OLDer news
European Finals
2005-09-12
After all the raining, not many of us thought there would be any racing activity on sunday but the rain finally stopped at the afternoon. It was however very cold at the track and many teams had problems to tune their cars correctly.
Qualifying:
Martin were number 5 qualifier with 5,958/377,168 (personal best!)
Ulf were number 8 qualifier with 6,300/377,2
Round 1 of eliminations:
Ulf Leanders 5,991/368,864 def. Urs Erbacher 5,907/397,808 (red-light)
Niclas Andersson 6,057/379,024 def. Martin Lundqvist 6,402/344,24
Round 2 of eliminations:
Ulf Leanders 5,902/384,672 def. Niclas Andersson 6,034/378,704
Final round of eliminations:
Ulf Leanders 7,018/218,208 def. Arvid Grødem 5,964/349,568 (red-light)
Ulf broke the blower belt in the final but still won since Arvid red lighted. A really good way to end an otherwise bad season.
This is the final point standings in TMFC for the 2005 season:
1 | Urs Erbacher | 329 |
2 | Dan Larsen | 286 |
3 | Ulf Leanders | 249 |
4 | Leif Andreasson | 237 |
5 | Niclas Andersson | 236 |
6 | Arvid Grödem | 177 |
7 | Martin Lundqvist | 125 |
8 | Jarmo Kuutniemi | 102 |
9 | Jörgen Johnsson | 66 |
10 | Kjell Sjöblom | 65 |
11 | Jonas Stavlund | 46 |
12 | Trevor Capewell | 46 |
13 | Jürgen Nagel | 45 |
14 | Stephanie Milam | 24 |
Some photos from the event can be found in our Photo Album section.
Reporting from European Finals
2005-09-09
We have a computer with wireless internet connection with us at the racetrack so those who wish can follow the action as we will report our qualifying and elimination runs with as little delay as possible.
Ready for European Finals
2005-08-24
Ulf set a new track record of 5,85sec - 392km/h at Sundsvall last weekend. Even our local news paper paid attention to that and put in a notice in tuesday's issue.
This makes us really confident going to the European Finals at Santa Pod raceway in september. If the weather is fine you will definitely see some good numbers from us.
Testing at Sundsvall
2005-08-18
Ulf will make a test session at Sundsvall Raceway 20-21 august. Our sponsors are welcome to attend this event.
Report from Tullinge
2005-08-17
Martin is starting to get comfortable in the Funny Car and ran a personal best of 6,22 sec at this event!
The acceleration in these type of cars is chocking and it always takes time to get used to it.
A few photos from the event can be found in our Photo Album section.
Test session at Tullinge
2005-08-10
Martin will participate in Bilsport Drag Nat's at Tullinge Raceway in Stockholm 12-14 august for a test session.
Our sponsors are welcome to attend this event.
Report from Drag Challenge in Norway
2005-08-07
Rain ruined this race.
We were able to perform two qualifying runs on friday and that was it! No racing activity at all could take place on saturday or sunday due to rain. After a drivers meeting at 13.00 on sunday, the race was definitely cancelled.
Qualifying:
Ulf were number 7 qualifier with 6,974/295
Martin were number 8 qualifier with 11,156/107
Two qualifying runs was not enough to dial in the cars, and we would definitely have improved these numbers if qualifying on saturday had been possible. Three rounds of qualifying were planned for saturday.
Kenneth Hellen did a nice job of reporting from the event in our forum again. Thanks!
Photos from the event can be found in our Photo Album section.
Report from Veidec Nitro Festival
2005-08-01
Ulf's car has not performed like it should do this season mostly because of clutch problems. We have hurt a lot of expensive parts like crankshafts, motorblocks etc. due to this. During this event we decided to replace the recent clutch with our old Crower and the car immediately started perform and act like last year again.
Qualifying:
Ulf were number 3 qualifier with 5,893/385,83
Martin were number 6 qualifier with 6,231/373,65
Round 1 of eliminations were exciting since Martin and Ulf were paired up against each other!:
Ulf won against Martin 5,869/378 vs (red-light/broke)
Robin Kadi lost in round 1 of eliminations of junior dragster.
Anna Nygaard did not qualify in junior dragster.
Because of all the raining, the race was delayed several hours on Sunday and after round 1 of eliminations in all Pro classes it was cancelled due to noise restrictions at Mantorp Park.
Photos from the event can be found in our Photo Album section.
Kamasa TOOLS Mechanic Challenge 2005
2005-07-24
VP Group participated in the Kamasa Tools Mechanic Challenge, held at Kungsträdgården park in the middle of Stockholm.
This event is a mechanics competition for Top Methanol Funny Car teams. The task is to remove one piston from the engine and then put everything back again and start up the engine. All this in the shortest possible time.
Martin's crew ended up in 4th place, and Ulf's crew ended up in 3rd place.
Although it was raining most of the day we really enjoyed our time.
If you want to see pictures from the event you can find some in our photo album.
Methanol for Veidec Nitro Festival at Mantorp
2005-07-19
Racers who need methanol for the race at Mantorp Park next week can order it from Swed handling. It will be delivered to the track at thursday afternoon.
Swed Handling AB
Spårgatan 9
601 02 Norrköping
Sweden
Tel: +46 11 248484
Fax: +46 11 248499
E-mail:
web: www.swedhandling.com
Report from Alastaro Finland
2005-07-04
We are finally back to the performance we are used to!! Ulf reached the semifinals where he lost to Urs Erbacher. Martin lost in round one against Dan Larsen.
Ulf were number 4 qualifier with 5,958/384,90
Martin were number 9 qualifier with 6,720/328,95
Round 1 of eliminations:
Ulf won against Jonas Staflund 5,99/379,27 vs 6,12/373,87
Martin lost against Dan Larsen 15,75/73,59 vs 5,88/391,03
Round 2 of eliminations :
Ulf lost against Urs Erbacher 5,98/380,35 vs 5,81/395,41
Robin Kadi and Nelly Nygaard both lost in round one of Junior Dragster.
Kenneth Hellen did a nice job of reporting from the event in our forum again. Thanks!
Photos from the event can be found in our Photo Album section.
a fourth car in the VPgroup
2005-07-04
We have added a fourth car to the arsenal of VPGroup. A junior dragster driven by Nelly and Anna Nygaard. They take turns in driving the car.
methanol for racers
2005-06-24
Racers who is passing by Norrköping on their way to the race in Alastaro Finland can buy their race methanol at Swed handling:
Swed Handling AB
Spårgatan 9
601 02 Norrköping
Sweden
Tel: +46 11 248484
Fax: +46 11 248499
E-mail:
General map | Detailed map |
The new body
2005-06-14
The new Funny Car body for Ulf's car arrived to the workshop 3 days ago and we are now busy with removing the old paint job and giving it a new one.
The body has just arrived!
Sponsor section update
2005-06-12
Our sponsor section has been revised and updated. The sponsors is now categorized in four sections.
Photoalbum
2005-06-03
A new section called "Photo album" has been added to our website. A few pictures from Santa Pod can be found there right now.
Summary from Santa Pod
2005-06-01
This wasn't our weekend.
We have had a hectic time. With only a few days left for the race at Santa Pod, we wasn't even sure that we could make it. A lot of engine components had not arrived from USA yet. Luckily, our new clutches arrived directly to the track at thursday and other missing parts were borrowed from friendly teams.
None of the cars were ready to the first round of qualifications. Ulf's car was ready for the second round and made a test run. Unfortunately the clutch didn't work as expected. This problem plagued the rest of the qualification runs and prevented Ulf from making a decent run. This in turn caused him to not qualify for the event.
Martin made a test run at the last round of qualifications, but it wasn't enough to get to the eliminations.
The event organizer was kind enough to let Ulf make a test run on monday and this is where the good news begins. Our mechanical gurus had found the problems with the clutch and it finally worked. The run was however aborted due to tire shake, but with the clutch problems solved we can now look forward to the next event.
Robin lost in the first round of eliminations of Junior Dragster.
You might want to take a look at the superb detailed information provided by Kenneth Hellen at our forum.
New sponsor
2005-05-25
We welcome a new sponsor: Nordtrafik
They have helped us ship the new Funny car body to Sweden.
New funny car body
2005-05-10
We have ordered a new Funny car body for Ulf's car. It's a Pontiac Firebird -03 acquired from american Nitro Funny car racer Del Worsham.
The old body had been repaired an uncountable number of times, and when the roof more or less collapsed at last years race at Santa Pod it was about time to retire it.
Trailer status
2005-04-08
We still have a lot of work to do on our trailers, but we are working as fast as we can to have them ready for the first event.
Here is some pictures of the truck and trailer that will carry Martin's race car plus tons of other parts:
Volvo FH 12 Globe XL 2000 truck
Wilson double-deck trailer
New mechanics
2005-04-04
The mechanics Börje Matsson, Tomas Nygren and Stefan Lundahl has decided to leave the team. We cannot thank them enough for all the time and effort they have put in our team. Some of these guys has actually been with us for 10 years!!
We will miss you but you should know that you're always welcome back!!
Two new mechanics has joined the team: Kent Englund and Bosse Hellen.
New trailers
2005-03-26
We have purchased two Wilson double-deck trailers to take our operation to the race events. Both of them needs a lot of work to fit our needs, so we have a hectic time to get them ready for the season opening.
This is the trailer that will carry Ulf's race car.
Monstergaraget
2005-03-26
Ulf Leanders, Martin Lundqvist and Pro Stock Racer Jari Konola will participate in "Monstergaraget", a TV program from TV5.
More info will comer later.
Exhibition show
2005-03-23
One of our cars was used at an exhibition show in Skellefteå called EXPOnord last week. It was Solidmakarna, a swedish reseller of IronCAD that made use of the car to attract the visitors.
The local newspaper also wrote an article about the car.
More 3d parts added
2005-01-24
A few more parts has been added to our 3D section.
A new discussion board section
2005-01-10
A new discussion board section has been added to the VPG website. You can use it to discuss racing related stuff. You can also use the discussion board as a guestbook. It has also a special racers forum which requires appropriate privileges to be accessed.
More 3d parts, and trailer for sale
2005-01-02
More parts has bee added to the 3D section like front wheel, headers and so on. The trailer has also been added to the "for sale" section.
VPG goes on-line
2004-12-18
The website for the new VPG team is finally up and running. More pages will be added as time goes on.