The last race weekend of the 2023 season is ahead, but the sun is still comfortably warming Ahvenisto’s motor track on Friday morning in Hämeenlinna.
Every twenty minutes, a new group of cars takes over the track, as the drivers competing for SM medals and other positions go on their test laps. During the day, the drivers get to the track six times before the gates are closed in the evening.
Before finals weekend as well At Martina Backfält that team mate Oskar Dahlbacka is an excerpt from the SM medal in the V1600 class. In practice, they compete with each other for silver.
Dahlbacka won SM gold in 2020 and silver in 2022. In between, Backfält took bronze. They have been racing partners and teammates for ten years.
– Few people know me as well as Oskar, and vice versa. But even though we are good friends, every time we put on a helmet, we drive at full speed, says Backfält.
When the start starts, Backfält tries to find his own flow. When someone is pushing from behind and when overtaking is done, the concentration must not waver even for a fraction of a second. A mistake can have fatal consequences, as the 27-year-old racing driver knows from experience.
Martina Backfält enjoys driving and that’s why she doesn’t mind that after the Ahvenisto weekend she has to drive 600 kilometers to work, from her home in Alavetel to Jällivaara in Sweden. Nine consecutive working days await there – as a midwife.
Born speed in his blood
It was perhaps inevitable that one of the four Backfält sisters would become interested in motor sports. Both father and grandfather had raced, and in the winter, grandfather plowed a track in the field where the siblings and their cousins learned to drive.
– When Martina was 9 years old, the police visited their village. They talked about how Martina had learned to drive. The police then went with her to try it out and would have given the girl a driver’s license at the age of 9, recalls the grandmother Ulla Backfält laughing.
Grandfather had once participated in the village struggles, and so did Martina’s father Mårten became interested in engines early on.
– As I recall, I was 11 years old when I bought my first car. Since then, the cars have kept up.
Mårten Backfält first competed in the everyman class, later for more than ten years in endurance racing, together with Martina’s uncle and teammate Oskar’s father. Mårten still participates in the ice track championships.
At home in Alavetel, Mårten Backfält has both a car repair shop and a dismantling shop, so when Martina says she grew up surrounded by cars, she’s not kidding.
– There are hundreds of scrap cars here and even as children we were able to try different vehicles. I got a battery car when I was 2 years old, I drove a kart when I was 6 years old, a car when I was 8 years old. We were able to test everything from a to z.
Mårten Backfält organizes annual driving events where anyone can try track driving on the Kemora motor track in Vetel. When Martina was fifteen, she wanted to try. He also stayed on that path.
– It took maybe three or four years before Martina started giving me technical feedback. Before that, he only said “something is wrong, the car is not good”, Mårten’s father recalls with a laugh.
– Now he may say that he wants changes to the steering angle of the bike, more shock absorption or tire pressure and then I get to develop things. The better he knows the car and how it works, the better he can act in different situations.
“No one else can pour that much concrete”
After Martina had been driving for a few years, she had her first bad crash. The competition took place in the Seinäjoki industrial area, where a track was built with concrete walls.
Suddenly, Martina was pushed from behind. It resulted in both cars crashing into the wall, which in turn led to a domino effect where over 200 meters of concrete fell.
– I have heard about it many times. That no one can pour as much concrete as we did back then.
– The collision took a toll on itself, but it was also hard to realize how much money and work was wasted. In addition to me, crashing affects everyone else as well.
After the crash, it was hard to dare to fight hard and overtake on the track. And when the self-confidence started to recover in the following season, Backfält got into a bad crash again.
In the race in Estonia, the speed was 150 kilometers per hour, and when coming into a corner from the main straight, the brakes didn’t work at all. He drove straight into two others, causing three cars to be completely destroyed because of him.
– That was the first time I felt like hitting the gloves on the counter.
He had scrapped two cars within a year.
Even then, his loved ones encouraged him to continue and the team put the car back together. Then I had to build up my self-confidence again
They say the best thing to do is just jump behind the wheel of the car and start driving again.
Backfält has worked with a spiritual coach, but is now taking training in the field himself to learn more.
After first competing with four cars of the same brand, he switched to another brand three years ago. In the same year, he won his first race on the SM circuit.
In civilian life, Martina Backfält works as a midwife.
To make it easier to combine these two careers, midwife Martina changed her full-time job at Kokkola to gig work in Sweden and Norway a couple of years ago. It gives him a better chance to choose when he is at work and when he is off. It reduces stress around race weekends.
For him, the arrangement is perfect at this stage of his life.
Also a partner for four years Nico Ahlbäck raced in the V1600 series, but he is now taking a couple of years off from racing. However, he will be there at the games.
– I keep a fairly low profile, but if I feel I can help, I will speak my mind. Although sometimes it’s best to keep quiet, points out Ahlbäck, who is the less experienced of the two.
Martina herself doesn’t think it’s strange at all to be both a midwife and a racing driver.
– Both require quick reaction and thinking. And of course, there is quite a lot of adrenaline flowing both on the motor track and in the delivery room.
Rain disrupted the finals weekend
After a sunny Friday in Hämeenlinna, the competition weekend was rainy.
Before the last and decisive race, Backfält was second in the overall results, three points ahead of teammate Oskar Dahlbacka.
Martina started from the pole position, got a good start and led the race in the first laps. But at times during the race, the wet and slippery track made him feel that he was no longer in full control of the car.
The race was far from perfect and he finished sixth. When Oskar finished fourth at the same time, the silver dream was also shattered. The SC silver went to Oskar, just like last year, while Martina had to settle for bronze. Simo Rauhala had already secured the gold earlier.
– I drove to the finish line with the feeling that I didn’t manage to do my best, so of course I was disappointed.
When he sits on his sofa at home the next day and has had time to digest everything, he is proud of the second SC medal of his career – and that Team Racing Flag managed to grab two medals.
Concern about the development of track racing in Finland
After spending ten years on Finnish racetracks, Martina Backfält feels that the status of track racing is no longer the same as before.
Last fall, he mourned the fact that interest in the sport has decreased and that it has not been possible to attract a larger crowd to the competition events.
This year, however, the profile of the sport is being raised so that all four SM classes of track racing compete in the same events in the Finnish Racing Championships series.
– My goal is the same as before, to win as many races as possible, and to enjoy and have fun.
The new season started on Saturday at Backfält’s home track in Vetel. From there he took one win and one third place.