Tanks guys! our struggling continued, what else. Set to kill, it run for 0.3 seconds and something broke in the trans. Took the trans out and tore it apart and back together. Got 30 seconds left to get in to line up, but no boost; at least we know now that at 7 psi it runs 9.0/154. Will never try that again. Then we till got an opportunity in the nights race but the result was the same; the car starts creeping against the trans brake and propably the front band is gone again..., Maybe we'll check that tomorrow.
Again, thanks for your support, despite of all the troubles it has been a pleasure!

Hope you guys come back!

Was rooting for you guys!! Beyond a great effort I'd say!! Was watching live feed last night and was on edge of the couch when you pulled up for that last attempt running exhibition. Hope to be competing with ya in future drag weeks!!

The guy that won the big block power adder in the mustang pits next to me on test n tune Night at Keystone. He offered to help me get up to speed on nitrous when I get my small tire duster out. And boy will I need help

Awsome effort for sure!
Thanks for sharing your story with us and hope you have less trouble the next time around

Awesome effort and we cheered you on as you drove down the track for the last time!!

I have been a fan for years!You showed us what was going on across the pond.That was some adventure that will give a lifetime of conversation.
A big thanks for sharing with us here!!!

No kidding. I've also been a fan of this car for years. Missed the chance to see it in person because I only went to GLD. Would have loved to watch it in real life. Next year??????

I saw some pictures from the Roadkill nights event at Gateway and it looked like it was there and had maybe made some passes against the Aussie Chevelle with the turbos sticking out of the hood.

Thanks all for your support. The schedule is limited and the three week we have been here, not much leisure time. They are calculated in minutes. I did a short diary kind of thing what happened each day and will publish it here when the time permits. Anyway, like I said it's been a pleasure despite of all the troubles. All the people we have dealt with have been really great and I have my thumbs up coming here again! This actually was my first time in USA.

I hope you find a way to bring it back some time!!!

I'd love to see you guys get that "7" on one of our tracks.

Was great meeting you guys! Thanks for the T-shirt!

I wanted to ask about the broken valves due to also running Fred Brewers. Were these stainless or titanium valves? Were they new? What kind of spring pressures are you running? Closed and open? thanks Birdtracker

It's been awhile. Still kind of useless after the journey. The car is on its way back, at this moment no plans for next year. If so, have to do some changes. Anyway, like I told before I made a short diary of our trip and here it is. Even though I planned to write things down every day, didn't happen. So, propably forgot everything already... If you have anything to ask, please do!



Day 1, Thursday, arriving to Atlanta. Rent a 500 miles old Chevy Express van, they don’t have a car with a hitch so we probably have to rent one from U-haul. Start moving towards South Caroline, night at Super8 in Florence.

Day2, Friday. Finding the car, it’s on a neglected yard, a man arrives to open the fences and the barn. Found the trailer, it needs some TLC to keep the fenders on and lights working. Start to prepare the car and equipment for the trip to Illinois. As far as the car with the hitch goes, we figure out plan B, and drive to a local U-haul buying a hitch for it. After 20 minutes it’s installed. Getting the insurance and all the paperwork done is a huge job. Luckily Ramis wifes daughter works in an insurance company and can get the job done. Irma is approaching and we have to start moving. Before driving the car to trailer, the old firetruck tires leave their thread to SC pavement. Once on the road we stop at some gas station, a young guy comes over and asks what the hell are you doing here unarmed and shows his gun. Guess we are in America, but votkuli brothers are not afraid and can cope without firearms! Second night at Florence Super 8.

Day 3, Saturday, start moving towards Illinois, buying some tools and hardware. The trailers tires are dead, have a new set installed at a local tire store and meanwhile go through the wheel bearings. They are “dry sump” style, but we adjust and fill them with grease. A day on the road, hamburgers, beer, votkuli. Night in Memphis, didn’t see Elvis.

Day 4, Sunday, and on the road again. While on our way we notice a dragstrip next to the highway and go to check it over. Once there, the I 57 dragstrip owner comes to say hello. We give him our team T-shirt and he drives away with is ATV, returning after some ten minutes with a bag full of promotional stuff, offers us meal etc! Thank you Sir! After eating the journey continues.

In the evening we arrive to Tepens’, our ”American Family”. We started to look for a shop where we could do some preparation already in January and found one at Indy. However, two weeks before we left the contact completely disappeared and we were in trouble. We put a message about the subject to drag weekers forum, and Melissa Tepen contacted us saying that she has all we need. Totally unbelievable, Dean, the father is about 50 and will drive the drag week with his sons ’65 Nova with an LS engine. Both their son Drew and daughter Ashleig are dragracers that have gained some success in Super Chevy and high school series! Dean has more cars too, a ’nice 70 Charger, a ’68 Nova race car, a ‘65ish Pontiac 2+2 421 tri power manual etc…, and lots of spare in his yard, ’67-’68 firebirds, El Caminos…, a few dozen of them. Start working on the car, changing the cam and valvetrain + converter in the trans.

Day 5, Monday, Labour day. Things are progressing so we decide to have some vacation and head for US Nationals, the worlds biggest drag races final day. Could you believe that selling beer at gas station is forbidden between 2. to 6 am? Once we get there, the queues are long, but showing press cards that some of us have, let us straight in and we get the van close to the gates. Spectator entry costs 62$. We watch the first pro eliminatir round, but it really doesn’t impress much to see high 3 sec bracket racing. A lot of cars, a lot of noise, but one round is enough. Rather walk at the pits and see what’s in there. Unfortunately the sportsman classes have mainly already been run and left, and their pits are far away so don’t get to see them much. Back to Jerseyville, Learned something new too; during the national anthem everything else stops.

Day 6, Tuesday, continue building the car, more purchases, tires on the wheels, things are progressing. Visiting the local NAPA, takes some time, people there show pics of their cars and watch Finnish videos from their computer, selling some T-shirts and stickers. Very warm and nice people at Jerseyville!.

Day 7, Wednesday. Get the car ready and there is a test and tune session at Gateway track near by at night, so we get a chance to do some street driving and practice changing the car from street to race mode by Janne and I. 38 miles each way, no problems. Once in there, changing the tires, replace the air filters with cones, exhaust off, wheelie bars on. First run to 330 ft, ET 11.5, everything seem to work. Second run to 660 ft, ET 9.5 seconds…, seems we forgot to change the tune up and there is still Malmi airports tune up (in Finland) in the boost controller… New set up in, and a full pass, ET 8.28. We are happy with that, car back to street trim and back to Tepens. We expected that there would be hot in the car, but actually when the sun goes down it’s cold, almost froze our balls! Also the noise inside the car is most likely sponsored by some hearing aid manufacturer…

Day 8, Thursday. Setting things up, the tools and spare parts needed, installing interior lights, more purchases. Boost controllers Co2 bottle is broken, can’t find a similar new so have to build new straps for the bigger bottle. Have 700 “fan cards” made locally, where people can find the teams facebook address etc.


Day 9, Still at Tepens. Uncredible folks, and everyone else we get to meet. We can use their garage and tools, and above that we can even stay at their daughters house. She with her husband and daughter will move there once they get their current house sold. Can’t overestimate Tepen familys part in the success we had, without them we would have not been able to win all the troubles. Heartly, skillfull, helping people just because being good and nice is their nature. Start moving to Cordova at night.

Day 10, Saturday. From Suoer 8 hotel, after a small Finnish language lecture, to Cordova race track for some pre race testing. Car down and to the line up, a good looking run, 8.08! A new record again for this combination! Second try, more boost. A pretty nice looking run but missing the fury (accepted, it's a VIP), ET 8.3. All the intervals are worse than in the previous run and speed is missing too.

Valve covers off, #3 exhaust valve has lost its lash. Rocker pair off and the stem keeps rising and rising… Down pipe, turbo and header out, and there is the exhaust valve head lurking in the exhaust port. The cylinder head has been hurt some but we were lucky. Probably the failure has happened in the burn out, with only a couple of hits and the piston has hit the valve head in to the exhaust port Where it staid.

We have a set of spare heads that we had bought used but rebuilt, they were waiting for us in the states when we arrived. Pretty soon we realize that they are not quite similar to the other set. The intake doesn’t fit, it’s too narrow and they would need ¼” longer pushrods. While at the pits, a local racer and machine shop owner, Anthony Layne comes to take a look. He thinks he can fit an exhaust valve from the spare heads to the ones in use and have the seat done on Sunday. And that’s the route we decide to follow. We have reserved another rental car to Cordova, but it doesn’t exist. When Mr Layne hears about it, he says that we can take his old O.J. Simpsons escape car, a white Tahoe, and return it next Friday to the final race. Unbelievable people!

Day 10, Sunday, the Tech day. Almost 400 cars, the line must be a mile long. We push the car in to line breaking in and after a couple of hours of wait we pass the tech. Minor problem is that the headlights don’t work, but the horn does. Matt Blasco is checking the lights and accepts them when he can press the horn another time! Just a blown fuse there that is fixed immediately. More problem with the license. Janne’s got a FIA international license, but the officials have absolutely no idea of what that "library card" with a picture is, totally worthless piece of plastic.

After explaining a while and talking Janne gets a NHRA licence. But what is more weird is that I get one too, I don’t even have a valid national license at the moment. So, in theory I can drive at the races too. We get the repaired cylinder head back and start putting the car together. At 10 pm it runs and is ready for the race!

Day 11, Monday. The first race day. To the line up, it starts to fill well before 8 when the race begins.To add drama, all the paperwork of the registration has been lost, but after a while everything is ok again. A couple of hours waiting and a run with a mild set up. 8.08;

I’m happy with the result and we start putting the car back in to street trim. Street tires on, exhaust on, air filters, trailer to the hitch and on the round a little before we get the gps link to the next track. 267 miles ahead! We get about a hundred meters out of the gate when the engine goes silent. Ignition switch is broken, minor work and we are ready to go again. The only thing is that the engine only cuts off from the main switch…

The trip starts well, but after a while the temp starts going up. We take a break and the larger of the fans has quit working. The radiator cap is also leaking which doesn’t help the problems with the temps in the 220 F range. We continue with the hood on the top and a new radiator cap from NAPA. The next problem, some oil spray to the windshield. Luckily not on the drivers side, so it doesn’t bother at this point. We find all the checkpoints and run out of gas only once. Luckily we have some spare canisters in the trailer. The mileage looks to be between 6 to 8 mpg. At 8.30pm we are at the hotel, feeling good!


Day 12, Tuesday Breakfast, or whatever they call it here. Donuts, woffles etc, not something we have been used to. Anyway, to gateway. Prep the car to race condition. While lifting the U-Haul out of the Hitch, Something snaps in Jannes leg. Check the valves, nothing wrong there, change the broken fan, modify the overflow system that has had some design mistakes, and other routine work.

We are third in the race which means that we are impound, must pit in a restricted area that is watched over that we can get no external help, except from the fellow racers there. Despite of Jannes leg we are ready at about 10 AM for the line up. Since we are in the top three, we should get by the queue for our run, but I guess no one realizes that the boat does so well, and we wait among all others.

While waiting for the street eliminators to do their job, something goes in to Jannes eye and we have to get medical personals attention. They can not help and are urging to take Janne to hospital, but Janne has a pass to make and declines. He has to sign a paper that he has declined the medical care. Blind and one footed Janne makes a 8.07 with Mondays tune up, and after that an ambulance takes him to hospital. I start putting the car back to street trim, get it done, and start waiting…

Finally Janne arrives, he had a wound in his iris and is practically blind for a couple of days according to the doctors. Didn’t mention anything about his leg yet… but seems it’s my turn to drive to the next track. The journey started well, but after about 30 miles something breaks, and this time it sounds bad. Stop in the highway and get the car towed to next junction to be safe for further inspection.

Pretty soon we discover that the #7 exhaust valve is broken, and this time it’s bad. We have 250 miles left, it’s dark and no idea what is needed to fix it. We decide to quit and call to the quitting number to tell the bad news. Next we start arranging the towing, Tepens have a trailer 40 miles away nd we’ll tow the car back to their garage. We are there at about mid night and dead tired. Still we decide to remove the head to see the damages. Nothing we could have done at the junction to repair it to make the 250 mile trip.

Day 13, Wednesday. In the morning we decide that we try to make the car driveable for the final day. A couple of guys goes to Cordova to get our trailer and we start pulling the engine apart. There is also damage on the other side and foreign objects in the intake manifold. The heads need some welding so that can’t be done with this time table. We do what we can, the other set of heads is in Cordova and they’ll arrive at night. We take four pistons up, get two of them usable and install two new ones. Except that we find out they have not been pin fitted…

We go to Jerseyville for breakfast and start looking for a machine shop somewhere near. We get one lead, and he promises to do the job early next morning. Take a drive over there, and get another lead, Performance Automotive in Bethalto and pay a visit there. Gordon is very helpful, and does the pin fit while waiting, he and his son also promises to take car of the valve job, bringing it back to 50 degrees. We have a sight seeing in their shop, and what a shop it is,! Full of machinery from Sunnen and Rottler + flow bench + dyno! What can’t be done here…, well, better forget it!

Back to Jerseyville, we discover that also the other turbo is hurt. Have only parts for one, so have to deal with the other turbines wings reduced about a quarter of an inch. Do it free handed with a drill and a fly cutter… A couple of guys go back to Bethalto and get the valve ground back to 50 degree seat at Performance Automotive. Huge and great people, and great service! While there we decide to try to arrange new pushrods, we are a bit late for them to get them for Thursday from comp, but figure out a retailer that can have them sent to Cordova at Layne Automotive for Thursday, and get Layne to cut them to desired length and press the ends! This is truly amazing, people that have never known each other work together to get the job done!


Day 14, Thursday, get the spare heads fitted, after removing the end rail spacers from the block I had madethe intake actually fit pretty well, could live with that with hand tools. Needed quite a lot of other massaging though, pushrods didn’t fit and had to make room for them. And of course “throughgrinder helmine” also went through a couple of ports…, nothing that JB weld couldn’t temporarily fix. Can’t understand how these heads have ever been in use, we have offset cup lifters and there still isn’t enough room. Get things back together and start heading back to Cordova.

Day 15, Friday. to the track, better than ever of course. First a half run to see what the new combo does to the tune up, the ports are a bit different and the engine runs differently. 13 psi in the launch and a raise to 18 psi with in the first second, launch at 5100rpm. By accident the Swedish Ascona is behind us in the line up, and we decide to make a little bet with them. However, they arranged thing so that we wouldn’t meet…. In the launch boost you can hear the boost go up, a violent launch…, and it all ends in 0.3 seconds.

Tow the car back to pits and decide to take the tranny out and try to fix the problem. Our Crew was already very tired, but took the tarns out while it was still hot! Luckily Vihinen’s RR team that were present as spectators were more than willing to help. Anthony Lane also came to assist again with his crew after the tarns was torn apart, no other big problems except the front band.

Anthony drove to his job to get a new drum and a band, and rushed the car back together. About three minutes until the line up closed we dropped the car down, and rushed it to line up 30 seconds before it closed filling the fluids and attaching studs going there.

For whatever reason, didn’t get more than 7 psi of boost… ET 9.0 at 154 mph. Back to the pits, some testing against trans brake and everything seemed ok? We still get another chance before the banquet, and actually het to make the final run of the date. The car is set to kill, but about 4000 lbs and some power takes its toll, the result is just the same as in the first try, the first gear band gives up almost immediately. In the banquet we get the pity prize, “sheer determination”. Car to the trailer and to the hotel to get some needed rest.

Day 16, Saturday. “breakfast” and moving on. Get the O.J. Simpson ex Tahoe to Layne and spend a while there. Gorgeous people, Anthonys son drives a 80’s Monte Carlo around the shop and we ask him to make a burnout. “I need to ask my father first. ” Anthony says go ahead and Johnnie makes a pro burn out in the street, when we are leaving he brings us his first price from the Junior drags…, again a moment of a tear in the eye corner..

Towards Tepens place, but while on the road we figure out there is a Road Kill Zip Tie race at gateway, so might as well drive there… Also the Swedes and the Australian twin turbo chevelle are there. For whatever reason, the team decides to get the car off the trailer and gets to the queue for audiences evaluation. Surprisingly we didn’t fit in, but got to make a couple of burnouts and exhibition runs, the crowed seemed to like that. Didn’t want to burn the transmission, so the launches on high gear only weren’t hard. Still managed to run a 9.3 ET. On our way to hotel we jumped in to some local ”bombers” at the gas station and tried to follow them but got lost, it was time for good night.

Day 17, Sunday, pack the stuff together at Tepens, now there is way more of it as earlier, and hit the road at about mid day. A tear is in the eye when leaving Tepen family behind, what a bunch of people! They hope that we come back next year, so we mustn’t have behaved extremely awfully. Janne gets some treatment to his leg on the way, when back in Finland it probably needs some surgery, a muscle is torn. We drive till midnight and spend the night at Memphis. Again, no Elvis.


Day 18, Monday. Breakfast at 7 and the trip continues. Some Votkuli, something to eat and some beer keeps the spirit up. Express Van still running. Nothing works, but Lässy keeps the speed up and the trailer is hanging in the rear. In the evening we arrive at Ramis ranch, get the gates opened, the car down and in to the barn, trailer back to the back yard. To Florence to get some sleep.

Day 19, Tuesday. Everyone pretty tired so not until midday when we head back to the barn and start working on the equipment. Loosing the signs of crime, removing the Hitch from the rental, packing things up and loading the VIP full of stuff. Last, taking the slicks out and trying to make a final burnout with the off road tires. No boost and first gear, so it’s kind of pitiful attempt. Lock things up and head to Myrtle Beach where Rami lives. Rami Sahanen / Rays’ Automotive has taken care of all the paperwork, customs and unpacking the car, and continues with sending the car back to Finland. Have been using him for over 10 years and can recommend him to everyone. Night ends with a lunch in Dead Dog Saloon, the night at Ramis place.

Day 20, Wednesday. Morning swim in the Atlantic. Breakfast in a local votkulibar which is full and everyone there already pretty drunk at midday. Start moving towards Atlanta, driving until dark and then a stop to some Super 8 motel for the night.

Day 21. Thursday, about an hour left to get to Atlanta. Journey continues and we reach Atlanta. Visit a few shopping mauls and next to return the rental car. The odometer shows that with the Express Van we made about 6000 miles. The rental worker thinks that we’ve had some fun, and I guess he’s right. Saku leaves to Chicago for his connections, and others start waiting for their flight to Paris. Get to the plane, and the night in the plane.

Day 22, Friday. Changing planes in Paris. No freetime, and there is some confusion with the tickets of some passangers. According to the best French practices, nothind seems to succeed and we are already pretty sure we will not get in to the plane. Finally Finnair desk workers come and save us and we get in to the plane a couple of minutes before it leaves. The plane lands at 4.10 pm. Memorable, hard and work filled three weeks behind.

Aftermath, a lot of publicity, Got a lot of new friends, met a lot of great people. Did well in the competition until the failure ended it. Afterwards you could say that we were not prepared well enough. Because of different delays in getting parts and machining done, we were about 6 months late from the designed schedule. Because of that, we didn’t practically test at all and all of the gowth pain was still left in the car. Still, learned a lot, and now feel that we are aware what getting the Drag Week through, needs. More testing, better preparation as far as pares parts go and some technical changes. Once the car returns to Finland, we start fixing it. The trans needs some attention and the converter is too loose. A linelock will be installed. The valves on both head sets will be converted to stainless steel from titanium and they’ll be made similar so that you can change them without hassle. Must concentrate on the cooling, add an engine oil cooler and pay attention to where the air is guided to. The conversion from street to strip trim must go quicker. The street exhaust must be made more efficient. Also the electric system is in need of some rethinking. That’s basically what technically would be needed for another Drag Week. Financially the trip is expensive, too expensive for now to do without support. The Team overall worked very well and were capable of miracles. What is everyones state of will considering next year…, we’ll get back to that later.

It's like having a baby, after awhile the mommy forgets how painful it was

You tell quite a story, you need to capture it in greater detail next year so we can read yours and Billy's!

Great story! You guys really worked thru a lot of extreme difficulty.
Plus you got a real taste of mid America. Where at 3:00 am you can't buy a beer, but you can walk into walmart and buy a gun, where complete strangers hand you the keys to their car and their home and shop. Actually, all of your stories about how kind people were to you really make me proud of the USA. I hope you come back!

I was wondering about the broken valve. Was these stainless or titanium? Thanks Birdtracker

After seeing the Fins adventures I decided to replace my titanium exhaust valves with new stainless steel valves in my fbs heads. I have now idea of the history on the titanium valves I got with the heads, who knows how many cycles and what egt. Seems like safe insurance

Moparhound: did you buy pistons yet? Birdtracker

Great story and adventure, despite repeated problems you showed real resilience.
Mick