Malmö, June 16, 2014 – With his spectacular driving job MPM-driver Marc Meihuizen was the star of the show at last weekend’s race at Malmö Raceway and put his MPM ’68 Pontiac Firebird in the spotlight in Sweden. But with 3.93 seconds and a top five qualifying position, Meihuizen proved spectacular driving, show and performance can go very well together as the MPM-driver was by far the fastest Pro Modified-driver! In Sunday’s eliminations Meihuizen advanced to the semi-finals, where he was stopped by a red light.

When the second race of the FIA European Championship in June at Tierp Arena was cancelled, Marc Meihuizen travelled to Malmö to make some extra runs. Malmö Raceway is an 1/8 mile dragstrip, very unusual for the Dutch MPM-driver and with such a short distance, making it very difficult to make up some ground when you lose time at the startline. Making it even more difficult was the fact the FIA Pro Mod legal MPM ’68 Pontiac Firebird had to race in the same category as doorslammers from classes with far more open rules like Pro Xtreme. Eight runs later, a top five qualifying position, being the fastest Pro Mod and a semi-final finish, Meihuizen and his J.W.R. Racing-team could look back at a not only exciting, but also successful event. “In eight runs we had everything drag racing can make spectacular. Drifting, sliding, wheel spin, tyre shake, really everything. People were cheering when it was our turn to make a run. But I didn’t touch the guardrail and that is more than can be said about most of the other drivers. The Malmö track is narrow, but has traction over the full width, so you can accelerate and make steering corrections even when you are very close to the guardrail The first 100 meter of the track is great, but from that point on the car started to move around. And on a normal ¼ mile track you shift to third gear at the 200 meter, but here you have to pull the chutes at that point. With 200 km/h I was almost sideways one time and they could the side of the car from the startline, but nothing went wrong. But of course this is not the best way to make fast runs, so the times were not good. The fourth and last qualification run was the only good one, 3.93 seconds, but not good enough as we were looking for a high 3.7 or low 3.8 seconds. But still, in the eighteen car field we were in the top five and by far the fastest Pro Mod. In front of us only Pro Xtreme cars. In three runs we had the right set-up and were faster than teams that raced here so many times and know every inch of this track. So, not bad”, said Meihuizen. And after the first Friday testrun the team already knew the trip to Malmö had been worthwhile. In that the run the driveshaft broke and thanks to local racers the MPM-crew got the spare parts to solve the problem. Otherwise that would have happened at Alastaro in Finland at the FIA European Championship race! And it’s very unlikely they could have solved the same problem over there. Sunday’s eliminations were very spectacular as well for Meihuizen, the MPM J.W.R. Racing-crew and the spectators. “In the first round I had to face Michael Nord. My reaction time was better but after that, the pedal fest started, but I was at the finish line first. With an even better reaction time the same happened in the quarter finals against Urban Johansson”, said Meihuizen. But in the semi-finals against Mattias Wulcan the show was over, Meihuizen pulled a red light and was out. “It was my own fault. You have to do everything in such a short time, you act in reflexes. But when something unexpected happens, everything goes wrong and that was what happened at that moment”, said Meihuizen, not looking for any excuses. But still, the MPM-team was happy with their Malmö weekend. “We had wheel spin, the engine was screaming, but was still okay. There is so much power in that machine”, said Meihuizen. At the moment the Pontiac is race ready in the trailer for the next FIA European Championships race, the first week of July at Alastaro in Finland. Thanks to the Lindberg Brothers the trailer could stay in Sweden so the team doesn’t have to drive to the North twice.