Long time Top Alcohol racer Aaron Deery finally had a turn of luck with a runner up finish at the Westernationals and is hoping the trend continues for the WA Grand Final at Perth Motorplex this Saturday.
Deery, who had unofficially the first Top Alcohol car in the country to run sub 5.50 seconds, has since struggled a little.
“Last season we knew that to try to run low 5.4s or even 5.3s like the Funny Cars we had to revisit how we applied the power and make the car more consistent,” he said.
Deery switched tyres from the conventional setup to a larger tyre.
“We ran good last year with older cylinder head technology for reliability and ran in the 5.60 range every pass. This season we switched to a new set of Noonan heads as our budget allowed and went up some 10 cubic inches to make the weight dead on. The car showed big potential and power, but with another change to a more grippy Hoosier tyre it was back to the drawing board.
“We really only got our heads around the new tyres last meeting and found we could get surprisingly aggressive with the tune up.”
Deery played conservative in qualifying as the hot conditions limited the car to a 5.89 after only two shots.
“Race day was also hot and we were first pair out with Steve Delcaro so we left it fairly tame and got the win with a 5.72 to advance to the semis.”
Deery hopped up the tune a little for the match against fellow dragster driver Adam Marchant, but the track got a lot better than expected and the car ran a slower 5.74 to take the win.
Deery, more than happy to just reach his first Top Alcohol final round in some 10 years of racing, knew the task ahead wasn’t going to be easy, racing good friend and one of the world’s fastest Top Alcohol Funny Cars in Craig Glassby.
“I talked to the crew and we decided we got this far so let’s go for it. We hopped it up a lot, changed the clutch and headed to the start line.”
Deery left with a great .024 reaction time, but soon the Greg Gower-tuned Funny Car of Glassby drove by him, running a 5.45 to Deery‘s 5.60.
“We might have come up short but our 5.60 was still a big step up and our best run of the season too date.”
Backed by Kendall Oils, Watsons Express Transport, Rockingham Wedding and Event Hire, BL & SG Lake Brick and Paving Cartage, West Coast High Performance, CMP, Perth Scuba, Alky Pro and Holeshot Engineering, Deery looks forward to seeing what he can to at the Grand Final.
