IHRA: WE HAVE COMMUNICATED WITH AUSTRALIAN TRACKS

ISSUE FIVE MARCH 2015

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DRAG NEWS MAGAZINE

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Editor: Luke Nieuwhof(luke@dragnews.com.au)Content: Luke Nieuwhof, GrantStephens, Rob SparkesPhotography:cacklingpipes.com(grant@cacklingpipes.com),Luke NieuwhofDesign: Luke NieuwhofAccounts: Rob Sparkes

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COVER IMAGE

Joe Maday captured ScottPorter from up high at theSydney Jamboree.

CONTENTS4 - Editorial

6 - Shutter Speed

10 - IHRA confirms Australian communications

12 - Bank on itWe talk with Wil lowbank Raceway CEO Tony Manson.

18 - Turbos and two stepsThe Sydney Jamboree saw both turbos and track cleaningequipment get a work out.

34 - Taking it to the maxTop Fuel opens its season at Perth Motorplex.

54 - Go ProThe VPW Racer Payouts Pro Series 1 000 delivers great racing toAdelaide International Raceway.

64 - Chasing 00Mark Allen has been all about the thousandths for his entire racingcareer - in Modified that can be all the difference.

68 - Enter the BatdanDaniel Carranza represents everything good about Junior Dragster.A heart warming story.

72 - Quarter Reporter

74 - Mr Yes and Mr NoDo we need an IHRA switch?

75 - Business Directory

EDITORIALI have been reading the Steve Jobs biography in recent daysand it has been an interesting education in a man who did alot to shape the technological world we now live in.

The book charts the rise of Apple, it's struggles through the80s and 90s, and its subsequent rebirth and growth into oneof the world's most successful companies. Indeed many of youare probably reading this publication on one of his devicesright now.Though Jobs' personality leads to frequent conflict and he hasleft a trail of upset people in his wake, a recurring theme isthat he believes in the product above all else and that onlyperfection is acceptable for that product. That is what has ledApple back to success.I might be drawing a long bow, but much of what he did togrow the company again could be applied to the sport of dragracing. Are we seeking a perfect product or are we just doingwhat we have always done?One thing Jobs was quick to do when he returned to Apple wasto eliminate unsuccessful product lines and return it to fourcore products. The story goes that he went to a whiteboard andwrote 'Consumer' and 'Pro' across the top, then 'Desktop' and'Portable' down the other side. He wanted to eliminate themyriad machines Apple was offering to the public, indeedconfusing them with, and take it back to basics. The boardthought he was crazy. Those products became the iMac andMacbook and their respective pro versions.

Does drag racing need to reduce its offering in order toeliminate confusion for the public, removing categories thatare not successfully attracting numbers or fan support? Iwonder if I wrote 'Open', ' Sedan' and 'Bike' across the top ofthe same whiteboard, then 'Pro' and 'Sportsman' down oneside, what six categories would we be left with and would theybe able to fairly cover the majority of vehicles?Jobs has since introduced other products where there was amarket for them, such as the iPod, iPhone and iPad. And ofcourse their respective versions have been removed from themarket if they are no longer suitable – not carried on for thesake of carrying on.As a thinking exercise, it bodes consideration. If we had a gunto our heads and had to choose six categories to keep the sporthealthy, what would they be?And then perhaps, as niche opportunities arise, small sideproducts could be added.Of course drag racing's history shows we are quick to addcategories and slow to remove them when they are no longersuccessful. This is a byproduct of respecting people'sinvestment into those categories, but unfortunately it acts asan anchor on the sport as a whole.Who would you save and who would you scrap?.

Luke NieuwhofEditor

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SHUTTER

SPEED6

Sometimes we give you the low down and sometimes we just get low. Jon Fergusonlaunches his Supercharged Outlaws Funny Car in qualifying at Perth Motorplex.

ISO 400, 1/2000sec, F7.1, Canon 7D at 12mm.Image: Luke Nieuwhof Media

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SHUTTER

SPEED8

People say a drag race only lasts for just a few seconds. But in truth the adrenaline begins tobuild long before that as you wait in the staging lanes before putting it all on the line.

ISO 200, 1/200sec, F3.5, Canon Nikon D3 at 15mm. Image: Bob Taylor

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IHRA CONFIRMS AUSTRALIANCOMMUNICATIONS

Last month, Australian motorsport magazine AutoAction reported that venues were investigatingIHRA sanctioning, with Willowbank Racewaynamed but others, and the source, remaininganonymous.

Drag News Magazine contacted the IHRA to find out just whattheir plans are, if any, for Australia.Vice president Skooter Peaco was kind enough to respond.Peaco confirmed that they have been in touch with venues inAustralia.“The IHRA has several people in the domestic andinternational markets who investigate potential new marketsand partnerships,” he said. “We have been communicatingwith a number of international tracks including Australia. Ifwe don’t explore new opportunities we would not beexperiencing the growth trend we are enjoying at the presenttime.“It could make sense for us to explore possible options inAustralia given it is a well-established market and we alreadyhave a presence in New Zealand.”The sport of drag racing in New Zealand is currently divided,with some tracks sanctioned by the New Zealand Drag RacingAssociation and others by the IHRA.One of the Australian National Drag Racing Association'sstrong points has been in its recognition through CAMS(Confederation of Australian Motorsport), who delegate thesanctioning of drag racing to ANDRA. The FIA (FédérationInternationale de l'Automobile) delegates sanctioning ofmotorsport in Australia to CAMS. These links can be ofassistance with regulatory bodies and in dealing withgovernment.Peaco does not expect that to produce any difficulties.“There are a number of examples of non-FIA sanctionedmotorsports both in our home market (including by IHRA)and in the Australian market across multiple motorsportsdisciplines,” he said. “If we were to put a program together to

present to the Australian tracks we would not anticipate anydifficulties in that regards.”One cause of friction between ANDRA and tracks has been theincreasing commercial role of ANDRA in the sport since thecollapse of Drag Ltd in 2011. Drag Ltd worked to promote themajor categories at what were then the only three venuesinvolved in the national series – Sydney Dragway, WillowbankRaceway and Perth Motorplex.Peaco explained that the IHRA would only become involved asit was needed or wanted.“It depends on the needs of the market. Primarily we are asanctioning body, but we have the ability to get involvedcommercially,” he said. “The market always dictates the rolewe play in both domestic and international scenarios.”In social media chatter about the potential change, a frequentbenefit touted has been the reduced cost of licences. Peacosaid that would likely be true, depending on what services theywould be required to provide as a sanctioning body.“An annual membership is US$70 domestically. Internationalpricing would depend on the administration requirements ofthe market,” he said. “We understand that our domestic pricesare currently much lower than Australia is, but we would haveto know what our role would be before we got to pricingmembership. I would expect it to be considerably lower thanthe current Australian sanctioning body.”For venues, IHRA charges a set annual fee per year, ratherthan sanctioning fees per event. ANDRA currently chargesboth a small annual fee and then fees per event. For tracksrunning many events, a one time fee is an attractive option,though for venues with limited events, drawing on theresources of ANDRA for a minimal fee is beneficial.Peaco said the final price for venues would again come downto the needs and wants of the operators.“That price would have to be determined based upon theadministration requirements for that particular market,” hesaid. “My expectation would be that they would be lower thanthe current standard sanction fees.”

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BANKON IT

It was once the golden child of Australian drag racingand even referred to as a 'mini NHRA'. Now into its

thirties, does Willowbank Raceway have what it takes tonot only survive but thrive?

CEO Tony Manson believes so.

Written by Luke Nieuwhof. Photos by DaveReid/dragphotos.com.au and Luke Nieuwhof.

It is home to Australia's biggest drag racing event, the FuchsWinternationals, but it has also struggled at times with themonopoly that event puts on their annual budget and the wayit overshadows almost ever other part of the calendar, makingit difficult for other events to grow.CEO Tony Manson has welcomed the challenge. Before comingto Willowbank Raceway, Manson was involved in plenty ofother motorsport roles. He started out working washingwheels on speedway bikes at 13 and since then has gone on towork on teams in F1, F3000 and F3 in Europe, as well asChamp Car and NASCAR in the USA and V8 Supercars here inAustralia, professionally and alongside a variety of similaractivities for enjoyment.He ran the racing side of the V8 Supercar Series in the early2000s for more than five years, structured and ran a nationalsupercross Series, ran freestyle motocross tours and events forthe Crusty Demons and Red Bull, and was the event directorfor the Ken Block Gymkhana when it was run in Melbourne.He's even run a car dealership.Manson said after that varied introduction to all thingsautomotive, the way Willowbank Raceway builds for the futuremade it attractive to work there.“The passion and commitment of our Board members when Ifirst met with them made this role really appealing,” he said.“Willowbank Raceway has a unique history and there is a greatdesire to strengthen what we have and build it for the future –being a part of that was and is challenging but exciting andrewarding as well.”Coming into a drag racing facility, Manson had a fair bit tolearn about the straight line sport.“While I’d experienced plenty of drag racing as a visitor, goingall the way back to Castlereagh when I was a kid as well asSurfers Paradise, Calder and other tracks, this is my first timeworking in the sport,” he said.“There is a lot in common with other motor sports, there areplenty of differences too, which have been a challenge to getmy head around. Fortunately we have a very good racingmanager at Willowbank in Tracey Fletcher and aknowledgeable board and they have helped me get up tospeed.”The passion of Queensland race teams has flowed through toManson, who has become a fan of the sheer physicalexcitement the sport has to offer.“It (entertainment) is our core business at Willowbank and thesport delivers extreme entertainment, time after time,” hesaid. “I’ve also gained a great deal of enjoyment andsatisfaction from seeing good outcomes from changes thatwe’ve come up with in our track operations.”

Meeting changing needs

The sport of drag racing is vastly different from Willowbank'sorigins in the 1980s and one which the venue has tried toadapt to.While some of those adaptations have included developingcategories like Supercharged Outlaws to meet racer andspectator wants, Manson said the main area of focus is now onshorter and sharper shows where people can get their dragracing fill and get it quickly.“Our recent focus has been towards refining the way the sportis packaged to our fans via shorter type shows, because it is

this type of event that will ensure we remainrelevant as both a sport and as an entertainmentoffering,” he said.“There is no doubt that our sport needs topresent more of this type of product, and atWillowbank these kind of events include ourSanto's Super 3 Event at Easter and our AeroflowOutlaw Nitro Funny Car event later this year.“We also need to provide opportunity for ourracers and this caused us to re-invent our localracing to give our local racers greateropportunities to use their vehicles through ourQueensland Drag Racing Championship (QDRC)rounds.”Those QDRC rounds have seen better

participation as a result of a refresh, with more and more carscoming out of sheds instead of just appearing once or twice ayear.The changes were brought in with the support of most racers.Some changes, such as moving to a round robin format insteadof eliminations provoked passionate objections from some, butit has to be argued the changes have been beneficial on thewhole.“We met with racers at the start of 2014 and talked to themabout things we’d like to do with QDRC but also listened tothem about the things they’d like to see,” Manson said.“Out of those meetings we made a significant number ofchanges and there have been more since.“We also met with racers at the end of the season to get theirthoughts on how it all went – these racer meetings will be aregular part of the way we operate into the future; it has been avery worthwhile and positive exercise.”Other changes that have been made to the QDRC include theopening of Outlaws to blown, turbo, naturally aspirated andnitrous cars with no lower ET limit and not running tonational indexes for Group Two.“We’ve seen our entry numbers go from around the 100 markto consistently be around or over the 150 mark per QDRCround – this is great to see as our core business is drag racingand it’s fantastic to see racers here racing and enjoying oursport and our facility,” Manson said.“We’ve seen steady growth in spectator numbers too – there ismore to come in this area but having more racers runningprovides more for spectators to see.”Manson predicts there will be more in store for the QDRC.“We’d like to do more with feature brackets – there were plansfor that in 2014 with Queensland-based Pro Stock competitorsbut the fuel/engine dramas that hit Pro Stock put that idea onhold,” he said.“We are talking to some Queensland Group One competitorsabout doing something with them - so that’s something of a‘watch this space.’“It’d be great to build the strength of QDRC and maybe hold around or two at other Queensland tracks but the possibility ofdoing that is in the future. We’re maintaining our meetingswith racers and there’ll probably be more changes that comeout of those meetings.”

The friendly (?) giant

The Fuchs Winternationals is Willowbank's biggest eventannually but rainouts of the past have affected the finances ofthe venue severely.Manson explained that the venue has learned its lessons fromthose years.“The Fuchs Winternationals, as well as being Willowbank’sbiggest event, is Australian drag racing’s biggest event and it iswidely accepted as the biggest championship event outside ofthe US,” he said.“It's success each year is crucial to Willowbank and to thesport as a whole and I think it is fair to say that while we havebeen impacted directly, the sport as a whole has suffered bythese weather affected events. Without dwelling on the past,we have had the GFC, impact of the Brisbane floods and threeyears of the Fuchs Winternationals being weather impacted.“It costs us close to $1 million to stage each year and is a key

Willowbank Raceway has a reputation built onbeing the 'racer's track'. That does not make it acharity by any means but a place where the profitsfrom drag racing consistently go back intodeveloping the whole venue.

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building block of our business. The lesson from those weather-impacted years is that we need to diversify our business morethan we have so far and we’re working on that. There are goodexamples of other sporting venues that have either done it orthat are working on it.“Our neighbor Queensland Raceway for example has been verysuccessful in moving to a business model that is not dependenton the success of one or two key events for the model to workand we have a good and open relationship with them. It’ll taketime to diversify as much as we’d like to but we’ll get there.“Not all may be aware that in addition to our drag racingactivities we have driver training, vehicle testing, cycle racingand other activities that happen here throughout the year.”With a successful formula in place, Manson is not keen to messwith the event too much. He said infrastructure is where itcould be improved.“Where we can build on the success is going to be theexperience that we provide racers and spectators at ourvenue,” he said.“Much of that comes under our strategic plan but as twoexamples, we’d love to get shade in place over our grandstandand on our spectator mound and once we can secure funding,that is an aim for us.“Then if we are able to grow our property boundary (plans arein place) we could add a fan engagement zone, where we couldhave a range of things that we simply cannot fit onto theproperty during the Fuchs Winternationals currently such asinteractive activities, autograph sessions and presentations, aperformance stage and historical and other displays on our

sport.”The giant nature of the Fuchs Winternationals makes it bothfriend and foe. Manson said some of the events the venue usedto run may still have some potential in the future.“It’s no secret that Willowbank Raceway used to run morenational events than we currently do, however this reductionhas been bought about by the amount of expense and risk wewere carrying to run these type of events, often with limitedrewards,” he said. “I also think it is fair to say that the dragracing product is badly in need of updating and making itrelevant to current audiences.“We’ve done a deal with the Aeroflow Outlaw Nitro FunnyCars to come and run here in September that has beenannounced. It took a while to get the deal and date done asthere were complications for both parties with the previousdates we’d looked at – we’re looking forward to having themhere for the first time and we’ll see what we can build withthem for the future.“People often ask about the New Year events that we used torun and we’re open to that idea – we’d sketched out someevent concepts but put them on hold while there was somechange happening with the national calendar. That’ll besomething for us to revisit.“Other than that, there are events we run now that we canwork on and grow – for example, the Santo’s Super 3 ExtremeDrag Race Event presented by Uplift Cranes and Titan Cranesat Easter is great but this year is only its third year and there’sgreat potential to keep it growing.”

“We’ve spoken to IHRA as well as other sanctioningbodies. I also think it is fair to say that there are a

number of things that we are not happy with in thecurrent sanctioning organisation.”

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The Fuchs Winternationals remainsWillowbank's biggest event annually,as well as the sport's.

Friction point

Willowbank Raceway was recently named in a magazine articleas a venue that had been in talks with the IHRA aboutchanging sanctioning away from ANDRA.“Willowbank is like any business, we have service providersand from time to time we approach or are approached byalternatives – it helps any business stay up to date,” he said.“We’ve spoken to IHRA as well as other sanctioning bodies. Ialso think it is fair to say that there are a number of things thatwe are not happy with in the current sanctioningorganisation.”When asked about how that may affect Willowbank'sparticipation in any future championships, Manson said it wasa moot point.“We have made no firm decision about anything and untilanything changes there is no point on commenting onspeculation,” he said.Certainly it has been little secret that Willowbank Raceway andANDRA have had a strained relationship in recent times.“Like any relationship we have our ups and downs, andrecently more downs than ups, but we talk to them directlyabout all that. I think it is no secret that across different areasof the sport there are questions being raised about thedirection the sport is taking, however from a day to dayperspective we simply get on with running our business.”Manson said there are a number of improvements they wouldlike to see.“We’ve tabled our thoughts directly with the ANDRA Boardand CEO as we strive to improve our sport - including thingsthat we would like to see changed,” he said. “We don’t believethat it is healthy for any sport to be having such conversationspublicly but suffice to say that there are a number of things wewould like to see improved.”

Going forward

When it comes to challenges for the future of WillowbankRaceway, Manson said that there is a need to keep lookingforward and ensure their viability. He said part of that is indeveloping the funding to keep updating and improving thevenue.“That is a great challenge in the economic times that we live inand with so many competing voices seeking funding at alldifferent levels,” he said.“At the end of 2013 we signed a new 30+30 lease with theIpswich City Council so we’re here for the long haul but we aremindful that we continually need to improve the facility ingeneral.”The venue does have a strategic plan to set their agenda eachyear.“Our strategic plan is a multiyear one, is revisited each yearand sets the agenda for the upcoming year – we do it that wayas so much can change from year to year in the world aroundus,” Manson said.“That strategic plan ranges for example from our staffing andstructure to the physical facility itself and what we want toachieve operationally. We have some exciting plans for ourfuture but it’s premature to be talking about them publiclyuntil we’re ready to deliver.”And when Manson does move on from Willowbank, if he doesever consider it, he said he wants it to have been a positivetime.“Willowbank Raceway is an iconic facility and in many wayshallowed ground to much of the drag racing community,” hesaid. “As a result I’m very conscious of being a custodian and ifI ever move on, I’d want to leave Willowbank in better shapethan I found it.”

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TURBOS

ANDTWO STEPSHigh tech doesn't necessarily free you from the

punishment of mechanical carnage.

Our report from the Sydney Jamboree.

Written by Grant Stephens. Photos bycacklingpipes.com and Joe Maday.

With recent phenomenalperformances in the Sport Compactscene overseas, all eyes were onSydney Dragway for the 2015 editionof the Sydney Jamboree to see if theAussies could fire back in theperformance stakes.

Unfortunately the hot and muggy conditionsweren't conducive to such runs, though a fewnotable performance were still achieved. On theflip side the event took mechanical carnage to awhole new level - there was more junked metalthan a scrap yard, and the number of trackcleanups which started on the second pass ofthe event had to be a record. Maybe the fullmoon had something to do with it.

Factory Extreme

The headline Factory Extreme class had eightcontenders. Qualifying was a struggle with onlythe R35 GTR of Mark Jacobsen cracking a sixsecond run with a 6.62 at 214mph. We did seethe debut of the Maatouk Racing/Queen StSmash Monaro powered by a Maatouk specialRB30, the ex-Tucker Racing Pro Stock car isbeing steered by Moey Ibrahim and showedearly potential going 1.03 in the sixty.Scott Porter in his new Nissan 350Z got the bestof Jacobsen in round one of the ChicagoShootout with a 6.71, the only clean pass madein the round. Jacobsen hit back in round twowith a 6.55 win against Jerry Kehl's RX7 andJoe Signorelli is starting to harness theenormous power of the team's Scion with a 6.62solo pass - they have world record aspirationsfor this setup. The best race of the round andthe event went to Porter and Mal Glassett,running 6.63 to a 6.70 respectively beforedisaster struck in the braking area with bothcars crashing, fortunately both drivers steppedout of the carnage unharmed. A depleted roundthree saw Collin Willshire in the Eclipse tick thewin box against Kehl with a 6.92, and Jacobsenhammer out a 6.58 as the best runs of theround. The final shook down to Signorelli andJacobsen, the GTR left the line first and wasnever headed in running a 6.53 at 210mph - anew personal best and reaffirming the team'spresence as the quickest and fastest GTR andVR38 powered car in the world.

Pro Turbo

A small Pro Turbo field saw the return of SamSadek with his six second RX3 after a completerebuild following his spectacular roll over sometime ago. Sam clocked a 7.64 to top qualifybefore clutch gremlins retired 'The Godfather'for the rest of the event. Pro Turbo only had twoChicago shootout rounds to determine thefinalists due to time lost in oil downs and theywould be the 2JZ powered RX7 of LouesConsentino and the RB26 R32 Skyline ofDomenic Maiolo up from Victoria. While bothreaction times in the final could have beenmeasured on a sun dial, both cars still managedto leave the line within three hundredths of eachother and produced a cracking race, Maiolo justnudging ahead at the strip with a 7.427 toConsentino's 7.437.

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Centre: Mark Jacobsen burnsout in the world's quickest R35GTR.

Top row from left: Queen Stknow how to make an impactat a race track. Jerry Kehl'sMazda RX7 slows in thebraking area. Joe Signorellisettled for runner up in FactoryExtreme.

Bottom row from left: SamSadek top qualified but had towithdraw with clutch problems.Loues Consentino's uniqueRX7 has no troubles boiling thehides. Domenic Maiolo's tripup from Victoria was worth itwith a win in Pro Turbo.

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Pro Compact

Pro Compact had a very healthy elevenentrants and while no sixes were run,seven cars carded seven secondqualifying runs with Dom Rigoli thequickest with his Eclipse at 7.014. Eyeswere also on another ex-Pro Stock carSuper Compact creation with SDRMotorsport transforming the ex-JonGalea Cobalt into a Mazda6 fitted with a13B and being driven by Steven Dimech.Pro Stock gun Aaron Tremayne wasassisting the team with setup as they rana 7.53, a solid start in the early stage ofthe car's development. Unfortunately inthe final round of qualifying LeeDocherty had his MX5 crossed up in thebraking area and smacked the wallfollowing a 7.47. Docherty was unhurt,but it was not the comeback to racingthey were looking for.Rigoli dipped into the sixes in the firstround of racing with a 6.94 againstDimech, and continued that form with a7.01 and 6.92 in following rounds toearn a final slot. Kelly Bettes waslooking strong for an appearance in thefinal with 7.40 and 7.34 second wins inthe first two rounds, but was unlucky inhaving to face Rigoli in the third round,the Jett Racing Datsun ute's 7.23 lapwas the second quickest elapsed time inracing outside of Rigoli's numbers andshe would miss the final. Chris Taitwould experience the other side of theluck coin, the 200SX was notperforming to its potential, but two soloruns and an easy win against MichaelBaghdadi saw Tait in the final. Rigoli

was not to be denied though, theANDRA Super Compact NationalChampion continued his dream run inthe Eclipse with a 7.21 in the finalagainst Tait's troubled run.

Outlaw Extreme

It is not just all rotaries and importengines any more at Jamboree, there is aplace for turbo and EFI V8s - and that isOutlaw Extreme. Zoran Gajic was bossin qualifying with the Gas Motorsportstwin turbo Mustang carding a 6.31. PaulMouhayet was back in the world's fastestcar on 10.5 tyres, the Mustang has hadan extensive rebuild after its crashfollowing a chute failure, and the Moitsteam took a few shots at the track beforepacking it away early.Gajic had the Mustang on rails duringracing with 6.48, 6.22 and 6.15 secondwins in progressing to the final. Thefinal would become a turbo versusblower deal with Frank Mamone whobattled his way through the racingrounds with three wins and a best lap of6.84. The Mustang fell off whatever railshe was on bogging down off the line inthe final, Mamone powered on past andpopped the blower in the top end on anice 6.53 pass at only 193mph to claimthe J trophy.

Extreme

The Extreme class features any kind offour wheel race vehicle that fits theJamboree criteria engine wise but doesnot into one of the other defined classes,and you can often get some weird and

wonderful rides show up like QueenStreet's 20B powered BMW. Topqualifier was Andrew Darby in his twinturbo VK wagon with an 8.17 at 165mph,before mechanical mayhem forced anumber of retirements including Darbywho had converter problems. The racingrounds only saw three competitors frontafter the shake up, the final saw CraigeLewis blow his dial in of 8.10 to theweeds with a 7.88 against Joe Sorbellowho ran 9.03 on a 8.90 with hissupercharged Skyline for the win. Lewiswas far from unhappy, the 7.88 was abig PB for the twin turbo Cortinarunning on radials, and the car is agenuine streeter.

Modified 10.5

It was RB power-plant domination atthe top of qualifying in Modified 10.5,Queensland's Justin Wilkinson ran a7.76 with his RB30 VL, Alex Cirtoski puthis RB30 Skyline down track in 7.80seconds and George Haramis - hireddriver of a Maatouk Racing customer VL- clocked an 8.09. The VL Commodorescut a swathe through racing, withHaramis and Wilkinson squaring off inthe final. Haramis went nowhere off theline and Wilkinson cranked out a 7.69 at183mph to become the quickest singlecam VL around and the fastest onradials.

Pro 289/Street 289

The small tyred Pro 289/Street 289class finished qualifying with Po Tungtopping the sheets with his Supra at 8.12

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Top: Dom Rigoli's six second Mitsubishi Eclipse was too good in ProCompact.

Clockwise from right: Chris Tait had to settle for a runner up in hisNissan 200SX after making it to the final of Pro Compact. JoeSorbello's odd looking early model Skyline was the Extreme classwinner. Frank Mamone even had a place to race at the Jamboreeand won Outlaw Extreme.

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seconds - way off the car's six secondpotential. After qualifying the field issplit with the top eight racers goingheads up in Pro 289 and the rest fallingback into dial your own Street 289.In the heads up Pro 289 class, Po Tunghad no equal, as the only genuine sevensecond car in the field it would take amajor foul up to prevent the GasMotorsports prepared Celica fromtaking the prize. His racing numbersread 8.16, 7.41 and 7.31 before a finalround cruising 7.93 took care of MoeyObeid's RX7 which suffered dramaslaunching on the green light start.Street 289 was the first of theelimination ladder classes, the RX4 ofRussell Archer had an easy path throughto the final but then handed the win toCiprian Pascu's RX2 when Archer rolledthe start line beams.Modified Compact saw Scott Cousins'little 2JZ powered Datsun 1200 smashout a 7.69 at 181mph to lead qualifyingby a bunch. Cousins proved consistenttoo reaching the final to face Ray Fairfullwho was having a dream run with a new

car at its first event - an ex-Mark SugarsSuper Stock EL Falcon. Fairfull qualifiedthird with a 8.48 and in the final wentinto a power wheelstand off the line, butit was his reaction time that cost him inthe end, a 8.607 on a 8.44 was nabbedby Cousins' 7.887 on a 7.70 dial in.

All Motor

Making power out of rotaries and smallcapacity engines without the aid ofturbos and nitrous is the challenge facedin the All Motor class. Charlie Constanzowas the surprise number one qualifier,squeezing out a 9.67 from his 13Bmotivated Datsun, it was expected AlfAxiak would dominate the time sheetswith his normally aspirated eight second20B RX7, but Axiak could only muster a10.06.Constanzo kept the 13B singing the samesong and reached the final where hewould be handed a win light after DanielMeredith picked a -.083 cherry off thetree with his Honda Civic.

Street Compact

Street Compact was the highestpopulated bracket at Jamboree withover twenty entries, Nour El Jamasheaded the qualifying order with a 9.832out of his SR20 powered Datsun 1200ute. After four rounds of eliminationsMichael Ryan found himself in the finalwith his Falcon daily driver. Ryannormally pedals a seven second EBFalcon but that car was still in theworkshop and he thought why not havea go with the grocery getter. In theopposing lane for the final was BenClark's VL Commodore, a regularcompetitor in Super Street at SydneyDragway, Ryan had the jump off thelights and a six second lead time beforeClark could start the chase. Bothcompetitors broke out at the top end,Ryan's 16.240 on a 16.25 was by theleast earning him the J trophy and notbad compensation for not having hisreal race car ready in time.

Top: Po Tung wasn'tperforming near the potentialof his Supra but it was enoughfor a win regardless.

Bottom: Charlie Costanzo tookout the All Motor class.

Opposite page: Here the babecomp winner stands with twolovely promo girls. Joking.

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The Jamboree is often used as the platform todebut rides, this year was no different with SouthAustralian Mark Tischendorf hitting the track forthe first time with his RX7.

Some may remember Tischendorf's sporadic appearances withhis previous car - a wild Mazda 323. With the Mazda a difficultanimal to tame, Tischendorf set about building a new SportCompact weapon and is as eager as ever to get back to racing.“It's been a few years since I have been behind the wheel of arace car, and keen is one word to describe how I was feelingprior,” said Tischendorf. “After selling my last car (PRO323)which I didn’t really get much seat time in nor did I have muchsuccess with, I have spent the last two years building this carout of my shed in Adelaide.”Many Sport Compact cars now come from Puerto Rico, wherethis style of racing is a way of life, or are former Pro Stock carswith a different manufacturer decals applied. Tischendorfwanted to build the car locally though with the Puerto Ricaninfluence.“It’s a full chassis Mazda S5 RX7 and unlike a lot of other carsin the Sport Compact class, the chassis was constructed locallyby James at Grooveryder Chassis in NSW, specifically for thisclass,” said Tischendorf.“I could’ve based the car on an ex-Pro Stocker built by a bigname manufacturer, but this is much more my style. Thewhole idea behind it was to have a full blown race car that stillquite clearly resembles the street car, much like the PuertoRicans do it.“It’s better for the fans as well, much easier to relate to Ithink.”The car runs a 13B semi PP turbo built and tuned by Mazsportguru Bill Nabhan. The engine is backed by a Liberty clutchlessfive speed transmission, putting the power to the ground

through a set of 33x10.5 tyres, and was all assembled byTischendorf and a few good mates.With challenges of finding ample track time in his home state,Tischendorf decided commuting was a better way to preparethe car for testing.“Well I’m based in South Australia, and as most know we don’treally have a dependable track,” said Tischendorf. “Our localpromoter does a good job in less than ideal conditions tryingto get events to happen at AIR, but while the car is in itsinfancy it makes more sense to leave the car in NSW and fly into race it at Sydney, as the 16 hour tow across isn’t much fun.“Once ready we made the trek across a few weeks beforeJambo for a test day to shake the car down. Unfortunately theSydney weather gods were successful in raining on thatparade, all weekend I might add."So with only the Wednesday before Jambo left as the last timeto try the car out, I took a punt and flew in with a skeletoncrew. We did a few burnouts and attempted some sixty footlaunches but as expected we had a few issues - the fall outbeing a hurt gearbox, which meant staying in Sydney andspending Thursday sourcing gearbox parts to get it backtogether for Saturday.”Tischendorf made the necessary repairs in time for theJamboree, though a little daunted by the occasion.“The Sydney Jamboree is always a great meeting, but notexactly a low key event to shakedown a new car. With minimalseat time prior, I was a little nervous in the morning.“The anxiety quickly disappeared after the first skid and therest of the day rode on the back of the adrenaline that can onlycome from being around such a car. The only reason we didn’tmake it into the semi finals was because we had an issue withthe throttle cable upon fire up prior to the burnout.”To Tischendorf the day was a still a complete success and hecould not contain his excitement.“As expected when running a fully adjustable clutch, the first

THE TALE OF EL GRINGO

few passes were spent getting a baseline setting we could startworking with. It seems we didn’t do too bad when on oursecond pass we went 1.09 in the 60 on the back wheels - I wasrapt with that.“James from Grooveryder Chassis was there on the day to giveme a hand with the tuning of the chassis he built. Its needssome further tweaking as the car is pretty unsettled off thestart line, but when we get on top of that it’s going to be arocket."Basically, I ended up real happy with my day and consideringthe car is new and was pretty much untested before theJamboree, to get five passes in on the day was great. It’s onlythe tip of the iceberg, onwards and upwards we go.”Often racers in the Sport Compact scene are just seen asnumber chasers. While it may be true in many cases, thatattitude is slowly changing."Absolutely, I'd like to be a competitive racer and not just anET hunter," he said. "A very good mate of mine and fellowSouth Australian is Richard Crampton, you may have heard ofhim?“I was lucky enough to be in the States amongst him and hiscrew when he won the US Nationals last year driving the Geico

Top Fuel dragster and the winning feeling is something I yearnfor now.“Going fast is a given, but to go rounds and show the pistonboys that a rotary can be consistent is my main aim. It seemslately that the likes of Rigoli Performance and Jett Racing havePro Compact by the balls with their consistent low sevens andhigh sixes and kudos to them.“But the hope is to have my car in the other lane to shakethings up and give them a good run for their money - of courseit would be nice to get that magic six second time slip.”The 'El Gringo' name (meaning foreigner) came about during adrinking session as a bit of a piss take on the Puerto Ricans,but Tischendorf thinks it is pretty apt to coming from SouthAustralia to the East Coast.“I guess you could say us South Aussies are pretty low key incomparison to some of the Sydney personalities,” he said. “Ijust love my drag racing and tough cars in general, it’s apastime I enjoy sharing with my close mates, and whether weare driving across the Hay Plains with the race car in tow, or inthe shed spinning spanners and having a few frothies over anengine bay, it’s just what we do.”

The Jamboree was not the return to racing LeeDocherty imagined when his unique MX5 fellvictim to a braking area accident.

Docherty, who steered away from the run of the mill RX seriesmodels as a choice of race car, decided to go for somethingoutside of the box when he opted for a 10AE model MazdaMX5 built by Pac Performance, complete with all stock metalpanels. Brapping under the hood is a 13B Rotary engine with aGarrett GTX55 turbo hanging off the front all built and tunedin house by the Pac Performance boys. It punches out over1000hp.After a short break from racing Docherty came into the SydneyJamboree with pretty simple goals.“The main goals we had going into the race were to try toimprove on our PB of 7.46 seconds and obviously try to win theevent as the car is pretty consistent when not hitting walls,” hesaid.Racing in Pro Compact, there were a few gremlins to get out ofthe setup in the early qualifying rounds.“The event was going fairly well before the accident. Being thefirst time back in the car since August 2014 there were somesmall issues, like on the first pass the exhaust set off the redlight in the left lane when on the two step. And both the firstpass and second pass the car wanted to move to the right - weseemed to fix the problem of the car going right on the thirdpass though.”Straight it did go, narrowly missing his PB with a 7.47, but inthe braking area the MX5 was crossed up, hitting the left handwall heavily.“I'm not really sure what caused the accident, across the finish

line the throttle stuck open so after I pulled the chute I turnedthe car off. From the video there looks like there was a heap ofash in front of the car in the braking lane - but who knows ifthat was the cause or not.“As I was hitting the wall I was hoping the Steve Dimech wasn'tjust behind me about to rear end me, and that is why I keptdriving the car down around the end of the return road onwhat felt like a flat tyre (not a missing tyre).”Fortunately all the safety features worked as they should andLee walked away unscathed and the car will be repaired.“The car needs a new front strut, wheel, bonnet, front guard,and a fair amount of panel beating, pulling the chassis railsstraight and something done with the rear guards,” saidDocherty.“The engine didn't get any damage luckily - now seems to bethe time to look for a panel beating sponsor.“Our plans now are to try to get the rails straightened andsource new bits to get back out there ASAP, all depends oncosts and funds though.“Luckily I wasn't hurt in the accident, except for a bit ofstiffness the next day which lasted a few days. Pac Performancedid a great job building the car.”Docherty did find some amusement out of the mayhem, withthe errant front wheel that followed the wounded MX5 aroundthe breaking area turn loop stopping right next to the strickenmachine.“If you look at the rear view video, the front left wheel did apretty bloody good job, coming off the car with part of the strutattached, going behind the car, under the parachute andcoming down the track and around the corner of the returnroad - that is a bloody dedicated part right there,” he joked.

DOCHERTYDRAMA

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Some may recognise Ray Fairfull's EL Falcon fromwhen Queenslander Mark Sugars campaigned itin Super Stock for a short while, but Fairfull hassince refitted it for a completely different powercombination.

“My mate Michael Ryan (readers may remember we featuredRyan's Falcon in the first issue of Drag News Magazine - Ed)did all the fabrication work on this car, converting it from anaturally aspirated V8 into a turbo six screamer,” said Fairfull.“He took five weeks off work and made everything we neededin his backyard, and I mean everything, there was nothingfrom the original setup that we could use.“We used all the running gear out of my low nine second EFFalcon and transplanted it into the full chassis EL - Michaelput in some 350 hours through blistering summer heat to havethe car ready for Jamboree and did an outstanding job.”In went a Voodoo Engines spec SOHC 4L six cylinder boostedby a single Precision turbo backed by a Turbo 400 and nineinch diff. An amazing plenum and induction system designedby Michael Ryan uniquely utilises the existing hood scoop too.Fairfull was coming off a win at the last Jamboree with his oldEF Falcon, but a win in Modified Compact at this Jamboree

was the least of his expectations - unlike those of his crew.“Jamboree 2015 was the debut for my new EL Falcon, I haddone a couple of passes in it on a Wednesday night street meetand the car was very nervous in the rear and didn't like goingstraight.“The car managed an 8.99. Jim Denaro of Denaro CompetitionChassis came out to the track Friday night and helped set thecar up and I also made a few other minor changes. Beforequalifying the boys told me I had to win to back up myperformance from last year and make it two in a row.“My reply was that I was not concerned about winning, I justwanted the car to go straight and fast - I did jokingly say that ifthe car runs under a 8.5 we would drink a very expensive bottleof rum I had been saving."So it was to my surprise when the car ran a 8.48 on the firstpass and from there on I really didn't care what happened. Thecar ran straight and fast like I had hoped, and consistent andtrouble free for the rest of the day.“I breezed through to the final where the car picked up thefront higher and carried it further than previous runs whichtook me by surprise, I stuffed up the gear change which costme the win. Although I was only beaten by .03 it was extremelyclose, that's just racing. It was a good day and a good debut forthe new car - the rum did get drunk when we got home.”

FAIRFULL FALCON FLYING HIGH

29

Turbocharged EFI V8s also have their spot at Jamboreenowadays and usually populate the Extreme class.

Craige Lewis has not long completed his immaculate Cortinafor APSA Pro Street duties, but took the opportunity for moretrack time at the Jamboree to develop the fledgling boostedcombination.“It was a last minute decision to enter this event as we tried theweek prior to do some testing which was rained out,” heexplained. “The car was good though, we went forward - it wasa bit of a struggle due to the amount of oil downs causing alack of grip for the radials.“The only issue we had was with the injectors shutting off afterthe gear change, so we just short shifted into top gear whichdid seem to settle the car down some.”In the semi final, the issue became a godsend with a near missin the top end against Jed Sladden's AP5 Valiant.“I think we had around a second difference in dial ins and itwas up to me to catch him,” said Lewis. “It was just before thefinish line and his car stepped out in front of me sideways intomy lane, all I saw was his right hand side until he pulled thechutes to pull him straight - which they did, wrapping aroundthe front of my car in the process.“This all happened when I was doing 160mph - shit it was dark

from the chutes. I pulled my chute, jumped on the skids andmoved to the left and made no contact with the Valiant. Theironic thing was that's when my car shut the injectors off, if ithad not done so there would have been some paint traded tosay the least.”Apart from that little escapade the car smashed its ownpersonal best in the final.“I was rapt I had done a PB of a 7.88 at 177mph on its secondmeet out - bittersweet as I had a dial in of a 7.90 on the caruntil the final which we changed to 8.15, when we looked atthe time slips from the final I would have won if I had left italone.“But hey a PB was fine for me, top qualified as well which Ididn't even know until the presentations - I achieve manygoals and making the final was the last thing I was expecting.”The car, a TD Cortina, houses a Dandy Engines-built 363ciWindsor with twin 70mm turbos, Holley Dominator EFI ECU,Hughes Powerglide, nine inch rear and is apparently thequickest registered Cortina in the country, all on radial tyres.At seven seconds it is one of the quickest genuine street cars inthe country full stop.“The plan for the future is to get it going to its potential as weare not even leaning on it yet, with the goal to drive it to thetrack, run a good seven and drive it home.”

INJECTOR FAIL A LUCKY BREAK

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It is fair to say the Factory Extreme guys struggled at theSydney Jamboree. The hot muggy conditions coupled withcopious amounts of viscous liquid dumped on the racingsurface certainly affected the adhesion.

One team though not only handled the conditions, theyconquered them.Mark Jacobsen's Godzilla Motorsports R35 GTR top qualified,won the event and set a new personal benchmark which alsohappened to be the quickest VR38DETT powered passanywhere in the world to go with the world's quickest andfastest GTR moniker.“There was a week of late nights at Godzilla Motorsportsgetting the R35 GTR drag car ready for the first FactoryExtreme round of the year at the Sydney Jamboree,” he said.“We went there with a new gearbox combination - a four speedLenco with factory GTR paddle shifters - this was untested sowe had no great expectations.”Never the less the Godzilla Motorsports team owned all the topnumbers through the event.“My first qualifier was against my friend Scott Porter in hisNissan, I am always nervous racing the first round, we reeledoff a loose 6.6 at 214mph to top qualify.“The next two passes were aborted the runs due to a hot and

greasy track, I was down after those aborted runs so I turnedthe boost down to 45 PSI to get the job done for theconditions.“We then went 6.5 seconds twice to get into the finals againstToyota workshop rival and friend Joe Signorelli from GasMotorsport. The GTR was staged perfectly and we cut a .090light and ran a PB of 6.53 at 209mph, backing off just beforethe line to take the win.”Factory Extreme next take to the track for the Santo's Super 3Extreme event at Willowbank Raceway, which will see thereturn of Rod Harvey who was absent from the Sydney event.”

GODZILLA CONSUMES FACTORY EXTREME

Above: Craige Lewis wants his Cortina tobe a genuine seven second street car.

Bottom: Mark Jacobsen tore apartFactory Extreme as one of the few carsable to get down the track.

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The low light of the 2015 Sydney Jamboree was the wild topend Factory Extreme crash involving Malcolm Glassett andScott Porter.

Before the accident, the Top RPM team of Glassett wereconfident of running the numbers but the conditions threw awild curveball and the search for grip proved taxing.“Like almost everyone we struggled with the track conditionsand didn’t manage a representative pass in qualifying,” saidMilos Pavlovic - Top RPM owner.“I knew we had a good car since upgrading to the new MoTeCM1 package but we had to take so much horsepower out of thetune just to get down it wasn’t funny. To put it in perspectivewe usually leave the line with about 45psi of boost and ramp itup to around 65-70psi during the run, but on the 6.70 at216mph pass we had to lock it at 40psi for the whole run, eventhen it still wanted to turn the tyres - it was just so slippery.“Before the event we had high hopes of running very low sixesand of bettering our PB for the car of 6.36sec but they went outthe window due to the track conditions. It wasn’t ideal but weall have to race on the same track so you have to race withwhat you’ve got.”Normally Pavlovic is in the seat himself, but experiencedFactory Extreme racer Malcolm Glassett was in control thistime. That was until everything went the wrong way up on thebest pass of the event - a 6.70 from Glassett to a 6.63 fromScott Porter in the other lane.“The accident was the scariest thing I’ve ever witnessed in allmy years of racing,” said Pavlovic. “The pass itself was gunbarrel straight. Really, it was the perfect pass, all thingsconsidered and I was excited to beat Scott because he’s veryfast and always hard to beat.

"Before we could celebrate though the car turned hard left inthe braking area, went over onto its side right in front of Scottand then hit the wall and rolled onto its roof."In an effort to avoid the upside down Glassett, Porter lockedup his near brand new 350Z, turning it into the right hand walland damaging the bodywork significantly.“Everything was a blur and when I got down there I couldn’tsee Malcolm straight away and was terrified that he’d beenbadly hurt,” said Pavlovic. “Then I saw him and he waswalking around and smiling telling me how he’s going to buyme a new race car and wash my lawns for the next ten years - Itold him I didn’t care about the car and to get back in theambulance.“Malcolm was rattled but uninjured. The thing the car andsafety equipment is designed to do is save my best mate’s lifeand they did. The fire and ambulance crew and the SydneyDragway team were brilliant and I’m grateful for their efforts.“Unfortunately the car is a write-off and will never race again.Some of the gear was recoverable and the engine itself isperfect as well. I just finished tearing it down and everything isas it should be. We’ve been through the data 100 times andlooked for anything that could’ve caused it and come upempty. It’s anyone’s guess what went wrong but I put it downto one of those things.”Down but not out, the Top RPM team still have a few morecars in the chamber ready to fire.“I already had a brand new Toyota Solara being built atVanishing Point Race Cars and we have Malcolm’s Solaraalmost ready to test now too,” said Pavlovic. “Binning a$140,000 race car isn't the way I wanted the upgrade tohappen but this crash won’t keep us from doing what we lovefor very long at all.”

TOP RPM DOWN BUT NOT OUT

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Opposite page: Malcolm Glassett was unhurt ina braking area crash that wrote off the Top RPMmachine.

This page from top: A drifting sideshow attractedplenty of attention in the pits and added to theatmosphere Jamboree is famous for. It's thatkinda generation, you didn't really see somethingif you didn't share it on Facebook. The Ibrahimgold plated BMW continues to be one of themost unique cars in the world of drag racing.Unfortunately the Sydney Jamboree was mainlyremembered this year for a crazy amount of oiland delays.

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34

TAKINGIT TO THE

MAX

The ANDRA Top Fuel Championship begins for 2015with an outstanding show of nitro racing, as Top Fuel

Motorcycle proves about survival of the fittest.

Report and photos by Luke Nieuwhof.

Six cars were present and accounted forat round one of the ANDRA Top FuelChampionship at Perth Motorplex. Ifquality counts – this was about as qualitya field as you would get in Australia.Before qualifying teams were granted adispensation from ANDRA to take partin a test session at 2pm in the afternoon,with results not counting towardsqualifying.Both Lamattina cars and both RapisardaAutosport International cars came out onthe hot track, but none made it furtherthan 330 feet.It would have to be argued that this testsession was a success as the qualifyingshow would be one of the best ever seen.The single qualifying shootout deliveredfour second runs from all six drivers inwhat was an incredible show of nitroracing.Wayne Newby led the way with anastonishing 4.589/319.14mph, goingwithin seven thousandths of a second ofthe track record. It was a massive PB forthe Top Fuel rookie and a seriouswarning sign from the boys at theRapisarda Autosport International team.His team mate Damien Harris followedwith a 4.701/310.34mph, showing softernumbers early but coming home strong.Mark Sheehan was raring to go after twodays of testing during the week andcarded a 4.754/286.62mph in the stateof the art canopy car. Reigning nationalchampion Phil Lamattina was perhapsslightly surprised that a

4.768/323.74mph would only be goodfor fourth, with brother John's4.804/288.46mph sliding into fifth inhis first appearance in Perth. AnthonyBegley rounded out the field with a4.982/286.62mph, the ChemicalWarfare outfit aiming to kill them withconsistency.Another change to the rules made byANDRA in consultation with racers wasto seed the three round formatdifferently, giving the first two qualifiersin the field bye runs and thus providingfour winners to ensure a full set of finals.Come the elimination round and theLamattina brothers were paired up in anot ideal start to their championshipchase. Phil nailed John to the tree .052to .095 and ran out a 4.782 victory to a4.893.Newby took his bye run but tossed ablower belt early in the pass and rolledthrough for just an 8.521. Harris ran asoft 4.838 that would guaranteeLamattina a spot in the A Final, butHarris would have to wait for the nextpairing. Sheehan popped a superchargerat about quarter track allowing Begley toget by for 5.034/285.71 win, setting up aLamattina-Harris A Final and a Newby-Begley B Final.Begley got out first in the B Final .071 toNewby's .113 and the race was tight until330 feet, but Newby turned on theafterburners from there and a4.709/313.58mph knocked out a 5.222 atjust 209.79 from Begley, with the team

Top FuelRound One

36

Damien Harris got hischampionship off to an idealstart with wins in both openingchampionship rounds in Perth.

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finding they were running out of fuel volume inthe top half of the track.Perth has a history of delivering great Top Fuelfinals and this night was to be no exception.Harris took a real shot at the tree with a .047 to.064 holeshot on Lamattina. Remember this isall on an incandescent tree which gives upanywhere from one hundredth of a second tothree hundredths of a second on an LED treelike that used in the NHRA – those reactiontimes were phenomenal! Lamattina chargedhard though and had the lead back by quartertrack, extending it out to almost a full tenth by1000 feet. But at that point Lamattina's motorbegan to hijack things and Harris snuck past atthe stripe for a 4.770/314.68mph win against a4.775/257.14 in an all time classic.

Round TwoAfter being spoilt with six four second passesin qualifying on day one, we were only getting ameagre four of them on day two!Phil Lamattina led the way with a4.663/322.58mph, his quickest run of theevent. Newby sat second with a4.743/321.42mph, but like Lamattina wouldget a bye run in the elimination round. JohnLamattina moved into third with a4.798/309.27, while Harris had a 4.872 at just235.90mph to sit fourth, despite his earlynumbers being quicker than Newby's. Begleylost power shortly after quarter track androlled through for a 7.405, while Sheehan wasunable to get the second fuel pump on anddidn't hit the power on his 22.114 second rollthrough.John Lamattina and Sheehan got to kick off theelimination round. John was sharp on the treewith a .055 to .079 leave on Sheehan andthough Sheehan had a building lead Lamattinacame back with a 4.768/314.68mph passdefeating a 5.622 at just 167.91mph fromSheehan. Newby was still somewhat luckless inhis bye runs, with a 6.043 after the car losttraction down track. Phil Lamattina's bye runwas more successful, with a 4.763/273.55locking him into an A Final. The pressure wason Harris and Begley, something Harrishandled very well with a 4.614/322.58mph, hisbest run of the event, to defeat a 4.955/285.71from Begley which was right there if Harrisslipped up.After Russell Ladbrook went off the end of thetrack in the Top Comp final there was a delayfor the teams until fire up signal came aboutten minutes before curfew.The B Final was run last on the night, but forjournalistic purposes we will cover it here first.John Lamattina's stellar reaction times wereon show again with a .042 holeshottingNewby's .083. Newby fought back early andwas a tenth ahead at half track but slowed toonly a 5.067/202.70mph allowing Lamattina's4.773/313.58 to come back and claim the win.For the repeat A Final Phil Lamattinadesperately wanted to turn around the result.Unfortunately tyre smoke at 330 feet wouldend his chances and a 4.745/303.03mph fromHarris earned him his second silver Christmastree in as many nights, along with the valuablepoints lead.

38

Mark Sheehan's new canopycar looked spectacular in thenight under the bright LEDlights of the Perth Motorplexsuper screen.

39

RAPISARDA RELIABILITYPRODUCES IDEAL STARTDamien Harris said before Washpod Nitro Maxthat this was the year that Rapisarda AutosportInternational wanted a championship.

The Western Australian driver could not have got that off to abetter start with two wins in the two opening championshiprounds.Harris said to walk away with the lion's share of the pointsfrom the weekend was a very good beginning to the team'schampionship intentions.“It's all about grabbing as many points as you can,” he said.On the first night the final round was a close fought affair withboth Harris and Lamattina carding 4.77 passes.“I didn't see Phil until half track where he went blazing pastme and I sat there crying. Then next thing I went straight pasthim and the cries changed to cheers,” Harris reflected.“The car moved around heaps, but I had my foot buried (onthe throttle), I really wanted to put Phil on his back so we werelucky he had problems and we got to drive around him.”Harris said the team had a long first day.“We had a fair few dramas with the body and a few otherthings,” he said.“It seems to be catching, the car is running fast and flexing up.Because it is a one piece carbon fibre body it is moving and it isgetting caught as the car unleashes its energy when theparachutes come out. It's trying to bend in half and break theactual carbon fibre body. Lucky it is carbon kevlar so it kind ofcomes back into shape.”If there was one thing to be said for Rapisarda AutosportInternational's performance, it was that it was very clean. Evenby their own admission the team has not had the reliabilitythey have wanted in Australia.“The motor has come apart clean every time,” Harris said.“After the first test run we hurt a rear main, but it was able tobe reused and tidied up. On the 6pm pass it tore the rear mainout of it. We had to do a motor swap but the actual motor swap

came apart clean.“The guys have done some work during the off season tostrengthen up the valve gear and change to some different gearthere and the rod combinations. All that stuff is happy. Themotor is revving up nice. You can have the motor with its headup and driving it down there and not tugging it down too farand hurting things.“We've also changed the clutch to a stiffer package and thatseems to be coming around too.”On night two, Harris said he wanted a photocopy of the firstone, and he pretty much got it.The team also ran their quickest time of the event, a 4.61 in thevital elimination round.“Santo (Rapisarda Junior) just wanted to experiment with afew things,” he said. “We knew we had to get after it after thefirst round to try and make the a final. Everything just lined upand it stuck.“On that last lap it probably pushed a spark plug out at somepoint and put a hole or two out on the way.”The car did have some strange sparks coming out during eachof its runs, which Harris dismissed as harmless.“When we warmed it up you can hear the rub buttons rubbingon the flywheel in the clutch can, the clearances were reallytight,” he said.Now the team heads to it's own event, Santo's Super 3 ExtremeDrag Race at Willowbank Raceway. Harris wants to performwell and claim the Louie Rapisarda Memorial for theRapisarda family.“Obviously we are really looking forward to following on fromwhat we've got this weekend and make Phil really work for thechampionship,” he said.“Single day and three rounds will be really hard. You have tocome out of the trailer and qualify well and not have any carissues. One little car issue and you are done, you go home witha small amount of points and get leapfrogged in thechampionship.”

Above: The RapisardaAutosport Internationalteam were all smilesafter two wins.

40

Mark Sheehan's canopy car attractedthe lion's share of attention in the pits atPerth Motorplex as the first example ofone of the sleek machines in Australia.

Sheehan said he wanted the latest and greatest inchassis technology available.“There is mixed opinions about them but I believethey are safer and I believe they are moreaerodynamic,” he said. “The teams that don't runthem in the USA, it is for political reasons, notbased on performance or safety reasons.“We managed to do a deal and source one and paythe right people and get the car to Australia.”Sheehan is very much performance minded,though for crew chief John 'Bodie' Smith the safetyof the canopy was a more attractive proposition.“(Safety) is not a big deal for me personally. I'lldeal with an incident when it happens,” Sheehansaid. “But in the old car it was in the back of ourminds for a long time that the car wasn't going tosustain what we were doing to it.”The new tube proved to handle everything theteam threw at it with aplomb, Sheehan finding theMorgan Lucas Racing-built chassis much easier todrive.“I was amazed at the difference in the flexibility ofthe car and how it drove, how it launched, how ithandled, how beautifully the car reacted,” he said.“We were only just thinking about our first meeting with thenew car and really it was faultless, there was nothing you couldturn around and say we needed to change, or that we neededto work harder on. The car was just perfect.”Sheehan is used to enclosed nitro spaces having muchexperience driving a nitro funny car, but he said the dragsterfelt more like a fighter jet than a funny car.“It does sort of feel enclosed and funny car-ish but it is closerto a fighter cockpit style because it is smaller and narrower,”he said. “All you can see is exactly what you want to see. Thewindscreen on it is quite high, John Lamattina sat in it and hecouldn't even see over the windscreen, he would need a pillowin there.”The team is now focused on their first time travelling with the

dragster, the Santo's Super 3 event at Willowbank Raceway.“We need to be more competitive and we will be, we know wewill be,” Sheehan said. “We just had a couple of issues thatunfortunately let us down. They were all self inflicted. We weredoing nothing but beating our heads against a wall.“It is frustrating because we know where we want to be, weknow where the car will be, we just need to do it for ourselvesand prove to everyone that we will be a force to reckon with.We know we can run with Lamattinas and Rapisardas, there isno issue there.“I'm looking forward to racing at Willowbank, I haven't beenon the track in a dragster so I am looking forward to thatexperience, but number one is looking forward to putting insome good solid laps.”

SHEEHANUNDERGLASS

“It was in the back of our minds for a long time thatthe (old) car was not going to sustain what we were

doing to it.”

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After a strong showing in their openingchampionship round, Top FuelMotorcycle dropped back to an eightbike field for the second round.Performances were not as immediatelystrong in the compulsory qualifyingsession, with Mark Drew's top qualifying6.350 the very obvious exception.Second position was over a second backwith Chris Matheson going 7.415 to slotin, followed by Chris Porter's 7.512 and a7.838 from Les Holden's nitro CompBike. Terry Burnett continued to chasehis problems with a 7.898, while thenormally reliable Greg Durack was also

ins struggle town with a best of only an8.250. Ben Stevens had changed a lot ofequipment between rounds and onlymanaged a 12.445 while Danny Makin'snew look AAA Racing Nitro Harleycrossed the centre line and had no timerecorded.The elimination round opened withPorter going 6.779 to defeat Durack whodidn't make it to the starting line. It wasPorter's best run for some time and adefinite confidence booster for the teamwho have been battling cylinder headdramas for the last six months. Burnettpipped Holden at the post with a 7.619

to 7.814 contest, as Drew nailed thenational record with a 6.341 at anincredible 230.75mph while opponentMakin was again in trouble handlingwise.Burnett had a bye run in the B Final andrecorded an 8.357 but would have tohave been wondering where his bike's200mph potential had gone.Drew and Porter was set to be a classicin the final, but Porter was unable to firebehind the bridge, leaving Drew to takea solo 6.408 in a show of strength andhis first win for the season.

Top Fuel MotorcycleRound Two

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There was a little bit of shuffling aroundin the pits overnight and seven bikesended up attempting qualifying forround three of the championship,though Makin and Matheson wereabsent, while Ian Ashelford joined theshow.Drew again top qualified with a 6.717,tailed by Porter's 7.587, a 7.607 fromBurnett, Durack's 8.082, Holden's 8.134and Stevens' 8.543, while Ashelford's14.266 put him at the bottom.Eliminations remained wild and woolyfor the two wheeled nitro machines.Porter seemed to have race day down

pat and a 6.765 at a big 211mph was agreat pass to get by Holden's 8.062,whose consistency was just not seemingto do the trick this weekend. Burnett rana solo 8.370 with Ashelford notreturning after qualifying. Durack finallyfound something resembling a decentrun from his turbocharged Kawasakiand scored a 7.568 win against Stevens.Drew needed to run better than thatpass to make the A Final but in asurprising turn of events he crossed thecentreline in what resembling his loss inthe final of round one of thechampionship. Being on a bye run Drew

still had a win, but with no time hewould have to be in the B Final.There Drew made amends, but clearlythe timers had it in for him with no timerecorded for the victory over Burnett.The final would play out between Porterand Durack. Porter got a smalladvantage on the tree and quickly putthe horsepower of the Bad Bones RacingHarley to work with a 7.041 win despitedropping a cylinder, Durack's valiant7.482 not enough on the night.

Top Fuel MotorcycleRound Three

Mark Drew rode to newnational records at both endsof Top Fuel Motorcycle Twin.

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If there is one kind of motorsport discipline thatcan rival Top Fuel Motorcycle drag racing on thecrazy scale, speedway sidecars could be it. Andthere are certainly very few riders who have everdone both.

Australian Top Fuel Motorcycle national champion Mark Drewmight be the only one in fact.Although he doesn't race as much as he would like on dirt,Drew still gets a massive kick out of it.“Over the last 10 years I've probably raced eight speedwaymeets, the bike I'm on needs a bit better set up and I'm notgetting the laps in to do this,” he said.Drew's passenger Steve Blair has just bought a speedwaysidecar from Glen O'Brien, which Drew said has shown plentyof form.“Up until a couple of years ago Glen was riding regularlyaround Australia, I've seen this bike go and it handles betterthan mine, so I'm looking forward to riding it at this year'sAustralian Sidecar Championships at Easter at Alice Springs,”he said.When asked to describe what the thrill of a speedway sidecar islike, Drew doesn't mince words. And remember, the followingstatement comes from a guy who rides a nitro-fuelledmotorcycle to 230mph in 6.3 seconds.“Speedway sidecars have had the reputation over the years ofbeing one of the most dangerous motor sports on earth,” hesaid. “I've been clocked at 248kmh going into a corner in thedirt and 180kmh coming out.“A speedway sidecar is a three wheel motorbike that has arider and passenger, The motors are four cylinder, 1045cc latemodel Japanese road bike motors. They only turn one way,have no brakes and you have three other bikes to race againstall wanting the same bit of dirt that you do.“When you're racing and you're not in front, the bike or bikesin front of you shower you in mud, it's like someone has turnedout the lights in the middle of the night and you have to takeone hand off the handle bar while holding the throttle wideopen with the other to pull down the thin clear plastic film justbelow your chin that is rolled up in PVC pipe attached to thepeak of your helmet so you can see again.”Then we got Drew to describe riding his nitro Harley as acomparison.

“The nitro Harley runs on a liquid explosive fuel and is inexcess of 900-1000 hp. It does 220mph on the back wheel,nearly 300kmph in a little over four seconds, 230+ mph at lowsix seconds over the finish line and all the time the bike istrying to leave you behind,” he said.“Between the G-forces and doing 230mph, if you don't get outof the wind it'll blow you off the back.“Then comes the braking, if you're lucky enough and a gust ofwind catches you at the end ofthe track as the wheel is coming down then it'll lay over theother side and back and forth a few times, all the time you'repulling on the brakes when its straight upright and lettingthem go when it lays on its side, till eventually it stands upstraight and you can try and stop before the sand.”That wind Drew mentioned was what caught him out on nighttwo of the event, when he took out the finish line timing boxesin the elimination round.“I didn't realise the wind was going across the track until I gotback to my pit area,” he said. “If you have a look at the videoson Perth Harley Davidson's Facebook you can see the flagsblowing directly across the track. The flags I was looking atwhere we start up in thestaging lanes showed the wind coming down the track slightlyoff centre.“Next time I'll keep an eye on the tear drop flags near the startline.”Drew is going to attend each round of the championship to tryand back up his number one plate.“We are going to Sydney and Brisbane and depending on thetrack and weather in Sydney will determine how fast we set thebike up,” he said. “Hopefully we get another Winternationalslike last year and I don't think getting into the 20s will bemuch of a problem.”Drew's national record setting efforts during Washpod NitroMax ere spectacular but he predicts more to come.“I left the same tune up in it that I ran last meeting for thefinal, only I put a little bit more on the clutch for the top endfor our second pass where we went a little bit quicker,” he said.

“We will get it into the high 6.20s pretty easily I reckon. Thenwe are only a tenth off the world record.“I need this year to get it into the 20s, then do a bit morehomework and talk to a few contacts overseas and show themwhat I've got and get their opinion on where to tidy it up.

CIRCLES AND LINESSAME THRILL FOR DREW

Left: Mark Drew is notjust skilled on the dragstrip but also in the worldof speedway sidecars.Image by Judy Mackay.

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MOREDEVELOPMENTIN PIPELINEFOR DURACK

Western Australian Greg Durack has had arguably themost consistent turbocharged Top Fuel Motorcycle seenin the category, but the high tech Kawasaki was off itsnormal game at Washpod Nitro Max.Durack said since the event he has confirmed the fuelpump was going off and combined with someexperimentation in the clutch department that wasenough to take him away from his normal game.“On the Saturday I stalled it in the first round, but thatwas purely operator error,” he said. “I was also trialling anew rotary valve that feeds air onto the clutch piston, itwas less restrictive so the clutch became moreaggressive, which is why on the Sunday night it gotpretty messy on the qualifier launch.“The next rounds were fine on the clutch as I softened itup a lot, so now I just have to fine tune it.”With the power down on normal Durack was away fromhis baseline tune.“I couldn't make any power, it could only make 25pounds of boost whereas I normally run 35,” he said.“The waste gate and turbo were fine, but the fuelpressure appeared to have fallen away. So I sent the fuelpump to Queensland to be checked out.“Having no power all of a sudden for that meeting wasannoying to say the least.”If there was any reward for the trying weekend, it was in

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reaching the final of the third round of thechampionship on Sunday night.“It is always good to make it to the final, so there wassome consolation there, just a pity I couldn't pull theskin off a custard on the track though,” he joked.The potential in Durack's bike is obvious and he isreaching a time where he wants to start feeding in somemore power.“I have been pretty conservative in running lowish boost,relatively speaking, and the bike has been very reliable,”he said. “I haven't had the motor apart all season and allthe leak downs are still below 5%, so I am happy withthat.“But I plan on increasing the boost to 45 to 50 poundsand aim to get the bike consistently into the six secondrange, hopefully mid sixes.“At the beginning of the season I made first and secondgear taller and the bike responded positively to that, so Ithink it could go a tad taller yet - but I will save that fornext season.”Durack was unsure if he would pursue the rest of thechampionship.“It is tempting and I would like to, I have to see howthings go over the next few weeks,” he said.

“Having no power allof a sudden for that

meeting was annoyingto say the least.”

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GOPRO

The VPW Racer Payouts Pro Series1000 joined in Adelaide's March

madness with a feast ofsupercharged methanol Group

One action, two wheeled Pro StockMotorcycle screamers and a fizzog

of a Pro Stock round.

Written by Grant Stephens andLuke Nieuwhof. Photos by

cacklingpipes.com and Bob Taylor.

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The ANDRA ChampionshipDrag Racing show in the form ofthe VPW Racer Payots ProSeries 1000 rolled intoAdelaide International Racewayon March 14 and 15 for roundtwo of Top Alcohol, round threeof the Top Doorslammerchampionship and the openingrounds of Pro Stock and ProStock Motorcycle - all coupledwith round three of the SummitRacing Equipment SportsmanSeries.

The Adelaide weather turned on twodays of amazing sunshine, unfortunatelyit must be said the crowd numbers werevery disappointing. It was not from alack of trying however, with static andaction displays at the Clipsal 500 andelsewhere, billboards and otheradvertising initiatives carried out, butthe secret of getting bums on seats atanything other than nitro events stilleludes most venues.The most encouraging news was thepraise for the track preparation. The allasphalt surface will always be tricky, butpromoter Rino D'Alfonso listened toracer suggestions and primed the trackideally to ensure the best possiblesurface.

Top AlcoholAs the name suggests the VPW RacerPayouts Pro Series 1000 was contestedover the 1000ft distance for many of the

categories with the short shut down atthe venue. In Top Alcohol the Lucas Oilsfunny car of Gary Phillips stomped hisway over the field to finish qualifying ontop. Phillips smoked the tyres in sessionone before nailing the tune up with a4.72 - the team sat out the last sessionconfident their time would hold up,which it did.Steven Reed was the early pace setter,leading the way after the first round ofqualifying with a 4.85, while a secondsession 4.78 settled the Queenslandersolidly into second, also choosing tomiss the final round.The flamboyant John Cannuli made alast minute decision to come down toAdelaide, a third place 4.84 in thesecond session was his best shot inqualifying. A 4.94 off the trailer forDebbie O'Rourke was the best she couldmuster.Local racer Gary Busch and the teamhad an 'interesting' time in qualifying asBusch put it, their second session 5.01saw the funny car's throttle stick causingthe revs to scream past 10000rpm. Theresult of that was spun bearings,conrods at different lengths to whenthey went in and a long night ofthrashing ahead to make race day. Theeasily excitable Rob Ambruosi and teamwere just having a good time as theyrounded out qualifying with a 5.05 asthey accumulated more data for theircomeback to the bracket.Frank Intini made a rare Top Alcoholappearance, closing out the field with a5.07 as the only dragster competing.Qualifying proved a test of their grit,including borrowing a set of slicks from

John Zappia for session two. In a mirrorimage of Busch's drama, the dragster'sthrottle hung in the final session,sending the revs to 10700rpm before theengine let go - with discretion the betterpart of valour, Intini packed up thetrailer and headed home to inspect thedamage.With Intini withdrawing from the eventthe field dropped to six and Phillips' firstround bye turned into a match up withAmbruosi. Phillips gave up a heap onthe tree to come around Ambruosi onthe top end with a 4.73 to a 5.01. After anight of hard labour Busch made thestart line against Reed. At half trackBusch could see the other funny car wason a number and shut down to saveparts, as Reed went through to 4.76.Cannuli pulled out a belter in the finalpairing, with a track record smashing4.70 to drive around O'Rourke's 4.93.In the first semi Phillips did not wastehis solo shot at the track followingCanulli's numbers and came up with a4.74. A disappointed Reed had the funnycar hotted up to take on Cannuli but afuel leak forced them to shut down, theteam still looked at the positives in goingquicker each run without hurting asingle part. Cannuli again proved he hadthe track dialled in with a 4.72 andwould enter the final as favourite.The titanic final clash never eventuated,the Cannuli funny car went silent at theflash of the greens, running out of fuel.Phillips rocketed through with a 4.77 tocontinue his perfect season of two winsfrom as many starts.

Gary Phillips now has two wins in as manymeetings for the ANDRA Top Alcoholchampionship, but with three rounds left for theseries he is hesitant to be counting any chickensjust yet.

“With the Easter thing coming up and how big of a swing youcan have, it's just how lucky you are on the day,” he said. “JohnCannuli is only 60 something points behind us, so there can bea big swing on that deal there. We're not counting any chickensyet, just trying to keep it consistent. That has been our dealthis year. Were just trying some stuff to make it go down everyrun. So far it has worked.”Phillips' approach to both Adelaide and the upcoming Santo'sSuper 3 Extreme Drag Race at Willowbank has been strategic.After testing at Willowbank and running a 5.46 he decided topull the motor out of the Lucas Oils funny car and set it aside

so it can go straight back in for the Super 3 event, giving him aknown combination straight out of the gate.For Adelaide he inserted the motor from his Top Doorslammerinto the funny car.“I didn't want to get caught with the three round format (atSuper 3) and the Top Doorslammer motor was due for aservice anyhow,” he said. “It was a good exercise doing thatand it will go to Willowbank as the spare.”Phillips, Cannuli and Steve Reed all ran reasonably quicknumbers down Adelaide International Raceway, with Phillipsremarking on how the track changes across the event.The track wasn't too bad. It was a bit how you goin' onqualifying, I got the left lane first up and it smoked the tyreswhich I was surprised it did,” he said. “It (the track) definitelycame around, we missed out in the final by a couple ofhundredths for lane choice but I don't know if that wasn't ablessing. If you get it right it is good.”

MOTOR SWAP STRATEGICFOR PHILLIPS

Opposite page: Gary Phillips is two fromtwo for the ANDRA Top Alcohol season.

Left: Frank Intini was one of two racersaffected by a stuck throttle and theresulting engine damage forced hiswithdrawal

Below: John Cannuli set a new AIR trackrecord but when he ran out of fuel in thefinal it was game over.

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Top Doorslammer

John Zappia needed a Hail Mary in thefinal qualifying session to get into theshow – but he sure got it answered.After rattling the tyres hard in the firstsession and snapping a throttle cable inthe next, the seven time champ satprecariously on the bump going into thefinal qualifier. Bill Goonan then madethe situation desperate with his passdumping Zappia from the field. But likea true champion Zappia went from theouthouse to the penthouse with a 4.88crushing the track record.After getting loose in his first twoqualifying attempts, Marty Dack alsoused a last ditch 4.97 to send the Falconto second position at the close ofqualifying. The Camaro belonging to PatCarbone was the early charger, his firstsession 5.01 held up as the benchmarkuntil the last session where he wound upthird. Maurice Fabietti, the only racerwho can realistically stop Zappia fromwinning another championship, sat infourth with a 5.08 from the HoldenTrade Club Monaro.Stuart Bishop was shut down when anoil leak developed from underneath theCamaro on his first pass, but the jewellerreturned fire with a 5.09 for fifthfollowed by Pino Priolo on a 5.13 as the

asphalt surface tested teams. GrantO'Rourke solidified his Firebird'sposition in the field with a last session5.15 and Bill Goonan punched his wayinto the field with a 5.21 from hisCamaro.The up and down season for PeterKapiris continued, the Saratoga wasousted from the show by the last sessioncharges of Goonan and Zappia, where hewas joined by West Aussies DanielGregorini and Shane Catalano as theother non qualifiers.Racing opened with Bishop out of shapeat mid track but staying in it for a 5.36,but by then opponent Fabietti was longgone with a 5.07. Carbone followedBishop's suit as the Camaro kepthunting for the centreline, the detourpossibly costing him the win with his5.19 going down against a 5.12 by Priolo.The antics continued into the nextpairing, this time it was Dack out ofshape against O'Rourke, the Firebirdtaking the win light with a 5.06. Thefinal pairing of Zappia and his nearqualifying assassin in Goonan wouldfinish up the first round of eliminations,Zappia dumped a number on the fieldwith a 4.90 as Goonan came up red aftertaking a shot at the tree.The semi finals started with a pedalfestbetween Priolo and O'Rourke with

Priolo recovering the best for a 5.37against a 5.43. Against Zappia, Fabiettiwas out of the groove and out of thethrottle, and with that any real hope ofchallenging for the championshipevaporated - the Fuchs/Striker Monaromotored to another final on a 5.00.Zappia threw some more clutch in theMonaro and stamped the exclamationmark on the event with a 4.91 in thefinal round to defeat Priolo's pedalling5.24. With three wins from three eventsZappia's chances of an eighthchampionship are looking mighty fine.

Top Doorslammer winner John Zappiacommended the track preparation at AdelaideInternational Raceway following his third straightvictory for the year.

“Rino did a great job preparing this track,” said Zappia. “Itheld the power well, but is still tricky to drive on. TheFuchs/Striker Crushing and Screening Monaro rattled thetyres all weekend, and I had to really drive it as the car movedaround.“We are excited about the win here in round three of thechampionship. It gives us a 136 point lead with two rounds togo. We still need to stay focused as we are far from safe andneed to complete the season leaving nothing to chance.”Zappia had some nervous times in qualifying with a pedallingpass in Q1 and then a throttle cable breaking in Q2.“We left the car alone for Q3 as we reckoned we had the

settings right,” he said. “First pairing out saw Goonan take mybump spot with a 5.210 and knock me out. Nothing like somepressure to qualify! But our setup proved spot on as theCrusher went dead straight to run a 4.882 giving us topqualifier, top speed and a new Adelaide track record.”Zappia then proceeded to carve his way through the rounds.“The track was just getting better and better, so we put moreclutch in it for the final against Pino,” he said. “We have racedhim plenty of times over the years and he is consistentlycreeping down on his times. I definitely had to be careful inthat race.“The big power and setup of the Fuchs/Striker Crushing andScreening Monaro was strong all weekend. We are makinggood progress with getting better traction results – I think weunderestimated the track a little. Luckily the B&J transmissionwe run allows me to have confidence with pedalling thethrottle over and over again – they rarely damage parts.”

ZAPPIA'S THIRD WIN RAISES TITLE HOPES

Opposite page: Can John Zappia be beaten? Therest of the field sure hopes so.

Clockwise from left: Pino Priolo is always wearinga smile but that was even more the case afterreaching the final. Grant O'Rourke was unable torepeat his success of last year at Adelaide.Maurice Fabietti is virtually the only driver who canstop Zappia in the title chase.

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Pro Stock MotorcyclePro Stock Motorcycle had five postedentries, reduced to four after the firstsession of qualifying with GlennWooster withdrawing from the eventwith problems. Running over the fullquarter mile, the top three qualifierswere separated by less than twohundredths - if the class could just gaina few more bikes, it could revive thebracket's glory days.Maurice Allen, aboard the MilwaukeeTools Suzuki, sat poised on the top ofthe qualifying sheets with a 7.382, justahead of Scott White on a 7.395.Pro Stock Motorcycle rookie RyanLearmonth was a whisker behind Whitewith a 7.399, and felt he would havegone quicker had he not had to abort hisfinal qualifier at 1000ft when the bikedrifted offline. Rounding out the smallfield with a 7.625 was former champion

Locky Ireland.Round one, now essentially the semifinals, kicked off with a scary ride fromWhite, the front fairing of the Suzukibreaking away acting like a sail, nearlydragging White off the bike. As the bikeentered the braking area the fairingbroke away completely, going under therear wheel and tearing up the rear bodywork. To make matters worse opponentLearmonth had won the race 7.42 to a7.60. In the other match up Allen had notrouble with the track conditions with acrushing 7.20 defeat of Ireland.The final of youth versus experience sawLearmonth get the early lead at thegreen following an old fashion burndown, but by half track Allen had therookie passed and powered on to a 7.28win over a 7.55 that spun the tyre off theline. Allen put the increase ofperformance down to finding some"stuff" during the off season and believes

there in more than a tenth still left in thebike.

Pro Stock

The biggest disappointment of the eventwas the non-event in Pro Stock. The whyand how is for another time, but out ofthe five pre entries, two no-showed andGerry Parente was unlicensed in hisreturn to the sport - leaving EmilioSpinozzi and Lee Bektash to grudgerace, both putting up $5000 for kicks.The unofficial record books will showBektash took the cash 3 to 2. The Dodgeboys' best ET was 5.84 to the 1000ft toSpinozzi's 5.87. Parente also successfullycompleted his Pro Stock licensingrequirements in his gorgeous newCamaro and we should see the team atthe Nitro Champs.

Maurice Allen believes the Milwaukee Tools ProStock Motorcycle is heading in the right directionafter making what he described as a 'decent'change to their tune up.

Allen ran a new personal best of 7.200 seconds, finally able toharness some of the horsepower the team has.“Last season we had some electrical gremlins we couldn't getour head around and no matter what we changed nothingwould fix it,” he said. “We spent a bit of time going througheverything and making sure everything was spot on. We founda few things that were holding us back.“I had Michael Marriott looking at some data for me. I hadsome inklings about the things I wanted to change and hepretty much confirmed what I thought, so we made a fairlydecent change.”Allen said the wind affected his top qualifying pass whichshould have been much quicker.“The last run we did at night which I figured would be the bestone, I had a big gust of wind that picked the bike up andmoved me to the wall, it went 7.382 which was good enough totop qualify, but I was off it so early so I thought 'this thingtomorrow is going to fly,'” he said.“We have the horsepower, now it is harnessing it to the track.We still left a fair bit behind. Adelaide has traction to 200-300feet but from there it is a bit wirey. It was a matter of trying towin the race.”

Allen said Pro Stock Motorcycle still needs to put wheels ontracks for its future to be bright.“A lot of people are questioning how it can be a championship,but at the end of the day there is a trophy at the end of theseason,” he said.“You don't always have to be the fastest bike on the day to bein the final. We know of the bikes that are coming out over thenext few months and it is only going to get better. From myperspective as the president of the Pro Stock MotorcycleAssociation it is good news when you hear about some of thesebikes and the quality of these bikes will put the bracket backup there in Group One.”The final round for Pro Stock Motorcycle featured acaptivating burndown between Allen and opponent RyanLearmonth.“The burndown in the final was something, I figured I wantedto work on my reaction time, I wanted to stage last, and maybethat is his thing to stage second, so we both sat back,” he said.“All I could hear was Michael Agius in my helmet going off, Ithought the crowd was loving it, let's play with this a little bit.It got to 30 or 40 seconds and then a look of terror came overmy face and I thought I might run out of fuel here, so I thoughtwhat the hell let's go in.“It certainly became a talking point after that and whensomething different happens to what everybody expects itadds to the spectacle a bit. It turned the final into somethingwhere people were waiting to see what the result was.”

PB, BURNDOWN ENJOYABLE FOR ALLEN

Opposite page clockwise from top: Maurice Allen got to raise the silverChristmas tree and set himself a new personal best. Scott White had awild semi final round when bodywork tore off his bike. Lee Bektashwas one of just three Pro Stock cars on the property.

Above: Ryan Learmonth reached his first Pro Stock Motorcycle final.

Left: Locky Ireland still managed a smile despite his semi final exit.

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Super Comp

Super Compact star and last startwinner Domenic Rigoli was againthe dominating force in SuperComp qualifying, the TRPMitsubishi Eclipse went a subrecord -.545 under the CC/SC indexwith a 5.855. Mark Davison'sBB/Altered is a polar opposite tothe Rigoli machine and he slottedinto second with a -.484 under 5.62.Craig Geddes (B/D 6.024 -.476),Steve Norman (C/APA 6.588 -.422),Jim Ioannidis (B/MSA 7.680 -.440)and Tom Dimitropoulos (A/MS7.563 -.417) were all under theirrespective class records inqualifying as well.Davison was upset in round one byCartledge who went 6.17 on a B/D

6.35 index when a dead plug lead onthe altered slowed theQueenslander's performance, therest of the top half qualifiersprogressed to the quarter finals.Rigoli's run ended at the wheel ofNorman who crunched his indexagain with a 6.56. A red light fromDimitropoulos' Camaro allowedGeddes to cruise into the semis andCartledge improved on his roundone ET with a 5.99, but it was stillnot enough to run down Ioannidis'7.72 on a 8.12.Ioannidis took the bye into the finalas Norman consolidated with a 6.57ET to not hurt his index anymore indefeating a slow reacting Geddes.Both Norman and Ioannidis set ETrecords enroute to the all sedanfinal. There Norman had the better

reaction - .074 to a .185 - and wasnever headed, the Cobalt driverearning his first career win withperseverance.

Comp Bike

Competition Bike was posted, butwith a number of racer no showsclass numbers dropped below theminimum required and those whodid show were absorbed intoModified Bike.

Supercharged Outlaws

Tasmanian Mike Evans was on topof the blown brigade inSupercharged Outlaws afterqualifying wrapped with a 5.42 inhis Camaro. Local boy Peter Datson

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was next closest with awheelstanding 5.94 also in aCamaro.Evans fell victim to the veryconsistent Holden ute of WA'sDonald Freind in the quarter finals,and national champion Doina Dayhad an easy win over a troubledDatson, then the bizarre happened.When the Paul Stephen alteredlined up against Drago Nikodijevic'sstunning Camaro for their matchup, an instant red light flashed inStephen's lane on the activation ofthe tree. Stephen was adamant thealtered never moved and wasgranted a rerun, when the sameoccurrence happened again. Clearlysomething was afoot and the alteredwas checked for the correctclearance. Attention was turned to

the timing system, adjustmentswere made and a further rerun wasawarded. Unfortunately forStephen, he pulled another cherry,this one legitimate, and Nikodijevicfinally won his way to semis for real.Freind had a bye into the final andtested his 6.00 dial with a 6.10.Nikodijevic, who would have tobeen exhausted turning his Camaroaround, went out at the hands ofDay who was heading to her fourthstraight final round. However dueto the time lost with the reruns, theevent curfew came into effect,preventing the final being run andboth racers were awarded runner-up event status.

Top Sportsman

The appointment of Top Sportsmanas an official ANDRA eliminator hasbrought the Fowler family racingteam back to the national serieswith Steve Fowler at the helm oftheir flying Pontiac. Fowler abruptlyqualified number one with a 5.79,well ahead of the 6.22 from nearestrival Darren Saliba and his gorgeousnew GTO. The only accident of theevent came in Top Sportsmanqualifying when the Willys coupe ofVictorian Julian Carafa dropped oiland hit the left hand wall just pasthalf track. Carafa was unhurt butthe wild Willys has some substantialrepair time ahead.Come quarter finals time, Fowlerwas on his game as usual with a

Clockwise from left: Steve Norman took out his first ever national event with a win in Super Comp.Don Freind made it to the final of Supercharged Outlaws but it was unable to be run due to timeconstraints. Drago Nikodijevic had to run the same race three times, but he eventually got the win.

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5.808 on a 5.79 dial coupled with a.014 light to dispense of DanielMorris. It was a case of what couldhave been for Paul Russo, the Chevydriver tossed away a 6.337 on a 6.30with a red light, his package goodenough to beat Stuart McBain.Likewise Phillip Yfantidis gavehimself no chance, leaving wellbefore the green in his S-10 truckagainst Steven Somer's Camira.Somer lunched the Camira's enginein the burnout in the semi final,allowing McBain to test his dial in,going 6.652 on a 6.63. Fowler waslooking ominous in his bye to thefinal with a .003 light. Fowlerpushed the tree too hard in thefinal, going red by threethousandths, allowing McBain topick up his second Top Sportsmanwin of the season.

Modified

It was no surprise to see MichelleOsborn lead the Modified pack inqualifying with a 7.189 in herstandout pink altered. TheWesternationals winner made a lastminute call to compete at the VPWRacer Payouts Pro Series 1000event.

Ten of the twelve Modified carsbroke out in the first round -conditions were indeed better thanexpected. The quarter finals startedwith a red light from Luke Cartledgethat had Osborn advance to thesemi finals. Leanne Braggs hasbecome accustomed to driving adragster with a 7.343 on a 7.30 dialto down the national championShane Wynd. Chris Farrell inBraggs' previous altered showedKenny Stewart where his trailer iswith a 7.696 on a 7.69 dial andSimon Barlow had the bye into thesemi finals.Braggs red lit against Osborn by thebarest of margins sending the WestAussie to her second consecutiveSummit Series final, likewise Farrellwent just -.003 red against Barlow.It was clean greens in the final,Barlow with just five thousandthsadvantage when Osborn began herchase. The pink altered was slightlyoff pace at the stripe with a 7.265 ona 7.20 dial as Barlow claimed thesilver Christmas Tree with a 7.262on a 7.25. The win put Barlow onmaximum points but unfortunatelythe team will be unable to contestthe Winternationals due to familycommitments.

Super Sedan

In Super Sedan the Chevy Nova ofAndrew Saliba was closest to thenow 8.50 lower cut off for the classwith an 8.684 to lead the thirty pluscar field into eliminations.Saliba was still in competition bythe quarter finals but foundproblems against George "Tipo"Tipouikidis. A big -.042 cherryended Laki Tsutsulis' run againstBob Sherry and Portland roundwinner Stephen Griffin wassqueezed out of competition whenhis 9.887 on a 9.84 was nabbed byDanny Buccella's 9.218 on a 9.18.The quarter finals were rounded outwith national champion JohnKapiris' 10.067 on a 10.02 beingeliminated by Neil Davis' 10.310 on10.29.Tipouikidis snuck past the veteranSherry in the first semi final by acouple of thousandths and Davisbroke out by a bunch againstBuccella on the other side of theladder. The final was down to twothe local racers. Buccella with a newCalibra cut an agonising -.001 redlight and the big HK Monaro ofTipouikidis became the instantevent winner.

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Modified Bike

Rob Cassar made a return to racingaboard his nitrous Comp Bike forthe first time in twelve months, butwith the bracket pulled due tonumbers found himself topqualifying in Modified Bike with a7.965.Cassar improved to a 7.81 in roundone against Shane Walker butunfortunately for Cassar he haddialled in with a 7.89. Walker wasstill in eliminations at quarter finaltime and sent the Westernationalswinner Ian Read home. NathanStone ran down David Willis withan 8.48 on an 8.40 forcing theKawasaki rider to break outcourtesy of a better reaction. GavinDohnt went red finishing out theround, allowing Joe Khoury to testthe Harley Davidson Destroyer'sdial in with a 9.435 on a 9.42.Walker again had the holeshot inhis semi final fight with Stone, theDestroyer rider taking acomfortable win in the end with a9.663 on a 9.65. Khoury servednotice on a bye into the final,carding a 9.407 on a 9.40 thatshowed he would be a force in thefinal.

It may have worked with Walkerpicking the cherry off the tree byfour hundredths and the New SouthWelshman Khoury going away fromAdelaide carrying the Christmastree trophy.

Super Street

John Kerr travelled down fromSydney and picked everyone'spocket as top qualifier in SuperStreet with an 11.030 in his Comet.Kerr has the coolest racetransporter ever, a 1964 Mercury700 truck that travels to tracks allover the country.Kerr pushed too hard in round twoagainst Chris Dimech's blown XBGT. Dimech continued to the semifinals after being on the better endof a double redlight against EnzoClemente. Jason Neve wasted a .019light and a two tenths holeshotadvantage over Bill Hondros with abreakout. A -.022 red light put LisaSherry on the trailer, advancingJohn Kapiris who was doing doubleduty in Super Street and SuperSedan. The last semi finalist wasMark Jachmann courtesy of a bye.Dimech was raising the eyebrows ofSuper Street racers with his

sandbagging tactics, the XBGTclearly had ten second potential buthe cheekily dialled in a tenthquicker than whatever his opponenthad. In the semi final Dimech wasdialled in with an 11.50 toJachmann's 11.60. A slow light allbut sealed Jachmann's fate, goingdown on an 11.66 to an 11.72holeshot. The other finalist wasdecided also a holeshot, Hondros'.435 shocker was never going to winagainst the likes of Kapiris.Dimech again dialled in a tenthquicker this time to Kapiris' 12.62.Kapiris got a big holeshot advantage.109 to a .195 and the Super Sedannational champion was too smart tolet this race go. He fed Dimech thestripe, claiming the Super Streetevent win with a 12.680 on a 12.62to Dimech's breaking out 12.509 ona 12.52.

Super Gas

It was Warren Bull who topped thetime sheets in Super Gas, theCamaro ran 9.902 to out qualify apair of 9.912s from Matt Forbes andRenee Cockerill.Upset of the decade came in roundone with Matt Forbes out of

John Kapiris handed out a bit of bracket racing 101 in the final of SuperStreet, giving Chris Dimech the stripe and forcing him to a breakout.

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eliminations to Warren Smith 9.954to a 9.911, the payoff for Smithincreasing with a next round quarterfinal bye into the semis.Bull broke out with a 9.898 inchasing down Bruno Romeo's .016light. In an all gas girl match upCockerill and Naomi Lightowler leftwith near identical reactions,Lightowler the Super Gas rookiegetting to the line first by a bumperwith a 9.96 to a 9.98. Michael DeRose overcame a slack light to drivearound Danny Buccella to close outthe round.Lightowler missed the tree in thesemi with a .221 reaction to Romeo's.049. It was enough of an advantagefor the local to back off and play itsafe on the top end with a 10.111 tothe Sydneysider's 9.95. De Rosesmashed the Super Gas index andthen some with a 9.762 to presentSmith a finals berth.Smith nailed a perfect 9.900 SuperGas pass when it counted in thatfinal, but will be kicking himself withhis .108 reaction letting Romeosnatch the holeshot event win with a9.911.

Junior Dragster

Girl power reigned in JuniorDragster qualifying, Kelly Donnellywinning the top qualifier's medallionwith an 8.009 ahead of Australianchampion Toby Austin's 8.020.Donnelly was still going strong ineliminations with an 8.103 on an8.10 dial in win against JakeCartledge and move on to the semiswhere she received a bye into thefinal. Austin's .017 reacting 8.067 ona 8.00 was too tight for AmberYoung. Eden Ward, who defeatedTim Baker in the quarters, red litagainst the champ leaving the twoquickest cars in the field to face eachother in the final.A .037 light from Austin blew awayDonnelly's .232 and the number onewasn't going to let his first win of theseason escape with a cautious 8.131on an 8.05 to Donnelly's 8.167 withan 8.08 dial in.

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Hometown hero Simon Barlow captured the eventwin in Modified over Michelle Osborn, who wasracing in her second home in front of family andfriends.

Barlow survived a crazy first round where all but twocompetitors broke out in tricky weather conditions beforeadvancing on a solo to the semi finals.“There was a bit of luck early with the double breakout (in thefirst round),” said Barlow.“I think the weather conditions caught everyone out with 10out of the 12 cars in the field breaking out in the first round.The solo gave us a good chance to dial the car back in.“I have never raced Michelle Osborn before but have seensome of her results from Perth so I knew not to take her lightlyand rightly so, the final was a great close race and I was justlucky enough to get the win.“It is always a good feeling to win, hoisting the trophy is the

reward for all the hard work that my team and I put into thecar and sport. It was really great to be able to do it at anational meeting at my home track against a tough field ofracers where I had two of my sponsors present for thismeeting.”The win puts Barlow against the 160 point ceiling for the shortseason but unfortunately he will not be able to contest for theModified championship at the Fuchs Winternationals due tofamily commitments.“The plan was always to test the new car to iron out anyproblems and get some good settings for it and then have acrack at the championship next season which we look forwardto kicking off at Alice Springs in July.“I have a gold tree sitting at home from the Nationals inSydney a few years ago and this silver one will be going to mycrew chief Anthony Grivell for all the years of hard work hehas put in. Without him, my partner Sonia and the rest of myteam this would just be a dream.”

BARLOW WINS BUT NO CHAMPIONSHIPCHASE ON AGENDA

Clockwise from opposite page top:Michelle Osborn reached her secondfinal in as many Summit rounds.Simon Barlow has a stack of nationalpoints but isn't going to hunt for achampionship. Danny Buccella diddouble duty in Super Sedan andSuper Gas. Toby Austin picked up aJunior Dragster victory. 'Tipi' took hisMonaro into the Super Sedanwinner's circle. Stuart McBain backedup his Portland win with another TopSportsman trophy in Adelaide.

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Modified Bike winner Joe Khoury said winningthe VPW Racer Payout Pro Series 1000 came avery close second to the Fuchs Winternationalswhen he goes through his racing highlight list.

The rider of the Harley Davidson Destroyer said his bike wasconsistent all weekend.“I ran a new PB of 9.27 straight off the trailer. I was feelinggood and confident after that run,” he said. “The event wentvery smoothly for me. And as per usual, the AIR staff andpatrons are always friendly and welcoming to me.”Khoury is in his second year of chasing the national Modified

Bike series.“I must say it's been very rewarding for me,” he said. “Eachtrack has its own character and atmosphere - especially theeighth mile tracks. It's also a great way to see our beautifulcountry I live in, especially when you have lived in Sydney allyour life.”The attractiveness of the Destroyer is that it is a factory builtdrag bike and Khoury says that is reflected in their ease of us.“They are easy to ride with very little maintenance,” he said.“I've changed the paint work from factory orange to black witha white chequered flag strip to be a little different. My enginehas had a little tweak up last year and it has been runninggreat with no major problems at all.”

KHOURY SEEING THE COUNTRY ANDWINNING DRAGS RACES

Bruno Romeo is preparing to make a brave movein his pursuit of a national championship with achange in car planned before the Nitro Champsin Sydney.

Romeo has been campaigning his Pontiac for some time butwill be shifting to the ex-Matt Forbes roadster if all goes wellin testing at an upcoming round of the Adelaide trackchampionship.The roadster runs Romeo's old engine and the plan is to havetwo cars running for him and his sons.“I love Super Gas because it is just as hard to slow the carsdown and be consistent at the same time,” he said. “With thethrottle stops and all that it is a challenge on its own, it is hardwith the pro light. It is a challenge trying to get that 9.90 with170mph up the sleeve.”“We ran the roaster as well on the weekend (in Modified) andwe will make sure it is going alright by running it next week. Iwon the first one in the Pontiac so now we will give the

roadster a go.”The VPW Racer Payouts Pro Series 1000 was the biggest eventRomeo has yet won.“I've won the little stuff, but the silver Christmas tree is a bigbonus, it gives you more determination to go for the goldChristmas tree,” he said. “Track championship events are thebiggest events I have won before. I really want to win at thetracks in the eastern states.”Romeo felt as though he really had to earn the winsthroughout the event.“In Super Gas they are all good racers,” he said. “It was achallenge just to beat some of the top runners, especially in thefinals to beat the Smith boys there because they are there allthe time.”

ROMEO REVEALS ROADSTER SCHEME

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Clockwise from opposite page: Joe Khoury isenjoying the travel just as much as the racing as hepursues a Modified Bike championship. Paul Stephenhad issues with the timing system which forced himto run the same race three times. Our photographerGrant Stephens was trying to document the cyclonefencing of Adelaide for his upcoming galleryexhibition 'Drag Racing Barriers of the World' butpeople just kept getting in the way. Bruno Romeo isplanning a car switch ahead of the Nitro Champs inSydney.

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CHASING

00

When it comes to Modified racing it is all about the 00s.Finding those thousandths of a second that can either

make you a winner or put you back on the trailer.

Mark Allen is on the search.

Written by Grant Stephens. Photos bycacklingpipes.com.

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The difference between winning and losing in dialyour own racing is often measured in thousandthsof a second and while racers have many differentapproaches to racing, it is the racers that canquantify those thousandths that are most likely tohave success.

Queensland Modified racer Mark Allan is one who takes such ameticulous analytical approach to his racing.The obsession with data began when he was one of the originalJunior Dragster racers.“It's my 22nd year of racing and I'm only 31,” he said. “Istarted in Junior Dragster in 1993 after reading an articleabout them in Dragster Australia in 1992.“My Dad (Barry Allan) built the first car in our garage, itfeatured a rear wing off a Modified dragster that had crashedat Willowbank and it weighed close to 400 pounds without thedriver, most Juniors these days weigh around 200.“My very first pass down the track was a lightning quick 33second elapsed time at 30mph. That was over the full quarter -Willowbank didn’t get eighth mile timers until around 1996from memory.”Allan developed his attention to detail in racing early due tothe guidance firstly from his father.“My father has been my biggest influence, he pushed me to bea better driver and person,” said Allan. “Right from thebeginning as a ten year old he had me picking my own dial ins,which then became the catalyst for me to learn about weatherand keeping log files of all my runs - because I hated losing.And if I was going to be picking dial ins I needed to learn frommy mistakes.“He supplied me with any books I asked for, whether it wasbracket racing guides or magazines, because my thirst forknowledge and winning was enormous right from thebeginning. If I didn’t win the meet I’d spend my afternoonsafter school, hours on end analysing my time cards and whereI went wrong.”Enter the second major influence in Allan's racingdevelopment, a racer beyond comparison when it came to theanalytical breakdown of dial your own racing.

“In my late teens and towards the end of my Junior career Iwas lucky enough to have Juan Kudnig take my dragsteraround the country for race events,” he said. “He was the bestand in my opinion the best bracket racer we have seen inAustralia.“He got me from racing in tenths of a second to hundredths ofa second, and by that I mean it was about all the little thingsthat add up from your start line routine to the finish line.”After retiring from Juniors Allan stepped up into Modifiedwith a series of dragsters.“The best dragster I’ve had is my current Spitzer which we gotfrom the States,” he said. “It ran 6.90s in Top Dragster withnitrous but we’ve never switched the nitrous on over here.“We still have the set up and it looks like it might be gettingused in the future, but it won’t be in my dragster - watch thisspace. My personal best is 7.82 at 170mph, I have no realinterest in going quicker, I’m all about repeating.”Allan's fixation with data and research in competitors to seekthat advantage has grown increasingly more complex into hisModified tenure.“These days I’m chasing thousandths of a second in Modified,I like to analyse everyone's runs after an event, from qualifyingsessions to rounds of racing because you can see trendsdevelop between each session. I keep logs of everything andeven have a spreadsheet of all my competitors - anal I know!“I like going to the line knowing just about as much of mycompetitor's car as my own. When we are talking aboutthousandths of a second - sometimes I think maybe mycompetitor has dialled in a little hard or maybe we've had a bigweather shift and they haven't taken that into account withtheir dial in and could be on a breakout.“I know it's about running your own race but when we areplaying with thousandths, this sort of information can behandy in playing the finish line stripe - it is an art closing arace up to the .00s.”Allan also explained the on track skill required when duellingwith an opponent.“Willowbank is a little easier because reaction times aredisplayed and nine out of ten races are won and done on thestart line, especially the experienced racers that can close up awin,” he said.“I treat every race different. If you're racing someone like Rob

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Harrington who is killer on the tree and is chasing, I mighthold a hundredth or two on my dial in so I can try and changethe perception of the race to him so it is not as easy to pedalthe other end if he does get any sort of hole shot - this alsomeans I'll have to dump the brakes on the finish line so I don'tbreak out, it's a tight rope to play.“Then there is the other side of the coin when I'm chasing, onaverage I react to the tree .010 to .020 slower than when Ileave first. It's a bit of a gamble to how much I take out of thebox but it also depends on who I am racing as to how I willattack the race.”There is nothing left unexamined for Allan in the quest forabsolute consistency.“I have experimented with finger pressures on my transbrakelast season for six months, seeing if I could be more consistentin my reaction times - instead I just red lit a lot and nowchanged back to what I've always done. I did find that I reactedon average .030 quicker but it wasn't as consistent as myprevious staging routine, but it's about trying things and if theydon't work, at least you tried.”Allan's thorough approach to racing has delivered a fairamount of success, with an Australian championship in JuniorDragster, three South East Queensland DivisionalChampionships and three Willowbank track championships.But there is still one achievement he really wants.“I've made four Winternationals finals and amstill yet to taste victory – twice in Juniors andtwice in Modified.“One of my track championships that I won atWillowbank was with a 17 second HondaPrelude, as an 18 year old my eight seconddragster wasn’t enough and I wanted my streetcar to be able to race in as many meets aspossible as well. So with that in mind it had tobe a four cylinder because that meant I couldrace it in the Street Series Championships andthe Four Cylinder Import Series thatWillowbank used to run - my best race packageis still actually from my 16 second daily driverand not the dragster, a .001 light and .002 overthe dial in.”While Allan is enthusiastic for more success,

there comes a time when other priorities take precedent overracing, and that is where he is at now.“We want to chase for a championship again but with the birthof my first child and purchasing my first home, they are mypriorities at the moment,” he said. “We will chase theQueensland Drag Racing Championship this season and thenre-evaluate again for next season whether we take the dive andtravel for the Summit Series.”The fire still burns however.“Like any passionate racer, we are always chasing that numberone, whether it is QDRC or the Australian Championship. If Iwon the lotto I’d become the Brett Stevens of sportsman racingbecause that’s where my passion is - I’d have a race car in TopSportsman, Modified, Super Sedan, Super Street and SuperGas - until that happens I’ll be in Modified running 7.90s.”And Modified the way it is now, is the way Allan wants it tostay.“I love Modified - personally I think Modified at the moment isin a really good place,” he said. “The cars are quick andcompetitive. I don’t want to sound biased but I think thatModified is the best class to race in Australia. Everyone getsalong - most of the time - and it’s probably the mosteconomical class in Australia if you want to go fast on a budget- if ANDRA is reading this, don’t change a thing.”

CHASING

00

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STORY BY LUKE NIEUWHOF. PHOTOS BY CACKLINGPIPES.COM.

ENTERBATDAN

THE

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Daniel Carranza has quickly become one of the most wellknown names in the Junior Dragster category, with the 10year old racing around the country and even appearingon Channel Ten's 'The Project'.

While his skills as a racer are actually up there for such a young driver, itis the challenges that Daniel has faced that lend his story a moresignificant meaning.Daniel has been around drag racing since birth, with his uncle Dom Zitocompeting in Super Sedan and family friends Peter Kapiris and JeffCutajar being a part of the circus that is Top Doorslammer. With thatinfluence, it was always likely Daniel was going to see a drag strip in onecapacity or another.When Daniel was three years old, his parents Eddy and Maria becameaware of some different habits he had that pointed towards autism.“He would place all his toys in order, memorise things and didn't speak,”Maria said.“Our biggest scare was his speech, because if he couldn't talk then thatwould definitely limit his interaction with other people, especially otherkids, and trying to fit in at kindergarten and so on.“So he started doing speech therapy and other forms of therapy to helphim to understand and interact with others.”Maria said drag racing piqued Daniel's interest early. But that might havebeen a case of wanting to drive to avoid some other race day chores.“He took a liking and started to understand the racing at the age of fiveand always said that when he's old enough he would like to start dragracing at the track, rather than cleaning Dom and Peter's cars at thetrack,” Maria said.When Daniel reached eight years old, the youngest age at which a drivercan participate in Junior Dragsters, the family travelled to WesternAustralia from Victoria to check out a car that might suit him. They werelucky enough to be 'thrown the keys' for Daniel to get his licence straightaway.“Daniel received his Junior licence at Perth Motorplex,” Maria explained.“We went to Perth to inspect a couple of cars that were for sale and wewere lucky enough to be able to test it and licence in it.”Like any parents watching their eight year old take a dragster for a drivefor the first time, Eddy and Maria had some butterflies in the stomach –or perhaps some albatross.

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“It was very frightening as you can imagine,” Maria said. “Hehad never driven anything motorised in his life other than afour wheeler motorbike. But he proved me wrong whencoming back on the return track he was so confident and kneweverything that he had to do.“He knew due to always being in the back of a tow vehicle andmemorising all the steps involved.“He then further proved to every one at the track howconfident he was by licensing in only four passes.”Autism has a number of symptoms – with repetitive behaviourone of the most recognised. It has to be argued that whilemaking life for Daniel difficult in some areas it couldultimately be a benefit in drag racing.Outside of drag racing, the family has learned how to workwith Daniel.“Daniel doesn't understand sarcasm and needs to knowthings,” Maria said. “You couldn't just give him a brief answerto questions, he will want the answer broken down anddiagnosed.“It's very hard to make the every day people in societyunderstand this about him. The ways to converse with him,and how to ask him something in a manner for him tounderstand.“It make it frustrating at times, as you can imagine noteveryone is patient and understanding.“He is one to always try and master whatever task he may bedoing, and can be very emotional if his goal doesn't turn outquite the way he had planned it.”Daniel's parents weren't the only ones with nerves before hisfirst pass. He might have tried to blame the cold but it was theadrenalin surging through his young body.“I was sitting in the car to do the first test for licensing and Isaid to my dad, 'Gee, it's freezing here tonight at the track, myknees wont stop shaking!'” he said.“My dad replied, 'Daniel, I think it's nerves mate, because it'slike 22 degrees here tonight in Perth.'”Daniel gets a kick out of the social side of the sport as much asthe sensory thrill that is acceleration and speed.“I love meeting all my mates that I have met over the year whocome to race. I love cars and drag racing,” he said.“I love racing at all the tracks in Australia, that was my dream.I only have a couple left that I haven't been to yet - Darwin andthe Benaraby track.”

Daniel enjoys the notoriety that being a drag racer gives him,with his school friends excited for him when ever he goesracing.“My friends at school are very happy for me, the year 12 schoolreporters did a story on me about me going on Channel Ten's'The Project',” he said.“My school teachers and students always wish me luck whenI'm about to go interstate to race.”While he still has a good seven years or so left to race in JuniorDragsters, Daniel said that he has some big ambitions in thesport – though he doesn't want to unseat his hero.“If I have enough money and sponsors I would love to keepracing,” he said. “Maybe race in Pro Stock. I cant go in TopDoorslammer because I don't want to beat Peter! One daymaybe I will go to America and watch the drags.”The Junior Dragster community includes a lot of great familiesand the camaraderie between them all is one of the mostpositive aspects of being involved.Maria said that has been an amazing experience.“I must admit it's so overwhelming as to how we have beenwelcomed into the sport,” she said. “From purchasing the JDin Perth, testing and licensing there, all the way from home.“The Lamattina family are always there for us when we needhelp with transporting our gear around Australia.“Then meeting all the racing families in Juniors and all theclasses who always come and say hello to Daniel and make himfeel welcome and comfortable. It has been great.”The family have been very active in promoting their team awayfrom the track as well, with media appearances and a Facebookpage with almost 1500 likes.All of this social interaction is invaluable as Daniel grows into ayoung man.“We have fun no matter what we do as a family, promotingDaniel and introducing him to the drag racing world is also aform of treatment for him,” Maria explained.“We use it to help him socialise and interact with others whoshare his passion and it's important for us to also promote andgive exposure to all our sponsors who deserve nothing less forall the help and support they have given us: LMR Roofing, KCTools and Penrite Oils.“We also try and promote that we race to raise awareness forautistic kids, hoping that one day they too can achieve theirgoals as Daniel has. Nothing is impossible.”

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Top: Daniel Carranza throws out giveaways to the crowdat Adelaide International Raceway

Bottom: The Carranza family including mother Maria andfather Eddy are all smiles at the track. Going drag racinghas massively helped Daniel's social skills.

QUARTERREPORTERREAD'S WING RECEIVES HANGOVER CURE

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Brisbane-based Top Fuel driver Steve 'The Pom'Read wants to make it count when he lines upagainst five of the toughest Top Fuel racers fromaround Australia at the third annual Santo’sSuper 3 Extreme Drag Race presented by UpliftCranes and Titan Cranes, held at WillowbankRaceway, Ipswich on Saturday 4th April from5pm.

“In 2013, we pulled together six consecutive four secondpasses and won the inaugural Super 3, taking home the LouieRapisarda Memorial Trophy, which means an awful lot to mepersonally, having raced for Santo for 10 years,” Read said.“Racing in Louie’s memory is at the centre of everything Santodoes on the race track and for the sport of championship dragracing.”While the premise of the Santo’s Super 3 is to promote the‘short, sharp show’ aspect, this year’s version has gone from atwo night event to a Saturday night show – a move that Readsays makes perfect sense over the Easter weekend.“Over the Easter long weekend, a lot of people want tomaximise those four days off and do a lot of different things.With the Super 3 event as a Saturday night-only deal this year,I believe it will help boost fan attendance. There’s justsomething special about watching Saturday night nitro at

Willowbank. Today’s race fans love to go see drag racing, orany live event for that matter, but in a shorter time frame,which I think is a real sign of the times we live in. It means ashorter, high intensity show – just like a concert – you’re inand out of there in a few hours.”Having tasted success at this unique event in its first year,Read is hungry to make this year’s race really count.“We’re up against two Rapisarda cars, two Lamattina cars andMark Sheehan’s state-of-the-art new canopy dragster. I’mreally looking forward to mixing it up with these guys on track.We have to hit our stride right out of the trailer and be on thepace. The crowd will be in for a hell of a show.”The four hour program means that Read and his team need tojudge changing track conditions and make tuning decisionsquickly, something that he knows can have far-reachingeffects.“From 5pm, we’re in game-mode. We’ve won before, and Iwant this one again. We’re racing on a track surface thatdoesn’t play favourites – you either get it right, or you’reshaking the tyres and burning up parts.”Read hinted that the Team RSR Dragster might also feature a‘piece of Vegas’ on Easter Saturday.“We found some damage to our main rear wing after the 2014Australian Nationals in Sydney. My crew at the workshop havealready given the ‘Vegas’ wing a new nickname – ‘TheHangover’, because the last time this rear wing went down thetrack, it had a bad night in Vegas,” Read laughed.

Left: Steve Read is no strangerto success at Santo's Super 3and wants more.

Image by Dave Reid.

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BRAY TO MAKE COMEBACK FROM BACK INJURYQueensland drag racing legend Ben Bray willmake his comeback to the drag strip this EasterSaturday (April 4) as part of the Santo’s Super 3Extreme Drag Race Event, presented by UpliftCranes and Titan Cranes.

The 31 year old made headlines in June of 2014 when hisNissan Altima race car hit the safety wall of WillowbankRaceway, rolled, and came to stop on its roof.The three-time ANDRA national champion sustained back andrib injuries and was fitted with a full body brace for threemonths, making his first trip to a drag strip in November of2014 to watch his father – six-time ANDRA champion VictorBray – compete at the season-ending Australian Nationals atSydney Dragway.Easter’s Santo’s Super 3 Extreme Drag Race Event will be thefirst time Bray has competed since the incident, with privatetesting set to be scheduled for the racer in preparation for hisreturn to active competition.While his return is hotly anticipated, Bray is cautious aboutmaking any big calls as far as performance.“I am really excited to be getting back on the track after so

long out of the driver’s seat,” said Ben Bray.“The Easter event at Willowbank Raceway is a great event andwas the site of my world record breaking passes in the Altimain 2013 (fastest and quickest ‘doored’ four cylinder car of thetime), it is my home track, and while it is also where I had myincident, it is my home away from home.“This Easter is all about taking baby steps, getting back in thecar, getting my ‘eye in’ as they say, and just getting back intothe sport I love.“The Pro Mod class which I am competing in is set to be areally great event, and I am just pleased to have the chance toget back on track and make my return.”Bray will take to the track in his father Victor’s ’57 ChevDoorslammer, as his brand new car is still undergoingpreparation work.“I was hoping to be able to debut my brand new 1979 CorvetteStingray at the same time that I made my way back to thetrack, but it isn’t quite ready yet, so I have stolen Dad’s car!”laughed Bray.“I really want to thank everyone in the drag racing industryfrom the fans to my fellow racers and the officials for theirsupport, and I look forward to seeing everyone out atWillowbank this Easter.”

DANIEL INSPIRED BY DUKESDaniel Schultz will have a bright new look for theAeroflow Outlaw Nitro Funny Car round inAdelaide on Good Friday with The Dukes ofHazzard-inspired ‘The General’ set to shake upthe field.

Schultz was excited to get behind the wheel of the new lookcar.“I can’t wait to race the car in Adelaide! We have had so muchpositivity from all around the world on the new car, it’s time tomake sure it goes as good as it looks,” he said.“Dad (Greg Schultz) spent some time on the phone to YBICreative about a new look and this is what Drew Jongebloed(YBI Creative’s Head Designer) came up with, we are allsuper-happy with the final product – the Facebook commentshave been amazing.“We wanted to have one of the iconic cars of this series and Ithink we have achieved that, now we need some gold to

complete the picture!”The Adelaide event continues to grow in momentum with theconfirmation by event promoter Rino D’Alfonso that the eventwill be followed by a post race concert by Angry Anderson ofRose Tattoo.“Once you have finished watching an awesome day of racing,kick back and listen to Angry Anderson of Rose Tattoo for anafter race concert. Once you pay your spectator entry price, itgives you all the drag racing action plus the concert all for thesame price!”The event also includes Round Two of the Sprint Auto PartsSA Track Championships, so the local racers will be out inforce.“This event will have everything,” added D’Alfonso. “From thevery fastest street cars to the nitro cars and the jets, no matterwhat your taste might be, this event will have the very best ofthem.“Not to forget two wheelstanding funny cars doing full quartermile passes on the back wheels.”

Left: Daniel Schultz carries abrand new look into theAdelaide Aeroflow Outlaw NitroFunny Car round.

I believe the time is right for a changing insanctioning body to the IHRA. ANDRA has had itschance, it has had its time, but it has been shownthat the body has too much baggage holding it backto be able to drive the sport forward any longer.I'm not a fan of dramatic change in drag racing butsitting around and doing the same thing year afteryear expecting a different result is not going to helpmove the situation along.The IHRA would have a simpler structure, savingmoney for racers and venues and indeed making thesport easier to get into.I think it would also be a little more hands off,potentially allowing for more flexibility in what themake up of our championship series is. But wecertainly have to answer some questions in thatregard first on what responsibilities lie where. Forexample, ANDRA looks after the national series atthe moment, calculates points, does all those kindsof things. Is that something IHRA will be doing orwill they simply be an insurance provider?Call this answer a yes with a but.More than anything I think a switch to the IHRAcould be a catalyst for change that is needed in manyareas of drag racing. Something to force the hand ifyou will. That could be the most important factorhere.

United we stand, divided we fall. Those are thewords that should echo through anyone who thinksa switch to the IHRA would be a good idea.ANDRA is not perfect but it is our organisation asracers and we must support it.Drag racing in Australia is unique and I'm not surethat a sanctioning body on the other side of theplanet will be capable of bending to suit thatindividuality.While people have been quick to consider the costsavings, the other side of that coin that needs to beconsidered is the reduction in service and value. Atthe moment it is relatively easy to call up theANDRA head office and get an inquiry answered.What kind of structure will be in place under IHRAto ask a technical query? Will tracks be responsible?Will you have to try and make contact at night to getan answer from the USA? I would certainly hopethat if IHRA was going to set up here they wouldhave a regional office of sorts to answer queries.There has been some talk that tracks might keepboth IHRA and ANDRA on board. I see this as a caseof wanting to have the cake and eating it to, using allthe good elements of ANDRA but then not returningthe favour by having them sanction events andgiving them the funds to be able to continue doingthat good work.Anyone advocating for the IHRA to come intoAustralia had best be prepared for some radicalchanges. I don't think it is going to be a smoothtransition. Can the sport handle such a potentiallybumpy ride?.

MRYES

MRNO

Welcome to Mr Yes and Mr No. Thismonth our anonymous contributors

debate: should we switch to the IHRA?

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