ANDRA Top Bike championship leader Chris Porter is heading into next weekend’s Fuchs Nitro Thunder presented by Crow Cams with a near unassailable position in the points but there is still some work to do to ensure his first title is wrapped up.
Sydney-based Porter’s biggest challenger will be second placed Victorian Graeme Morell, who will be racing in front of a home crowd for the first time and has so far proved a thorn in the side for many more fancied rivals during the season.
Porter will need to ensure he either matches or exceeds Morell’s performance at Calder Park on October 19 or else risk taking the fight to the Australian Nationals at Sydney Dragway in November.
“Calder Park has been a good track to us, we won Modified Bike there at the 2000 Australian Nationals,” he said. “It’s going to be a new track for everyone to experience and get data on but I think that our good runs recently will put us at the front of the field.”
Porter explained that he won’t be treating Fuchs Nitro Thunder presented by Crow Cams like another event, with plenty on the line for the rider of one of the quickest nitro Harleys in Australia.
“The championship is definitely on our minds. We can wrap it all up at this event and to earn my first Top Bike championship in front of a big Melbourne crowd would be a great moment,” he said.
Porter went to runner up at the last round of the championship in Darwin but it didn’t come without its share of drama and plenty of time has been spent in workshops since ensuring that his ride is perfect for Melbourne.
“We needed some new wheelie bars after Darwin with the Frasers Motorcycles Harley making plenty of power, enough to cause a break,” he said. “That led to some pretty wild passes so hopefully Melbourne will be all about straight, quick runs. We have to thank Chris Matheson and his crew helping us to make some new ones at his work shop.
“We’ve got an upgrade for our Motec data logger which is going to help enormously in monitoring what is happening with the motor. Nitro is always tough to tune and unpredictable so you need all the help you can get in the data logging area.”
The nitro-fuelled Top Bikes will be joined on October 19 at Fuchs Nitro Thunder presented by Crow Cams by Top Fuel dragsters and Pro Stock Motorcycles plus over 150 sportsman teams. It will be the first time ANDRA championship drag racing has been run at Calder Park since 2001.
