Manty Bugeja is on the verge of becoming the new European champion after blasting his Mr Whippy racer to the top of the current standings in the FIA Championship for Top Methanol Dragsters.
Bad weather hampered the organisers’ plans at the famous Teirp Arena in Sweden last weekend and the Mr Whippy team must have felt disappointed to see the marshalls cancelling Sunday’s programme of races as Bugeja had managed to reach the final through the previous day’s qualifiers, also clocking the best time of 5.330 seconds.
However, the second place classification was still good enough for Bugeja to add more valuable points to his tally that saw him consolidate his lead in the cham-pionship with only one race to go at the mythical Santa Pod Raceway between September 6 and 9.
The FIA European Cham-pionship got underway in May with the opening event from a series of six.
In England, Bugeja got his championship started with a second place and the best time over the two days of racing (5.292 seconds).
The Mr Whippy team drew confidence from that auspicious start and other positive runs were to follow as Bugeja drove his dragster to a third place in Sweden in June followed by another second position in Finland and a third in Germany before Teirp on Sunday.
Mr Whippy have been the most consistent team in the FIA series so far as Bugeja went on to total 364 points and open a healthy lead over nearest rival Dennis Habermann (287), of Germany, with Briton Dave Wilson in third place on 282 points.
Another Maltese team, Kalanc Racing, are also taking part in the 2012 FIA Championship for Top Methanol Dragsters.
Without doubt, their best result was the first placing in Teirp in June where Chris Polidano defeated veteran pilot Wilson in the final.
However, Kalanc Racing were unable to build on that out-standing result and Polidano is currently lagging in fifth place in the standings on 251 points, 24 behind Timo Habermann, the 2011 champion from Germany.
Eight teams are taking part in this year’s championship.
Bugeja’s times were all in the low five-second bracket as the championships, with the partici-pation of around 300 teams in 16 race classes, are attracting huge crowds wherever races are held.
The finals at the Santa Pod racestrip in Northamptonshire should be no exception with thousands of motor sport en-thusiasts expected to throng the stands for the decisive series that should see Mr Whippy and Bugeja being crowned European cham-pions in their category.