Coming to America are the Pennzoil-backed team of Kenneth Lorentzon and Tommy Moller. A first round loss against Kagered ended their chances of taking in the Las Vegas and Pomona events as European champions, but this team take their racing seriously (a head shaving session ensued a couple of years ago after they cracked the four-second barrier). Watch out for Moller waving to the crowd in the burnout and the females melting at the feet of the six-foot-six blue-eyed Viking.

Knut Soderquist, head of Carbon By Design whose products dominate the drag racing injector market the world over, had his usual workaholic weekend fielding half of the Top Fuel field as rent-a-rides and providing a considerable workload for CBD crew chief Alan 'Action' Jackson. Don Schumacher, eat your heart out!

Micke Kagered seemed to have the title in his pocket after his first round win over Moller with the Bacho Tools Express rail, but the semi final victory that would have sewn up the title for the Swede went away when a sheared blower pulley bounced onto the asphalt at half track. A blown left rear tire (sound familiar?) in his first round win over Moller placed the crew behind the eight ball in preparing for the semis can't have helped. After losing the title in 2003 with a final round loss to Smax, one can only imagine the thoughts running through Kagered's head as he watched the final from the sidelines.

For the second season in a row the Top Fuel crown came down to the final round of eliminations at the final stop of the tour. Andy Carter (lead photo, in the near lane) had the slimmest chance of a victory, coming into the event in third place and requiring an event win, low ET (a 4.983 being enough for low qualifier as well) and the others in the title chase to fall by the wayside in the early rounds. The Go Talk!-backed driver had all the cards fall into place coming into the final round and, in the absence of team orders when facing off with Nataas ("I'll just have to beat him") was intensely focussed on the win light. Both cars suffered from ferocious tireshake, but Carter was able to steer his weaving ride to become the first multi-time winner of the FIA Top Fuel points title.