American Motorcycle Dealer AMD 172 November 2013 | Page 8

Zodiac Racing 2013 European Champion
EADING up to this year's
European Drag Race
finals at the Santa Pod
Raceway in the United
Kingdom in September, the
Zodiac Racing team had a firm
lead in the SuperTwin Top Fuel
FIM European Championship.
Ronny Aasen, the Norwegian
rider of the 1000hp plus Zodiac
Nitro Harley, had a one round
advantage over Dutch native
Job Heezen, as well as Vesa
Lipponen from Finland. In
addition, Finnish rider Samu
Kemppainen and Christian Jäger
from Germany still had a
realistic chance of winning the
championship, too.
fter the Hockenheim
round Ton and Vincent
Pels, the father and son team
behind Zodiac, had a closer
look at the data and decided
to put more fuel into the
engine for the last race of the
season. Even though the
engine was already consuming
over 12 gallons of
nitromethane fuel per minute,
they still had the feeling the
piston ring damage in

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Hockenheim was caused by
detonation.
It looked to be the right
decision, as during the first
qualifier the bike smoked its
14in rear tire for the first time in
the season. The 1.11s sixty-foot
time showed that soft launches
were a thing of the past, and
justified the set-up changes.

For the second round,
the ignition curve was changed
a little, and this time the
tire stayed hooked. Ronny was
on form with a 1.12s 60ft, 2.86s
330ft and a 4.17s 1/8th mile ET,
with a 214.9mph top speed.
However, at this point the bike
got loose and Ronny had to shut
down and he fought to control
the bike.
he run still resulted in a
6.599s ET coasting through
the finish line at 169mph. The
1/8th mile speed looked too
good to be true and it
turned out it dropped the front
wheel between the speed traps,
causing the speed to be
recorded higher. Still the data
logger showed that the speed
was around 200MPH at the
1/8th mile and with the 4.17s ET
on the first half, it was the best
the bike had ever done by far.
The 6.599 put the Zodiac team
in the preliminary number one
spot, more than 2/10 of a
second ahead of Samu
Kemppainen.
n the 3rd qualifier Ronny was
able to duplicate the run-up
to the 330ft mark and this time
the bike ran a lot smoother.
However, the primary belt broke
after 350ft causing the engine
to over rev. As a result of this,
the team decided to sit out the
last qualifier and rebuild the
engine for Sunday’s elimination.
Due to getting the number one
qualifying spot the team had a
bye run in the first round on the
Sunday. In that round the bike
launched hard with a little tire
shake, but after a few feet the
tire hooked up and ran its best

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AMERICAN MOTORCYCLE DEALER - NOVEMBER 2013

60ft time ever. Then small
flashes started to come out of
the side of the bike and soon
they became bigger flames.
Ronny noticed something was
wrong and shut off. Luckily
there was no opponent in the
other lane, so the round win
was there.
In the pits the damage was
evaluated; the rear head had
lifted. Ton and Vincent quickly
started to replace the head,
while Ronny was doing the
routine maintenance of
replacing the con-rod bearings
from under the bike. When the
engine was warmed up for the
second round of eliminations, a
lot of smoke came out of the
exhausts of the front cylinder,
indicating more problems.
rantically the team tried to
replace the piston and
cylinder, but they did not make
it in time. Ironically, Ronny had
to race Vesa Lipponen who now
had a freebie to the final.
This left the championship to be
decided in the final between
Sumu and Vesa, and it was a
situation the Zodiac team did
not like, as it was in Samu’s
hands whether they would
become champion or not. If
Vesa wins the final, he is the
champ. If Samu wins the final,
the Zodiac team wins the
championship. Samu did what
he needed to do, and in a nice
6.76 at 206mph he took the
event win and the Zodiac team
took the European Championship.

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www.zodiac.nl
www.AMDchampionship.com