.com/oljeservice/
- Samek Tool AB, who makes some of the best moulding tools in the automotive industry in Sweden www.samektool.se
- CemeCon A/S, one of the best coating companies in Europe when it comes to camshaft coating etc www.cemecon.se
- Endorf, manufacturer of the new top of the line Swedish Acupressure Mat www.endorf.se
- Spikmattan.nu, retailer of Swedish acupressure mats www.spikmattan.nu
- Uddeholm, supplier of the best aluminium you can get www.uddeholm.com
- Jarmos Custom & Auto in Costa Mesa USA for supplying the very best parts available
- All our friends, racers and fans that gives us the moral strength to keep on running year after year.
If you would like to see the run at youtube.com use this link http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M-zpUFa9vLg or at www.ndrg.no .
For more information of our team please use www.billetracing.se
Please find some attached pictures from Sunoco Drag Challenge 2009 (pictures taken by Ronnie Krabberöd www.ndrg.no )
Best Regards from Peter and Sören Svensson, Team Kendall Racing Top Fuel Bike
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