The JAX Tyres & Auto Super Thunder event for the 400 Thunder Aeroflow Drag Racing Series is underway at Willowbank Raceway with qualifying.
PROFESSIONAL QUALIFYING ROUND 1
Q1 for the professional classes at the penultimate round of the championship has been run;
In Top Fuel Funny Car, the first pairing featured championship leader Brandon Gosbell, but he had to shut his new Mustang funny car down on the line with no oil pressure, as Morice McMillin blasted off before smoking the tyres hard at half track.
With the Aeroflow team moving to a 6-disc clutch, the team are still tweaking the tune ups. “It’s more getting used to the facility with the cars and how we are running them now,” said McMillin. “We will learn a lot from that, every track has its little things you have to adapt to and overcome – and it’s just about making the tune up work.”
Justin Walsh launched and headed straight across the centreline cleaning up the reflectors at half track. “Definitely not the ideal thing we wanted on the first run,” said Walshe. “It kind of felt like it left good, but we are all new to running these cars, and it just got to the 330 mark where its starts to throw power and clutch in, and it just made a hard move to the right.
Adam Murrihy now in the former Dodge funny car – that Gosbell campaigned at the inaugural round – ran a clean half track shut off to test the new ride that he has had just a week. Tim McCarthy came out to continue his licensing in his Monte Carlo, being the first time back for McCarthy after that spectacular engine explosion at last year’s Winternationals. However the car was unfortunately shut down after trouble staging.
Jake Donnelly fired the first salvo in Pro Alcohol, nailing the provisional top qualifying spot with a 5.54. Tim Clifton is still feeling his way as a Pro Alcohol newcomer with his dragster, but with Mark Brew calling the shots dropped a 5.69 on a early shut off as the dragster drifted close to the centreline.
Cheyne Phillips in his Pro Alcohol debut and points leader Steven Reed both had tyre shake on their runs, and Chris Hargrave had the Middy’s Electrical car shut down on the line.
Andrew Searle is still licensing his automatic equipped funny car at the event. Russell Mills was entered at the event but family commitments saw has seen the wild streamliner FED not racing this weekend.
Pro Stock has four cars in the field, after Q1, the ETs were a little conservative with Aaron Tremayne edging out brother Tyronne with a 7.02, and Scott Porter who still running the spare bullet.
The championship is essentially between Aaron Tremayne who is leading Brian Pursell in the by 26 points with two rounds to go.
Chris Matheson swapped a new engine into Nitro Voodoo after his last event in Perth, and was on a clean run before shutting off as the bike got close to the wall and a little hairy in the braking area. Andrew Badcock is aboard Steve Badcock’s nitrous Suzuki with a new setup onboard.
“We have got a whole new fuel system, we’ve gone to dry nitrous and ECU, so it is all fuel injected now,” said Badcock. “We trying to dial everything in, get everything working, make sure we have five gears, make sure the nitrous come on when I went full throttle – it certainly did, popped and and banged, and it was angry.
Steve Boyd’s big Harley went quiet on the twist of the throttle.
Pro Slammer only sees Russ Pavey in the pits, and the Corvette shut down attempting the burnout.
The professional classes have one more qualifier this evening, and we will post early sportsman qualifying round orders once we receive them.
PROFESSIONAL QUALIFYING ROUND 2
Into Q2 for the JAX Tyres & Auto Super Thunder, and Tyronne Tremayne snatched the top qualifying spot with a real shallow stage in Pro Stock off brother Aaron with a 7.000 to his sibling’s 7.006. Air conditions are still registering a fair amount of water grains, accounting for the performance drop to what we are accustomed to seeing.
It’s good for once, I don’t reckon I have had a Top Qualifier in about three years. I have won a few meetings and a championship but it is good to get a Top Qualifier again,” said Tyronne Tremayne.
“I just got him (Aaron), but he builds the motor for us, so thanks to him as well.”
Donnelly wasn’t confident his Q1 Pro Alcohol ET would hold, and Reed confirmed those suspicions going straight to the top with a 5.502 in the Allstar Batteries funny car. Donnelly did step it up to a 5.515 to hold down second.
“Pretty happy with that,” said Reed. “Would have loved to see a .40, but there is always tomorrow.”
Phillips improved to a 5.72 with a clean run in the dragster, and Chris Hargrave who was shut down with a loose fuel line in Q1 knocked out a 5.79 with the funny car.
“It was good as a baseline, that’s what we wanted,” said Hargrave. “We had a little tyre shake at the top of first gear, we can fix that and comeback tomorrow to kill it.”
Clifton clicked it as the dragster headed towards the centreline, and Searle zinged the tyres hard in the funny car on the hit.
The Nitro Voodoo team mentioned they went conservative with dew in air, Matheson still couldn’t keep the bike in his lane, crossing the stripe in Badcock’s lane causing erroneous ETs.
“I think it might of flicked the wheel a little bit once it got out a little bit, and I just couldn’t gather it back up, it just went where is wanted to,” said Matheson.
“I tried to stay on it to get a good pass in, but just couldn’t steer it down the end.”
In the final qualifier for Top Fuel Funny Car to end the night, the flames went out by sixty foot for McMillin in the first pair, as Walsh spun the tyres big time at half track and was all out of shape, looking to have wounded the funny car.
“There’s a lot of oil under the body so something is not happy,” said Walsh. “It was truckin’ pretty good then made a big move, probably when it got oil under the tyres, so I just rolled out of it.”
For McMillin the emergency shut down safety system was tripped for some reason, and the team will investigate what happened.
Between rounds and new bullet went into Gosbell’s Mustang funny car when a problem was found with the oil pump drive. As a result Gosbell ran a plan half track shut for a 5.77, which was still good enough for pole. In the other lane, Begley ran it through to around half track.
“Pretty tricky conditions tonight, but we are pretty happy to get down through there. Smoked the tyres a bit further down track, but first lap down this track and it is looking promising for tomorrow,” said Gosbell.
Murrihy kept the flames lit to just past half track and just missed top qualifying with a 5.88.
McCarthy had the Monte Carlo funny car idling high after the burnout, and as a result could not engage reverse.
Russell Pavey dropped the hammer in the Corvette Pro Slammer on a test pass, but lifted with the car moving around before half track.
Racing starts at 11.30am EST tomorrow with continuation of qualifying of the sportsman classes. Pro Series kicks off from 4pm.
