Makela fulfils the promise with her lowest elapsed time run

FIA Euro Drag Racing Finals

Organiser: Santa Pod Racers Club Where: Santa Pod, Northamptonshire When: September 6-9 Starters: 268.

Only needing to make a qualifying pass to secure her third FIA Top Fuel Dragster title, Anita Makela stamped her authority on the championship at Santa Pod last weekend.

She set a rapid qualifying time, 3.8706s/297.02mph, to lower her own elapsed time record that the Finn set in Sweden two weeks ago.

Makela continued her imperious form through to the final round, setting back-to-back 3.8s including a 3.872s/312.44mph run at the quarter final stage and a 3.899s/305.82mph to defeat Stig Neergaard in the semi-finals. Her opponent would be second generation racer Jndia Erbacher, who recorded her first threesecond pass (3.992s) to defeat her father Urs in the opening round and a 4.001s to take out Antti Horto in the semi-finals.

In the all-female Finland vs Switzerland final, Makela left the line first and after Erbacher went up into ferocious tyre-shake the Finn powered away to a 3.967s/276mph.

After taking his first FIA Top Fuel Dragster event win in Germany a couple of events ago, Britain’s Liam Jones was hoping to repeat in front of his home crowd. However, the CBD Asylum/rfm team had a wretched time in qualifying, posting an unrepresentative seven-second pass in the four sessions and an improvement by a second to a 6.189s/105.30mph simply wasn’t enough to progress past Neergaard.

The FIA Pro Modified title was decided prior to the event when Micke Gullqvist withdrew. Brit Andy Robinson qualified third in the division and progressed to the semi-finals where he red lit against Jimmy Alund in his Old ’51 Chevy. Alund underlined his pace with the win, taking 5.873s/241.58mph to win over Jan Ericsson’s 6.050s/239.84mph.

Other event and championship winners included Bengt Ljungdahl (FIA Pro Stock Car) and Dennis Habermann (FIA Top Methanol).