The Atura NSW Championship shifted into round six and is heading for the finish line with just two rounds to go before Sydney Dragway’s 2018 track champions are crowned.
Conditions were perfect and the event ran smoothly for the country’s most populated track championship series, showcasing some of the best bracket racing you will see.
Pro Extreme were an exhibition class for the day running the All Run Format. We don’t have notification of the official winner, but suffice to say Greg Tsakiridis blitzed everyone with high five second passes in his twin turbo Mustang to take three wins.
Anthony Bool has the Supercharged Outlaws championship in his pocket with his up for sale Falcon, and continued his winning ways defeating Greg Smith’s big skidding altered in the final. With numbers featuring a .005 reaction time and 7.546 on a 7.54 dial in from a blown car for the final, it will be a good package for someone.
In Top Sportsman, Neil Constantinou hasn’t been showing the dominance of last year with no ticks in the win column – that was until this round. In a showdown for the championship lead, Constantinou took on Thomas Leake in the final with the winner to take the points lead. A .016 to .075 reaction time advantage to the Constantinou Mustang was too much for the Leake Hilux to overhaul at the stripe.
Peter Brown has been killing it with consistency leading the Modified championship comfortably without taking a round win as contenders have dropped off for a variety of reasons. Brown in the ‘golden rod’ dragster again played bridesmaid in the final, going down to Chris Manks, who missed the last round with his six second altered ending his championship hopes, had the dragster at both ends of the track in the final.
Super Sedan title battle is a lot closer with a fleet of racers hunting down defending champion Robert Chapman’s lead after Chapman red lit himself out of eliminations in the quarters. Standing tall in the final was Jason Field with his Telstar – a relatively new car for himself, but with a long history in the sport – and Darren Baumann in his second consecutive final with his wheelstanding Cortina. Like the previous round Baumann couldn’t get the win light, a .154 reaction virtually sealed his fate on the start line to Field’s .025 who back it up with a 8.943 on a 8.94.
Another championship for Robert ‘Simmonator’ Simmonds in Modified Bike is looking like a odds-on probability, despite dropping out of racing on a round one cherry that gives some hope to the challengers. At the end of the night 400 Thunder champion Sean Ricketts picked off a cherry against Ian Smith’s turbo Hayabusa who ran it out the back with a 8.08.
Super Street has become a race in two for the title between Stan Nikitaras and Michael Walsh, but with both racers going out on red lights in the early part of eliminations the door has been left ajar for someone to steal a title. Luke ‘Tex’ Griffiths was the one who stepped up putting himself 50 points off the lead with a win in the final. The final wasn’t the race he had hoped for with David McGlinn’s 400 Thunder championship winning Monaro let go hard mechanically in the burnout.
Super Gas combatants Anthony Panetta and Joe Catanzariti pushed each other to a double breakout race 9.86 to 9.88 in favour of the Catanzariti Torana. With now back to back wins in the series, Catanzariti leads the championship hunt by 30 points over Panetta.
It was great to see a few new faces licensing in the JD ranks including third gen Geoff McNiff and second gen Georgia Liefting. A gaggle of racers can still potentially win the Junior Dragster championship as well with three racers tied on points after the events proceedings. Lachlan MacCaskell joined the front runners with a win over Max DeMain in the final who unfortunately hit the noise 6 thou too early. Coincidently MacCaskell also red lit but won on first or worst criteria.
They would be taking no more bets in the Street Fighter championship. David Jennings picked up his third event win of the season, defeating a red lighting Don Zammit, and leads the championship by 90 points with two rounds to go.
The Street Bike championship is closer with Colin Northcott and Guido Falgiatiori in Ducati versus Suzuki dual which carried on into the final of round six. Northcott took the points win at this round driving around a huge holeshot to take the win light and a 20 point lead in their championship fight.
James Rodriquez and Gerard O’Neill battled out the HAMBster final, with Rodriquez edging out the win with a 15.46 on 15.40 to ‘Gerty’s’ breakout 12.70 on a 12.90. Ezio Cacciotti who missed his first final of the year still commands the championship.
Next round of the championship is on October 20.
