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TOP FUEL DEBUT The Acceleration Archive: So from your gas dragster nightmare you then took the mighty leap into Top Fuel in 1980. Not even Pro Comp for P& G Racing then? Pelle Lindelöw: We were planning to switch over to Pro Comp, but our old buddy, the late Lee-Anders Hasselström convinced us that running in the "second quickest class" wouldn't give us any free rides into the media, so we followed his advice under the motto: "If you can afford to go racing, you might as well go Top Fuel racing". And that’s just what we did in 1981 – we got our first T/F! The actual switch over to T/F was a piece of cake, or it had to be, because I can't remember that much from it. I always had to remind myself to shift the Lenco at a certain RPM as the G forces were a bit distracting compared to the gas dragster..! AA: Now you mention the Chevy, can you tell us why you chose an iron 454 Chevy for your first Top Fueler and why you became the permanent driver for the team? PL: The 454" was purchased in 1980 complete with a 6:71, iron block and heads, and a whole lot more, from Kent Persson for 25,000 Kroner (approximately. £1800 in today’s rate). The chassis was built by the famous Kjellin brothers in Sundsvall, Sweden. The Kjellins were responsible for almost all Top Fuel, Funny Car and Altered chassis in Sweden and Norway in those days. They made very nice stuff. The reason I became the Top fuel driver was because it was my turn to drive! Gunnar and I switched every season we raced, and as he'd had the last drive in the gas dragster it was my turn when we started with the fueler! AA: Were you receiving any help or advice from the USA at this stage? PL: In those days I couldn't even spell USA so there was definitely no contact there. The first time we ordered parts from America we were sharing a shop with Lee-Anders Hasselström and Knut Söderqvist. But I didn’t dare to speak because of my English, so I asked Lee-Anders to call for us and we
were stood over him telling him, “Ask them about this… have they got that… can we…tell them…” And everything was wrong of course when it eventually arrived. AA: Obviously Kent had enjoyed some success with running a Chevy in Top Fuel, and in the States the likes of Jim Bucher and Larry Dixon Snr. had struck winning performances with the 'rat' in the early 1970’s, but what did you think of the engine? PL: The Chevy was terrible to work with, so hot. Lots of burnt hands and of course heavy too. Except for that it was great! I'm kidding, it was good to use as a learning lesson as it was fairly cheap and reliable too. I remember in Pitea in 1982 we raced 5 rounds in one day. It was
a Top Fuel, Funny Car and Pro Comp elimination and we cut through almost the whole field, and ended up running for the third place against Lee-Anders Hasselström, which we won about 7 o’clock at night. It was a fantastic race, our first time in Pitea. And the old Chevy never let us down once. AA: So did you buy your first Keith Black motor from the States? PL: No, we bought the engine from Hazze Fromm. He was selling his whole funny car operation. We didn’t want a funny car but another racer approached us who did, so we made a deal. That racer was Mats Westman. So Hazze Fromm sold us his whole operation, and I mean everything – hundreds of parts, all the spares, right down to the hoses and tools. And Mats Westman bought the empty chassis and body off us while we kept the engine and drive-train and all the spares for ourselves. It was a good deal for us, I almost felt sorry for Hazze Fromm, he should have sold the funny car and engine separately, then he would have made more money. But he just wanted to sell his whole operation as one lot. We were very lucky; we were just in the right place at the right time. And just when our fortune couldn’t get any better, along came Clarion… AA: Yes, tell us about the Clarion deal… PL: Well an old racing friend was working for Clarion’s marketing department and he knew they were looking to expand from just sponsoring rally cars, so he suggested they got involved with drag racing and Clarion liked the idea, so he put me in touch with the right people, I called them up and yes… they wanted to sponsor us. It was that easy! The first year (1983) was just a preliminary agreement but after that the sponsorship became a six-figure deal - an amount I would be pleased to have even today. It was great, we already had everything from Hazze Fromm and now we could invest in the latest parts and have new spares. We had become part of the Clarion family and they brought a lot of customers and employees to the Swedish races. We even tried to get Clarion in the UK and Germany involved with the drag racing, but that didn’t work out. Monica Öberg had her Bosch deal at the same time, so for a couple of racers who had started off with nothing, we were both very happy. It also increased the rivalry between Monica and us, so Clarion really liked that too. It was a very good relationship and even when the Clarion sponsorship ended they still came back in 1993 on a smaller scale and again in 1998 to help us import the McKinney Top Fueler from the USA. © Andy Barrack 2005 |
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