The Westernationals week started with a highly entertaining Kwinana Performance Western Bracket Bash, an event aimed at racing for Sportsman categories while providing testing and licensing opportunities for other teams.
The Sportsman racers were broken up into Super ET (0 – 9.99), Quick ET (10.00 – 12.99), All Bikes and Junior Dragster.
With its mix of Modified and Super Sedans, Super ET was always going to be interesting. It only took one qualifier for the Super Sedans to work out that sitting in the shade of the tunnel was the go while the Modified racers did their across the line burnouts.
It took five rounds of racing to find the winner and in the semis it was a soloing A/MD of Michael Lanningan advancing to the final leaving fellow Modified racer Norm Butler to take on the only remaining Super Sedan of Kevin Hort with the dragster prevailing. Butler, who ran a series of 8.0s in qualifying, found a run of 7.9s during the cooler conditions in eliminations and looked to be the favourite – but a red light denied him the win with Lannigan picking up the silver ware (actually acrylic) and the cash.
Quick ET was an ecclectic mix of Super Sedans, Super Street and street racers and after five rounds it was Gail Floyd in her rookie season taking on Tyron Begg. Floyd’s 10.63 (10.62DI) winning over Begg who broke out by 9/1000ths of a second with a 10.111 on a 10.12.
All Bikes was made up of Modified Bikes and a number of street bike racers but when the dust settled it was two regular racers (by regular we mean every time the gate is open…Formula Tech Whoop Ass Wednesdays, Autotrader Fast Fridays, National Opens…) who met up in the final with David Gajsek taking the win over a red lighting (-0.006) Daniel Natalotto.
Junior Dragster saw some of the more experienced campaigners going by the elimination wayside with two newbies in the semi finals. Alanah Cope did not progress to the final wheras Brayden Naylor did and there he did not waste the rare opportunity by defeating Matthew Matulovich who is on a roll at the moment having won the Night of Fire and Top Fuel events.
All in all, a great concept, a lot of fun…and much better than just plain old testing and tuning!
Speaking of testing and tuning there was a great mix of a Nitro Funny Car, Top Doorslammers, a Top Bike and a wide variety of sportman racers testing and licensing.
The hot day time (the track hit 133F) gave way to pleasant night time conditions and we saw some stellar runs on two wheels and four. All a great harbringer for next weekend!
John McSweeney is quickly coming to grips with Jeff Clarke’s AA/FC running an impressive 6.09, while Jeffrey Lewis made his debut in McSweeney’s former ride recording a 4.5 to half track to start licensing in the BB/AP Ford Falcon.
Allfast Torque Convertors’ Simon Travaglini debuted his steel bodied Ford set up for Super Sedan. His first full pass down the track? 6.59/362kmh (227mph). Thats waaay under and over the SS/AA marks!
Clive Hudson never saw how much smoke he produced in the C10 Truck – no such problem in his new ride, a front engine dragster. He produced an early shut off 7.9.
The Greene Machine put in two test runs ahead of its next match race on March 19.
Report by Peter Pike, Perth Motorplex.
