 |
 |
 |
|
|
|
|
Friday March 17, 2006 Ton and Vincent haven't rested on their laurels this winter as they have equipped the Zodiac Top Fuel Harley with new cilinders and novel state-of-the-art long rods. The 9" rods running on a 5.25" crank with splined output shaft, combined with the 4.6" bore pistons result in a robust 175 ci. (2868 cc).
Furthermore Ton re-newed some sponsorship deals and the Zodiac Team is proud to be supported by the following companies in 2006: Main sponsor: Other sponsors: Parts & Products sponsors: We look forward to the 2006 European Championship (after some testing & tuning at the Easter Thunderball). Monday November 7, 2005
Saturday September 24, 2005
Tuesday September 13, 2005 After a rain-dominated season we lost our European title to Ronny Aasen from Norway and ended up no.3 in the Championship.
The 2005 season was a very strange one with 3 out of 6 races ending in a rain-off. We would like to congratulate Ronny Aasen with his first Championship title. He deserves it because he showed good performance and consistency all year. Also congratulations to Hans Olav Olstad on a good season and a good result. We would like to express our thanks to our main sponsor: ZODIAC Performance Parts for Harley Davidson for their continuing support as well as to our other sponsors: Supertrapp, Accel and Spectro Oils. We'll be back!
We're off to The European Finals at Santa Pod Raceway in England, which is the last race of the European Championship Tour. We are currently no.2 in the championship, 18 points behind Ronny Aasen from Norway (click here for current championship standings).
For reports, pictures and webcam images during the weekend, please go to FIA European Finals coverage at Eurodragster.com
Monday September 5, 2005 If everything goes according plan, they will be ready before the European Finals this coming weekend.
EUROPEAN CHAMPIONSHIP ROUND 5, Hockenheim - Germany (August 19-21, 2005)
The last race of the European Championship 2005 will be in less than three weeks at Santa Pod Raceway in England. We are currently no.2 in the championship, 18 points behind Ronny...
Wednesday August 17, 2005
EUROPEAN CHAMPIONSHIP ROUND 4, Gardermoen - Norway (August 5-7, 2005) Last update: Monday August 8 After two qualification sessions on Friday the standings were as follows:
Because of heavy rains it was not possible to do qualifications on Saturday or eliminations on Sunday, so that was it for the weekend. Round #5 of the Championship will be in Hockenheim Germany on August 19-21.
Tuesday August 2, 2005 Today Ton Pels celebrates his 35th dragrace anniversary. For a photo impression of these 35 years, please click here
Ton's team - which is know as ZODIAC Racing for the last 20 years - is a family run operation, run by Ton, his wife Marianne, son Vincent and daughter Monique. Son-in-law Bert also does maintenance on the bike at the races when necessary and the last few years three generations of the Pels family have attended races. The photos not only give a great view of motorcycle dragracing through the years, but it's also a kind of family photo album of the team.
EUROPEAN CHAMPIONSHIP ROUND 3, Mantorp Park - Sweden (July 29-31, 2005) Last update: Sunday July 31, 9.55 PM Just received these great photos of this weekends race from Ivan Sansom. Thanks Ivan! (Click on the thumbs to see them full size).
Sunday snippets:
Saturday snippets:
Friday snippets:
Wednesday July 27, 2005
Tuesday July 19, 2005 Here are some more pics of Drachten we picked off the Web.
Monday July 18, 2005
Wednesday July 13, 2005
Monday July 4, 2005 We are pleased to have found out the reason of the damaged crankshaft we suffered in the first elimination round at Alastaro. On Sunday evening Vincent had a chat with European Champion Top Methanol Dragster Dave Wilson at the track restaurant and he told Vincent that they had trashed an engine earlier, which turned out to be caused by a production failure in the soft metal bearing shells they had used. The shells with a batch # of "8/00" were of a wrong batch. Vincent went back to the pits to check ours and the ones we had in were also "8/00" ones. It's a shame our race had to end the way it did, but we still managed to climb a spot in the Championship rankings and we're now # 4, so the weekend was not entirely without result.
EUROPEAN CHAMPIONSHIP ROUND 2, Alastaro Circuit - Finland (July 1-3, 2005) Last update: Sunday July 3, 19:20 (Finnish time)
Report Sunday: In the first elimination round no.1 qualifyer Ton Pels (6.95) defeated Hans Christian Nilsen (7.48) and no.2 qualifyer Ronny Aasen (6.87) defeated Joachim Riemer (7.21). The other two quarter finals turned out to be 'upsets' when Olstad (7.14) took a wholeshot win over Stauble (7.04) and Svein Gottenberg (7.10) defeated Rolfstad (7.25).In the semi finals Olstad took a bye run because Pels broke the crankshaft in the first round and could not fix the bike in time. The Norwegian did his first ever six-second pass (6.98) and made it to the finals. Next up was Ronny Aasen (6.86) who took out his fellow country man Svein Gottenberg (10.95). The all Norwegian final was decided in favour of Ronny Aasen (6.75) who defeated Svein Olav Olstad (7.29). Our congratulations to Ronny on the event win and also to Lorenz and Hans Olav for their six-second passes ! Next stop: Mantorp Park - Sweden (July 28-31) for round 3 of the FIM/UEM European Championship. Report Saturday: Last night there were some traction problems and the third qualification session this morning showed a lot of bikes still had some trouble with the traction. Not many riders improved, Ton kept the # 1 spot.This afternoon the track was better and the fourth and last qualification round showed an amazing improvement for Lorenz Stauble who did his first six-second pass. Svein Olav Rolfstad also went into the sixes, which makes the final Supertwin qualifying standings as follows: Report Friday: In the first qualification session this morning the Norwegians Olstad and Rolfstad did very good passes 'straight from the trailer' (7.0 for Olstad, 7.1 for Rolfstad). Ton was 3rd with a tyre shakin' 7.2 sec. pass.The second round showed two 6.79 passes for both Ronny Aasen and Ton. The timeslips had to tell us who was 1st and 2nd. Svein Gottenberg seems to be well on his way to another 6 second pass and Finland's Petri Kalttonen fired up the bike about 100 times today and it looks like this was not in vain, because he had a solid first outing (8.6 sec.). So at the end of day 1 the situation in Supertwin Top Fuel is as follows:
Sunday June 26, 2005 The bike is on its way to Finland for the second round of the European Championship at the Alastaro Circuit. Since it's quite a long drive to Finland, always interfering with Ton's business commitments, we have a couple of friends drive the motorhome and trailer to Alastaro, so we can fly in for the weekend. In this way our friends have made it possible for us to race at Alastaro every year since 1999, when it was added to the Championship calendar. Like last year our trailer contains the bikes and equipment of both the Zodiac and Koedam teams.
We made the bike a bit softer for the Alastaro track, as it smoked the tyre in the first round at the Main Event. We still don't have a real good baseline for the new clutch and fuel systems, but a lot of the parameters start to look like last year again, so we're getting there. Also we now know we are able to make too much horsepower, which is always a luxury of a problem. We're currently no. 5 in the Points Standings, so our goal for the race in Finland is to climb in the rankings. (Photos: Hansa)
Saturday June 4, 2005
In the first round on Monday he had to take on Joachim Riemer. Unfortunately the track seemed to have lost some of its traction and Ton's tyre went up in smoke causing the bike to drift towards the centerline. He had to get off the throttle to avoid hitting one of the reflectors and he was out. This made for a very disappointing start of the season for us. But on a positive note: last year's result at the Main event was exactly the same for Ton and he still managed to become European Champion after that, so we're very much looking forward to round 2 in Finland to try to make up for this. But first we will make a new clutch hub support and do some other maintenance on the bike. We are currently no.5 in the Championship Standings. The chase is on... The team would like to congratulate Svein-Olav Rolfstad from Norway with the event win and express their thanks to their sponsors: ZODIAC, Supertrapp, Accel, Spectro, Vanson and Performance Machine Inc.
MAIN EVENT (May 28-30, 2005) Santa Pod Raceway - England Last update: Monday May 30, 12:15 PM (UK time)
For live reports, pictures and webcam images during the weekend, please check FIA Main Event coverage at Eurodragster.com
Friday May 27, 2005 We're off to Santa Pod Raceway in England for 'the Main Event', the first race of the European Championship Tour.
For reports, pictures and webcam images during the weekend, please go to FIA Main Event coverage at Eurodragster.com
Bad weather got in the way of doing some real testing this weekend.
The final of the Top Fuel versus Supertwin Shootout would have been Steve Carey versus Ton, but with the stiff crosswind no-one was going to risk running side-by-side. The set-up we used in the 7.1 run will give us a starting point to work from for the Main Event. We'll be back in 3 weeks...
Monday May 2, 2005 Although Ton and Vincent thought they didn't have too much work this winter, it always turns out to be more than expected. They finished the bike just two days ago and fired it up. The engine sounded great and the new paint job looks smashing as well, so we are ready to race. In a few days we'll leave for Santa Pod Raceway in England for the 'Speedfreaks Ball' on May 6-8, where we will try to find a good set-up for the new clutch. For end-day-reports, pictures and webcam images during the weekend, please go to Event coverage at Eurodragster.com
Monday April 4, 2005 Shown below are the new designs of our 2005 color scheme, made by Power Race Graphics. You can click the tumbnails for full size images.
Thursday March 31, 2005 The chassis is on its wheels again. The gearbox and new clutch are in and this time the chassis is powder coated. Almost everything that had to be fabricated is done now and Vincent is working on the new front fork brace to be finished tomorrow. After that it's data logger fitting and new fuel/timer/pneumatics systems. Ton is currently building up the #1 engine. The bottom end is ready, barrels are honed and he's currently re-buttoning the pistons. After that they will lighten the new billet rocker arms and then it's final assembly. We only used our #1 engine last season so the spare engine is still ready to go (we just need to put in the new billet rocker arms after we've lightened them). The body is already at the painter (Sam's Custom Shop) and should be ready mid April with the new color scheme designed by Power Race Graphics.
Monday January 10, 2005 At the annual prize giving ceremony of the KNMV (Royal Dutch Motorcycle Federation), Ton Pels and fellow racer Roel Koedam were honoured for winning European Championship titles in Supertwin Bike and Top Fuel Bike. After being interviewed (and having some good laughs about Ton's answer about his age and some "Ooh's" and "Aah's" when he answered the question about his top speeds), they received their gold medals and UEM plaques.
After spending quite a few hours at the computer designing and drawing the new 'one piece' clutch, Ton & Vincent went into the workshop to really make it happen. For the clutch they started out with 4 blocks of aluminum with a total weight of 110 Kg's (the piece for the Clutch hub alone weighed over 70 Kg's). After machining, the weight is now less than 10 Kg's, the other 100 Kg's ended up as chips in the dust bin. The solid Primo rear pulley also came in with "overweight", they took off 7 Kg's and brought it down to 2.5 Kg's. The engine plates are getting a 'cosmetic' face lift and have to loose some weight as well. Below are some pictures of the new clutch and pulley and also a few of the enhanced engine plates.
|
1995 - 2005 © V&M Designs
