racing

I woke up several times during the night in the back of an old Ford Transit Connect that used to belong to my mechanic Uncle Stefan. The air mattress was a little too hard, the cargo area was unfamiliar and I didn’t sleep particularly well. Still, I slept well enough to start a race in the morning, which was the only standard the hotel needed to meet.

I have never really been one of the hotel guys. During my racing career I have always preferred going to sleep at the circuit and waking up there. It keeps me in racing mode, close to the mechanics if something needs doing and close enough for another track walk if I feel like it.

This time there was no late track walk. We had dinner at Emil’s camper instead, with a lot of laughs and the inevitable discussion about tyres, before I returned to my very small home for the night.

In the morning I ate hard bread with soft cheese, brushed my teeth in the camping-area restroom and asked the officials for coffee. They agreed if I came back and bought lunch. After my stint they’d feed me spaghetti bolognese.

I moved the Transit into the paddock and parked beside our support truck. It looked like a support truck itself, only somebody had washed it too hot and shrunk it. People were opening campers and preparing cars. Waking up in that environment still does something to me. Take a few steps and there are race cars.

This was also the first time I met Isak Reiersen. He is 22, competes in the European Rally Championship and arrived with a firm handshake and a professional way about him. Before his first practice, he brought out his phone and started watching onboard footage. Then he asked about the car and how it handled.

He is humble, funny and extremely fast. More importantly, the fire is obvious. Motorsport is what he has decided to do, so now he is going to fight the world until it works. I know that person.

I drove the final part of qualifying and set our fastest time, putting the Gula Garaget Volkswagen fifth for the six-hour NSHC and MSLS race. It was also my first race at Kinnekulle and I managed to do one of the best qualifying results of the season for the team. My only previous experience there was 12 test laps in a legacy NASCAR in 2022. Kinnekulle is probably the worst circuit on the calendar for our Beetle. The car is stiff and difficult to rotate, while the track keeps turning. Thanks to the work done this season, it was much better than before, but this was still supposed to be a defensive weekend.

Rain during the night and early morning had left the circuit slippery and drying. I started the race keeping the car about 30 centimetres behind the car ahead, with a choice of two lanes into the first corner. I chose the wrong one, yet still came out fourth Later on the opening lap I lost fourth again in traffic. Three corners later I took it back with an aggressive move. Apparently I had arrived at Kinnekulle to drive sensibly, but not that sensibly.

Then the small showers started. They were never heavy enough to make the circuit properly wet. They simply moved the grip around and broke my rhythm. Each time I had the braking points and lines settled, another part of the track changed and I had to start testing again.

After about 15 laps, around 15 minutes into the stint, the RSJ BMW caught me. It was faster at that moment and had no relevance to our championship fight. Defending would only waste time and add risk, so I let it through. Ten minutes later, I passed it back. Following the BMW had shown me where I could change my lines. I found roughly three tenths per lap, caught it and then started pulling away. By halfway through my stint, it was no longer visible in the mirrors.

The younger version of me would probably have fought it immediately. He would also have gone looking for the other half-second I knew was available. I was driving consistent laps, many within one tenth of each other, and there was more speed in both the car and me. But this was the beginning of a six-hour race and we were leading two championships. I drove for one hour and fifteen minutes, then handed the car to Isak in fourth.

The track stayed dry for him. He was the only driver in the team to go faster than me, by a few tenths. A 22-year-old European rally driver should be fast, but that didn’t stop me from checking exactly how much faster he had been.

Later we spoke about racing and motorsport in general. Some of that conversation belongs to Isak and me, rather than the wide public. He did say that he enjoyed coming to a circuit without the usual cameras and career pressure. He could simply drive and enjoy the passion for the sport.

I recognised that too. The first time I raced in the United States, I found the same thing. I was there to enjoy myself and remembered why I had started in the first place. When the speed comes up, everything else in your head becomes quiet. Then the competition takes care of itself because that part is already built into us.

Isak has the complete focus on building a career that I haven’t felt in many years. I don’t envy the struggle around it, but I recognise the hunger. Meeting him made me realise that the young driver is still in me as well. He is simply no longer allowed to make every decision.

After Isak, Emil and then Claes drove before Isak returned for the final stint. In the middle of the race, the team saw a recovery situation developing and called Isak in just before a virtual safety car was activated. Emil went out while the field was slowed, gaining us around 30 seconds against most of our rivals.

That call, together with consistent lap times, helped us beat Fenix Racing. Isak brought the car home third overall, two places above our starting position and as the fastest roofed, production-based car.

The two cars ahead were Agile SCXs. They weigh around 600 kilograms and can have around 400 horsepower. Our Volkswagen has similar power but weighs approximately 1,200 kilograms. In one way its a mission impossible for us and there are reason to question the classifications to some extent, but too much focus on that only makes you a slower driver. On a circuit where our car should struggle most, third was a result I was very happy with.

At the final the 19th of Sepember, seventh or better in Class 3 will secure the Class 3 championships in both NSHC and MSLS. Because Class 3 is the fastest category, that should also give us the overall championships. Anything can happen while pushing a car to its limits for six hours, but the championship is no longer just within our grasp, it is in our hand – all we have to do is to close it.

Thank you to Claes, Emil, Peter, Musse and Isak, and to Venice Equestrian for continuing to support us.

Now we’ll prepare the Beetle, pack up the Transit and go to the final for a final rodeo together.
I may also buy a better mattress..

Sincerely,
Jonas

I just got out of the shower and my head felt like it was about to explode. Every muscle in my body was aching, and there I stood, looking at a 2nd place trophy. Any driver in motorsport can relate to this. The last of the adrenaline leaves the body and exposes the less charming sensations of having pushed yourself to the limit for a whole day.

Sweden had its warmest weekend in history in some parts of the country this June, and I can tell you, when you’re sitting in that iron furnace running down the straight at 200+ km/h, your body is trying everything it can to keep you cool. The cost of that was almost a gallon of fluid loss over a single stint.

After Linköping, Gula Garaget didn’t grow lazy. We brought a massive upgrade kit to Mantorp. A new aero package to reduce drag and increase top speed, new rear springs, and a big increase in rake. Our feedback from the post-race debrief at Linköping had turned into some bold changes. Peter was the most nervous about it, and he had every right to be.

On top of that, Gatebil and King of Mantorp, the big time attack event of the year, had laid down a lot of rubber on the track in the days before. That meant more grip once the track hit the right temperature, but ice rink levels of slippery if it got too hot, or if any rain came through. I was filling in for Jan-Jan this weekend, which put me third in the driver line-up: Emil, Claes,
me, Peter, then Emil again to the checkered flag. The morning was warm and sunny. Emil and I handled qualifying and managed 7th position despite running with a full fuel tank.

At the start, Emil played it smart, conservative through the first few corners before starting to send it and clawing back positions. Near the end of his stint, the radio connection with the pit lane cut out just as rain started to fall. He couldn’t find the button for the windscreen wiper and struggled to spot our signal calling him in for the driver change.

Claes started his stint in the rain, and after a couple of laps he came into the pits saying the car had lost power. With no radio, we couldn’t diagnose anything from the box. The team checked the car but found nothing, so the radio transmitter came out to charge while Claes went back out. The stop cost us three minutes, and a few laps later, in drying conditions, Claes set the fastest lap times he’s ever done on that track. Emil had been even quicker before the rain hit, also breaking his own personal best. Conditions just turn for the worse fast once water washes the rubber off the surface.

Near the end of Claes’s stint, another car went off track. Emil and I told the team to call him in. Almost a full lap after Claes crossed the line, the full course yellow came out. While the rest of the field slowed to 60 km/h, Claes got to rush straight into the pits.

It was my turn, and we were down in 8th. Full send was the only option for the entire stint. Early on, a lapped car slowed a competitor into the first corner, and I squeezed into the gap between them, inches from contact on either side. When drivers know you’re there, they usually back off the throttle without even thinking about it, and it worked out in my favor. A few
laps later I was in a proper fight with the BMW from RSJ, our main championship rivals. We traded positions side by side for several laps, including one moment running three wide at over 200 km/h down the main straight, with me in the middle again.

My stint should have ended at the 60 minute mark, but Claes told me to stay out until further notice, and I ended up running the full 90 minutes, the maximum allowed. By the end of it, the BMW had lost power and dropped back. I found out later their engine had blown from pushing too hard, drafting too long, and running temperatures too high for too long. When I climbed out of the car, someone on the team told me we were now leading the class. I was too tired to register who said it, maybe it was Tommy, maybe it was my dad, but this time I didn’t need to lie down to catch my breath. My lap times were consistent, and my fastest was slower than what Emil ran before the rain, but faster than anyone else managed for the rest of the day.

Peter took over and it didn’t take long before he set his own personal best, he loved the new upgrades. Emil closed it out, running fast and even, to secure our third podium in a row. Class 2nd, overall 3rd, and we’ve extended the lead in the championship standings.

All in all, I didn’t black out, my old racing suit from 2018 still fits, everyone set a new personal best and we’re one step closer to securing the championship. All because nobody got comfortable after the last win, and we kept pushing the limits forward.

New bounties to hunt awaits in front of us, let me know if you want to join our journey.
Jonas.

Fifteen years ago, I arrived at Linköping believing my future in motorsport was probably over.

The results in karting had not been enough. The path ahead felt unclear. Somewhere during that season, the mindset quietly shifted from “becoming a professional racing driver” to simply enjoying whatever time remained in the sport before moving on with life.

A few months later, a nearly fatal karting accident at another Swedish circuit changed everything. Lying in a hospital bed later that same year, I made a decision that would end up defining the next decade of my life:
If I was going to race, I would go all in.

What followed was a journey that teenage me walking through the paddock in Linköping could never have imagined. Race cars replaced karting. Teams were built. One was eventually sold. The journey continued to the United States where I broke multiple Nordic and Swedish NASCAR records before the pandemic abruptly paused the international chapter completely.

Then came business. The years after racing were not empty years. Quite the opposite. Businesses, projects, partnerships, commentating, networks and a career outside the racetrack slowly took over everyday life. Motorsport became something people mostly associated with my past.

Honestly, I started doing the same myself. Then, suddenly, Linköping appeared again. This weekend I returned to Linköping Motorstadion together with Gula Garaget Racing for the Nordic Six Hour Cup. A six-hour endurance race around the same arena where I raced go-karts fifteen years ago.

The emotions hit me harder than I expected. Not because I was nervous about driving fast again. That part comes back surprisingly quickly once the visor goes down. But because certain places in life remind you who you used to be before the world shaped you into something else.

Fifteen years ago, my father Micke stood beside me in Linköping as my mechanic. This weekend, he stood there again as we chased an overall victory together. That means more to me today than trophies ever will.

The race itself became a perfect reflection of endurance racing: strategy, patience, trust and controlled aggression. We qualified sixth after choosing to fuel the car almost for race conditions already in qualifying. With limited personnel between sessions, there simply was not enough time to constantly reconfigure the car for qualifying performance and then convert it back again. Some teams had far more people. We didn’t. So we focused on the race instead.

When the lights went out, I did not particularly care about starting sixth. Within three laps, we had the class lead. By the end of the stint, we were leading overall. Emil then took over and immediately showed why he is one of the fastest drivers in Swedish endurance racing. Claes and Peter followed with strong and consistent stints while Musse and the team handled the strategy and mechanics.

When it was time for the final stop, the race became complicated. We chose to fuel the car extremely aggressively in order to maintain track position. Had we fueled properly, we likely would have exited in second place instead of the lead. I told the team to fuel the car as little as they dared and that I would handle the rest somehow.

That “somehow” quickly became stressful.

A few laps into the final stint, I started feeling something unusual in the front end of the car. Possibly rubber buildup, possibly something mechanical. If a steering component breaks at racing speed, your day ends violently. At the same time, the fuel meter suddenly dropped to 0% with several minutes remaining.

So now the mission became balancing three things simultaneously:
Bring the car home.
Protect the lead.
Save fuel.

When I exited the pits, the lead was around eighteen seconds.
At the finish line, it was 52.199.
Overall victory.

What makes this victory special is not only the result itself. It is everything surrounding it. Back in 2022, my relationship with Gula Garaget Racing started in far more dramatic circumstances. During one of my early runs with the team, the engine exploded and the car caught fire while I was trapped inside it. What followed was frustration, chaos and a reminder that grassroots motorsport sometimes exists very far away from the polished professionalism I had become used to in NASCAR.

But the team never stopped believing in me. Claes kept calling. Kept offering seat time. Kept building. And this weekend, years later, we finally stood on the top step together.

The weekend also marked the beginning of a new partnership with Venice Equestrian, the luxury Scandinavian equestrian brand founded by Isabelle Bräck. Ironically, she was one of the people pushing me to start racing again.
At one point I joked:
“Well, then maybe you should sponsor me.”
Apparently she took that seriously. And honestly, maybe it makes more sense than people first think. Horsepower is still horsepower in the end.

For the first time in many years, international racing no longer feels impossible. I’m not pretending this suddenly becomes a full-time comeback story. My life today is deeply connected to business and the career I’ve built outside the racetrack. But endurance racing is different. Experience matters. Strategy matters. Consistency matters. And this weekend reminded me that maybe the international chapter was paused, not finished.

Maybe that kid walking through the paddock in Linköping fifteen years ago had less reason to doubt himself than he thought.

”If you don’t know the track in three laps, then you’re not talented enough to become a professional.”

His son was a former world champion. He had the authority to be controversial, but teenage me thought it was just crazy talk.
Have you ever fired a new hire five minutes into their first day because they didn’t deliver better than anyone else on the team?
Welcome to the world of motorsport, dear corporate managers – where cut-throat isn’t enough to describe the pressure.

This morning I couldn’t get out of bed. My body felt completely destroyed, sore after yesterday. Last Saturday, my phone buzzed while I was enjoying a cold beer on the flybridge with my dad, admiring the beautiful view of the Stockholm archipelago.

”Are you available next Saturday?”
Just by the sender, I knew what this was about.

Without a thought, I answered:
”Yes, I’m free.”
”Gelleråsen,” was his only reply.

Once again, I’d managed to triple-book myself.

The anxiety over this decision made me sleep-deprived every night this week.
I’m in the worst shape of my life. I’ve rejected every request to even run go-karts with my friends over the past few years. The last time I did a full race stint was at Indianapolis – six years ago.

Lying there in bed, the worst memories of my career flashed by.
Crashes. Pain. The ambulance nurse yelling, ”Stay with me.”
The sound of a cheering grandstand section as I walked out of a car so totaled that pictures of it would be marked as ”sensitive content” by most social media platforms.

I remember how I tore off the helmet and angrily yelled,
”This is the risk I’m taking for your damn entertainment!”
The clapping hands immediately stopped.

I finally fell asleep after midnight between Friday and Saturday.
The alarm went off at 04:00. I went to Solna in the northern outskirts of Stockholm to pick up Musse, the engine tuner of the car – and the one who texted me.

At 8:30 we had the drivers’ meeting.
I asked the Race Director if we followed Appendix L when it came to overtaking regulations.

I sincerely wanted to know, but I also know that the only kind of drivers who find this specific question interesting are the ones aggressive enough to be in the gray area of penalties.
The kind who give you a simple choice:
Let me by, or we crash.

Unfortunately, I’m one of those.
Or at least, that’s what I want everybody to think – so they let me by without fighting.

Gelleråsen is almost legendary in Sweden. It’s been around forever and is located in the dead center of the southern half of the country. Yet, I’d never run a single lap on the track until yesterday.

The track was wet but drying up – one of the most difficult conditions you can face. And I love it. It’s been my favorite challenge since I started karting as a kid. Now though, not even knowing if I’d dare to go fast again after all these years of boating instead of racing, it just made my nerves worse.

I tied my gear on, struggling with the helmet. But the hybrid clicked in like I’d raced last weekend. I started the car and rolled out in the fast lane, parking behind a line of cars waiting for the green light to turn on and let us out for the practice session.

The light turned green. I said to myself:
”Lights out and off we go!” ironically, as the cars started to creep out on the track.

I let the cars in front of me get a bit of a head start I wanted room in case I messed up braking on any of the corners on the first lap.

I passed the pit line and went on the throttle – wheelspin. The RPM-meter hit red. All my doubts disappeared. I slammed the brakes into the first corner, and the car just did as I told it to as it launched toward turn two.

Memories started to flash through my head:
The perfect downhill exit in Spain,
The qualifying lap in France,
The start in Falkenberg in the Camaro,
The first overtake in NASCAR K&N Pro Series in California,
The banks of Daytona in 300+ km/h.

They just kept coming.
Victories. Pole laps. Hugging my dad after the good races. Stepping onto the top of the podium. Meeting the mechanics in extascy. Late evening test runs while being alone on the track in the sunset. The first victory in pouring rain. 20 years of racing.
All of a sudden, I was inside the car I let go out in front of me – passing and clearing him.

This is the rush.
The complete lack of negative thoughts and the overwhelming satisfaction of positive ones.
When negative stress turns into positive stress. It’s the gateway into flow. You forget about the present, and your subconscious makes the split-second decisions. It feels like you and the machine are one – like you’re flying forward as a single unit.

I didn’t get any practice on a dry track until it was time for the race. Claes, the team owner decided that since I was the fast guy, I should start the 6-hour long effort. Our goal was a top 10.

”There’s no real pressure from behind, and the cars in front of you will pull away” he said on the radio.

When the lights went out, I went side-by-side with the cars ahead of me. I couldn’t care less about “the cars in front of you will pull away”.

After the 75-minute stint, I got out of the car. I stood up for not more than 10 seconds – then collapsed to the ground.
The sweat burned in my eyes. My pulse was four beats per minute below maximum.
”This will hurt tomorrow” I thought.

The Claes, the team owner gave me a fist bump while I was still kneeling on the ground beside the refuel station.
”4th time overall, set on the second lap.”

Four hours and forty-five minutes later, my comeback was done. We finished 5th in the class.

Maybe old man Mislijevic was right.
But I don’t agree that if you aren’t fast after three laps on a new track, you can’t become a professional.
All I say is: I only need two.