The rest of the planned schedule for The Pro Mod Parkinson Tour In 2024 is cancelled!
I feel that I need to say something and explain parts of the situation because a lot of people are contacting me and are cheering on us about the race at Tierp Arena next weekend. I have waited to try find a god way to say it, instead of in the probably angry way! Don’t want to offend people even more…
Like I wrote when me and Daniel got back to the shop after the trip from England “The weekend ended in a way I didn’t want it to end and I need to figure out what to do from now on!”
It hurts in my heart to announce this but for personal reasons I decided almost 2 weeks ago when we packed up at Santa Pod after the Main Event that I cannot continue with this after I was told I’m too into what I’m doing! And because of that I’m treating people wrong / offending people. (This is the nice and really short version of what happened) but I do not wanna make a bigger thing of this, everything is destroyed like it is already.
Everyone that have been in a race team knows that all of the people need to work in the same direction, and it won’t work if someone spent their time to find problems with people… Things goes wrong and unexpected situations happens!… That’s called one more day in life!
I can’t accept that someone is telling me that I’m too into what I’m doing like it’s a bad thing when I see this as a job and even more a job when I’m on the race track! (A 24/7 job without a paycheck) I have explained to people over the years that this is a job, it’s A LOT of money involved, it’s even more time involved to make reality of a circus like this. That’s the reason I have had people in the team that I could not work with that had to quit, some people understand this way of life. Others do not!
I have spent my life since August 2023 to make this season possible, and during off season I have messed up my personal life and my job! All because I spent time on this to do it as good as possible.
This could have been a really good start on the season, with some luck we managed to go all the way to the semi finals! And that gave us points to end up in the fourth position in the European Championship after the first event for the year! That felt good but at the same time now it does not matter at all…
And, I did all of this for Jörgen! I wanted to give back as much as possible to him for giving me this opportunity to drive and take care of his car! This year was a once in a lifetime deal for me, OF COURSE I TAKE IT SERIOUSLY!!…
I’m a do it or don’t do it person!
This was also a fun challenge for me to do something I never done before!…
And I want to show my partners that we are in this for real, I’m going to the race track to win not just to be a part of it! Nothing wrong with that if you ask me!
I have talked to all of my partners and they are all on my side in this, they are supporting me and want me to have fun and perform in the way I want! They understand that I’m not doing this as a thing just when I have time for it, I’m living and breathing Drag Racing!
When all this happened my heart said BRING OUT THE CHEVELLE because I’m angry about the situation! I want to go racing! And I feel a responsibility against my partners and everyone that I told we are doing this. And I have never ever before got myself off the entry list after entering an event!… But my brain said “don’t do it, it’s a huge amount of time and work to get the Chevelle ready because it hasn’t got the service it needed after our 2022 championship winning season! And I will not go there to half ass something!… I’m looking for my first 3.7? round in the car so I decided not to do it.
There is a lot of wasted money and time in this, money is something you can make new of but the time is something you never will get back and that hurts the most!…
Next, the Vette could have been a fast car and it feels really bad because I’m not done at all with it! 14 rounds at Santa Pod gave me exactly what I wanted as a season start and the last round I made is the best on the car with a 3.98 to 1/8 and 6.09 to 1/4 with a speed of 230 mph / 370 km/h, still a really bad round because I went into a shake did pedal, shifted way early.. I started to find the power and the tuning, but not all the way down the track… 60ft is ok around .95-.97 pretty much all the time, would have needed some more rounds in it and it would have been fast!!
Photo by: Trevor Owens!
I want to say thanks to the ones that made the trip to Santa Pod possible, partners, team, family, you know who you are! 🙂
And I want to say a special thanks to Daniel for going with us with a really short notice, when Benkt for personal reasons had to make the decision not to go and stay home! Felt really bad for me because Benkt is one of the main people that made this trip possible to do!
Also a HUGE thanks to Klas, he got Max job during the winter because Max got a problem with his hip and because of that couldn’t be a part of the team in 2024! That’s also the first time in 12+ years that we did go to a race track without Max! And that felt really weird….
Klas that never been in a race team before took his job for real to 200%!! He did spend the winter working on the Lenco and learning it, he even made special tools to make it easier to work with the transmissions! I always find it hard to trust people but with Klas I never felt that once! It’s so easy to tell when a person takes his job for real, and Klas really did this for real and spent the time he needed to make a really good job! So thankful for having him with me during the events at Santa Pod!
Something that I’m really happy for is the attention we got when it comes to Parkinson with the Parkinson Warrior Vette! My plan with having it on the car, shirts, in social medias was to show that Jörgen is strong and that something like Parkinson disease won’t stop him doing what he love and wants, with the right help!
A lot of people bought a shirt just because of the reason that we are doing this for a good thing! Then I must say that I’m happy that so many people have reached out to me and told me that they appreciate that we did this for a good cause!
I even had a person that did call me and wanted to write something about this, but after the things that happened I felt that I’m not that interested in spending more time on this right now.
So, now instead of racing I will spend time fixing the situation at work and spend a lot of time at home with Sofi! Doing stuff in the garden, fix stuff on the house that should have been done for a long time but because of racing it hasn’t… Have a real vacation!
What’s next!? Well, stay tuned for more information!
Written by Andreas Sjödin on June 9, 2024 at 6:06 pm
