A whirlwind ‘80 day’ USA Tour resulted in excellent results, but John Zappia is not finished yet. He is about to jump on a plane back to Perth, Australia to climb into his transporter to drive to Sydney so that he can compete at the second round of Pro Slammer at Sydney Dragway.
“We’ve had an amazing time and It’s been a dream come true” said Zappia, “To race the quickest Pro Extreme Doorslammers in the world, to compete amongst the best and to come away with a World Record is pretty remarkable”.
“We put a total of 20 runs on the Jerry Bickel built Noonan 1969 Camaro, and in that time I had to adjust to a left hand drive, adapt to an auto combination (first up), then convert to a Boninfante clutch and B&J 3 speed gearbox. We had to make a call on the setup for an unknown car. To be in the top half of the field was a big effort from the whole team”.
The Professional Drag Racers Association (PDRA) World Finals were held at Virginia Motorsports Park last weekend, and Zap was one of 9 race teams (3 Swedish, 1 Aussie and 5 American) to enter the event.
“We made some modifications since running at the last PDRA Drag Warz event in Benson, North Carolina where Zappia ducked out in the semi-finals but ran a PB of 3.62 @ 216.90mph.
After a couple of test passes in Virginia, Zappia made strong qualifying runs with a string of 3.68 ET’s and finishing with a final qualifier of 3.64 @ 214.31 mph, proving he had a consistent race car.
Zappia Racing team members from Australia including John’s partner Rae (who has been with him for the whole time), Freddy, Filomena, Sam, Tracey, Gerry and Diz made the trip from Australia to support Zap, and together with Noonan’s Racing team members Jamie, Renee, Darrell, Lee and Hank the team overcame obstacles involved with a new combination to perform well.
“We won round one easily with a straight and steady 3.651 @ 212.73 mph. The Noonan “Brains Trust” studied the data and to come up with a tune to try to run quicker than the No 1 qualifier opponent in Round 2 – Terry Leggett in his ’71 Mustang, which ultimately we did run quicker and faster than Leggett with a 3.54 @ 218mph but I lost on a holeshot to Terry’s 3.58 @ 216.51 mph.”
The Noonan Racing team watched as Leggett went on to win the final. Meanwhile the Noonan / Zappia team vowed to come back the following day to have a crack at running the quarter mile. A plan had already been in place for the team to run the full quarter after the finals to demonstrate the full potential of the car, so a time was set for the next day and the team got ready overnight.
The ‘Brains Trust’ hit a hole in one as Zappia set a new Blown Door Car record for ET and MPH in the Noonan Camaro to set an unofficial Supercharged World Record time of 5.424 @ 265.33mph.
“It was amazing pass from the Noonan Camaro – the car really pulled hard in each gear to reset my PB in a big way! The Camaro weighed in at 2405 pounds after the run, and running a C blower at 127% overdrive compared to the Monaro weighing in at 2734 pounds with a D blower and 108% overdrive.”
“We have purchased the Camaro roller from Jamie and Renee Noonan and we will leave it here in the USA for the next season of PDRA racing, providing we can pick up sponsors for the 2018 USA Tour. We will be back to try and go one better. We are in discussions with several parties, but we are open to talking to new sponsors who would like to come on board and help us to take the No.1 Door Car record.”
John currently has the second fastest doored car in the world to Jose Gonzalez’s Turbo Charged Pro Extreme Corvette that run a 5.403 @ 259mph, earlier this year.
Zappia Racing will compete at Sydney Dragway in Australia for the AC Delco East Coast Thunder – The Nationals on 3 – 4 November 2017 where Round 2 of the Thunder 400 Pro Slammer 2018 Championship continues.
“Sixteen cars have entered for the event, which is a strong turnout with some hard hitters amongst those. We will have to be on top of our game to do well – we don’t take anything for granted despite our previous years’ success. Each season is a new one and we currently sit third behind Gary Philips and Paul Mouhayet – with new technology and US tuners appearing regularly, the game has changed in Doorslammer in Australia and that will make it an even better spectacle than it already is.
Zappia Racing once again thanks our sponsors for making the 2017 USA Tour a possibility: Noonan Race Engineering, Fuchs Lubricants, Dananni Hotshots, Boninfanti Friction Inc, SDS Fuel Systems, B & J Racing Transmissions, and Hoosier Tires and along with our other local sponsors, hope to give them all as much exposure as we can in this Australian season.
