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Pelle proudly poses with the newly
imported Miller car.
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Still in Dick LaHaie's Miller Beer
colours, Pelle burns out at Mantorp.
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From left to right : Gary
Burgin, 'Miami John' and Jerry Gwyn.
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With Gary Burgin tuning, P & G's
new car was an immediate winner.
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"The Uyehara craftsmanship was top class.
My most favourite ride of all." says Pelle.
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Pelle found winning the 1989 World Finals
a lot easier than his post-race TV interview with Dennis Priddle!
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Darrell (leaning on the slick) and his
dad, Jerry Gwynn, at the 1986 NHRA Winternationals, Pomona.
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Later the same year Jerry Gwynn visited Piteå, Sweden, at the invitation of Pelle and Gunnar.
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"We held Jerry in such high regard we
thought he'd just be able to look at our engine and tell us what we were doing
wrong."
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But as the body language in the P & G
pit shows, it wasn't as simple as that . . .
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Santa Pod, Easter 1990. While P &
G's season got off to a calamitous start, it was Darrell Gwynn's crash that
would send shockwaves around the drag racing world.
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THE EX-DICK LaHAIE MILLER BEER CAR
The Acceleration Archive: Now in 1987 you bought the ex-Dick LaHaie Miller Beer Top Fueler and hired Gary Burgin from the States as crew chief. Gary is now well known as Europe's number one supplier to the Top Fuel teams, but wasn't this the beginning of his association over here?
Pelle Lindelöw: Yes, the whole deal materialized when we were going through a bad patch and needed a fresh start. We managed to sell the old Kjellin chassis to a racer in Finland (it became a Top Methanol car using an Arias motor). Through an old friend of ours, Jarmo Pulkkinen, who'd moved to
Los Angeles a long time ago, we found out that the Dick LaHaie car was up for sale. Dick was the reigning NHRA champ so when Jarmo told us that the car was up for sale we didn't think twice. This car is without any doubt my absolute favourite, built by Uyehara 1986. After making up the deal we realized the motor also needed an update so it didn't stop until we also bought a complete brand new KB engine. With all these goodies around Jarmo suggested we contact Gary Burgin, the former Funny
Car driver and NHRA Nationals champ.
Gary had been in Sweden the year before assisting Monica Öberg and was willing to come and help us get started. So he did and he then came to every race of ours for the next nine years. During that period more and more people started to order parts from Gary when he was going back and forth so that's how that deal all started.
The best thing about buying from Gary is that he knows more about European drag racing than any other American I know, and he always delivers very swiftly and always the correct parts. Before Gary we would order parts from the USA in February and they would arrive in July – and the order was never correct. And the Americans didn’t care. But Gary understood the conditions us Europeans race under – and our economy.
Compared to American teams we are not rich. We could not afford to simply throw in a spare motor if we blew something up. I remember when we first heard they were changing clutch discs after every race in the USA – we were horrified! We thought they should last at least a whole season!
Then we heard they were changing clutch discs after every run – oh my God. Anyway, now lots of European teams order from Gary and the business has grown considerably but it started with two empty hands, an airplane ticket and a team in need of technical assistance.
AA: And your 1988 season with the new car and Gary Burgin immediately started to pay dividends?
PL: Yes we raced our old friend and rival Monica Öberg at Piteå, running Europe’s first side by side 5’s and setting a new European record of 5.73 – making Piteå the quickest track in Europe. Then we won the Sko Uno Drag Festival again against Monica. That was a close final, I got a holeshot on
Monica and held her off with a slower 5.86 to her 5.85. Monica was really motoring though and she got top speed of the meet with her 253.37mph as she tried to catch me up.
Then we won the 1989 World Finals at Santa Pod against Tony Bryntesson. It was a great meeting but I still cringe at the memory of being interviewed for the TV cameras by Dennis Priddle after the race.
Dennis was my hero and had beaten me several times before he retired.
He was so knowledgeable and his cars so professional. I always admired him. But that Yeovil accent made it impossible for me to understand his interview questions. What he thought of my answers I don’t know but we met up again a few years ago and had a good chat about the old days.
AA: Weren’t you sponsored by Dynapac and Savena by 1989?
PL: Yes and no. Dynapac had previously sponsored Anders Lantz’s altered and after our initial deal we really worked on improving our realtionship with Dynapac. But faces had changed at the company since Anders’ days and after chasing people for over six months they finally revealed they had no further
interest in drag racing. It left us no time to find another sponsor for the new season. We were really gutted. As for Savena, that was thanks to long time friend and supporter of our team, Rolf "Ludde" Lundell. Leif Helander later benefited from Ludde’s love of drag racing. It really does help if the company MD is a nitro junkie!
AA: Now everyone will remember the Santa Pod Easter Internationals in 1990 for two reasons, one of which was your huge start line explosion.
The other was of course Darrell Gwynn’s horrific crash. Can you recall the events of that weekend?
PL: It was a terrible weekend – and it had all started off so well. It was great to see the Gwynns at Santa Pod. We’d been good friends with Jerry and Darrell since about 1985 when we bought some old parts off them in the USA. In fact we invited Jerry over to Sweden in 1986, to help us out at Piteå.
We were having problems with our new combination and held Jerry in such high regard that we thought he’d just be able to look at our engine, tell us what we were doing wrong, and set us a new Top Fuel record on the very next run! Knowing what we know now, it just wasn’t going to happen like that. But it was great to have Jerry as our guest in Sweden and the next year we visited the Gwynn family in Florida while we raided their workshops for more used parts. We had a ball…
When we arrived at Santa Pod that Easter it was the start of a new season for us, but first time out it all ended in disaster. A brand new intake valve “tuliped”. It couldn’t take the pressure from the spring so when the ignition came it ignited the whole top end of the motor. When I stepped on the throttle after the burnout, I felt the heat and heard the boom! And then it went quiet. Everyone was asking if I was alright, I said yes I’m okay but what about the motor? There
was nothing left! Gary Page said “thank you very much”, his clothes were covered in oil. It was a massive explosion. Our new season and our new motor was gone and we had only travelled ten feet!
But Roy Phelps (the then owner of Santa Pod) said “What do you need to carry on?” So we made a list…
(Pelle then slowly recounts the list)
“one block…
two heads…
one crank…
one…”
And Roy said take that list to Knut Söderqvist, and tell him I’m paying. So we took the list to Knut and said “Please may we have… one block… two heads…” But it was amazing, with Roy’s help and Knut’s parts and what we had left of our bits we somehow built a new motor, from all these different parts, there at the track. It took us all of the Sunday to build the ‘new’ motor but when Darrell came out to run we had a break and climbed on top of our trailer, next to the strip, to watch. He made
a strong launch and was right alongside us when his car started to fold up…
After the crash nobody knew how badly injured Darrell was. But our hearts weren’t in it after that. I remember when I passed that point (where Darrell hit the crash barrier) the next day and I thought I must be crazy. I clicked off after that. It is not good to see those kind of things up close.
When everything is working you are so single-minded, there’s nothing stopping you. But when you see something like that you suddenly realise how vulnerable we all are.
AA: On a lighter note I think there’s a little message you might want to send to the Gwynn’s…
PL: Oh you mean the moustache story?! Yeah okay, this might clear up a little mystery that might have been bothering Jerry for the last 18 years…
After Jerry had tried to help sort out our engine problems in Piteå in 1986 – and failed – the whole crew promised to shave off their moustaches and beards when we finally ran our first 5 second pass. Nothing more was said about the promise, but when we ran a 5.96 at Mantorp a couple of weeks later someone remembered the pact we had made with Jerry. So no hesitation, everyone cut off their facial hair – and everyone on the team had a beard or moustache, except me! We found an old dirty envelope
and we put all the trimmings in and just wrote Jerry’s name on the outside and sent it to the Gwynn’s address in Miami. There was no note or message, so I could only imagine the reaction when this horrible envelope full of hair arrived at their house… we’ve never heard from Jerry on the matter but if he reads this he’ll finally know it was those mad Swedes!
Sorry Jerry, but we thought it was funny…
AA: Let’s see if Jerry reads this!
© Andy Barrack 2005
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