Having left his own ride back in Sweden, Joran Persaker took the hot seat in Stig Neergaard’s second car for the Euro Finals weekend and gained a first final in far from conventional fashion. His first round opponent, Anita Makela had a throttle linkage break resulting in no-go giving Persaker his first round win of the season. As second came thanks to a spectacularly frantic pedaling job that ended Andy Carter’s chances of completing an undefeated season after a blower pulley failed leaving the Lucas Oil car coasting some distance ahead of Persaker who’d gone up into smoke off the line after a dead late leave. The whole crowd seemed to hold their breath in unison as Persaker stabbed the throttle again and just managed to get past the 2009 champion. A similar pedal was in vain in the final round against Webster but it sure was exciting stuff. 

With John Smith calling the shots this season, Stig Neergaard has had a pretty good season without managing to get his first FIA event win and he looked in strong form during qualifying ending up a shade behind Carter with a 4.794. Neergaard’s first round match up against Micke Kagered was plain weird. Kagered stepped up his pace from qualifying to clock a 4.926 which got him well out of the way as Neergaard’s left rear wheel sheared off just before the 330 foot clocks and span him around on the track in a shower of sparks. Fortunately the rogue slick bounced safely to a halt in the shutdown area, Neergaard’s chassis didn’t appear to be too badly damaged and the Dane’s only injury was a very sore bruise to his wrist after the steering wheel was ripped out of his hands as the car hooked left.

Andy Carter was already crowned champion having gone through the season undefeated to this point, and a low qualifying 4.781/310 indicated that the Lucas Oil/Landmeco team meant to extent this streak into 2010. A first round victory over Linda Thun Tonseth took the consecutive round wins to 14 (starting back in August 2008), but a bolt failure on the lower blower pulley left Carter dead in the water as Persaker pedaled past in the semifinal. “My run had to come to an end sometime but I hate losing when something happens to the car,” said Carter “I’ve now decided to focus on gaining a fifth European title in 2010 rather than try and get funding to run in the States next year, and I like the sound of ‘five-time champion’”.