John Zappia has kept his perfect streak at Perth Motorplex for the season alive with a win in Top Comp at round three of the WA Drag Racing Championships last Saturday.
Zappia’s Fuchs/Dananni Hotshots Holden Monaro defeated Wayne Keys in the final, with Keys red lighting away his chance to take down Zappia.
“I saw the red light (from Wayne), then I saw the amber of my own lights and I was out of there,” Zappia said.
Zappia’s quickest pass of the day came in the previous round, with a strong 5.68 which he said was a backed down tune up.
“The 5.68 came easily. There is plenty left in there if we can get it.”
An exciting Outlaw Radial field came down to the two top qualifiers, Darryl Maxfield and Lorenzo Gullotto. Gullotto used a big reaction time advantage on the start line to oust Maxfield’s quicker 7.59 with a 7.67 pass.
“The final round was challenging, both cars are very close in performance and with Darryl running into the 7.5s during qualifying I knew I had to get out in front from the tree and carry that out the back,” Gullotto said.
“We’ve been fighting fuel pressure issues for the last few weeks with trying different things but nothing fixing it, we found a few things late last night before second round which seemed to fix the problem.”
Joining Gullotto in the winner’s circle was Top Sportsman victor Todd Stacy. Stacey is more well known as a competitor in the Super Comp bracket, but a decision to switch to Top Sportsman to do some testing paid off with his first ever event win. Stacy defeated points leader Chris Roe in the final.
“We just wanted to race and work on my reaction times,” he said. “We were trying some new coils on the car which seems to have helped with the tuning.
“There were no headaches on the day. I just had fun and kept going rounds. The car was the best it has been in a long time.”
Ralph Italiano returned for the first time this season in the Adamos family dragster and was instantly back in form, taking home the trophy in Modified. Italiano top qualified and defeated Nicholas Wroe in the final round.
“I felt comfortable in it from the get go,” Italiano said.
“Con from Balcatta Engines just does an amazing job with the car and tune up so that helps with the consistency for the car. All I have to do is my job on the tree which I was pretty consistent with all day.”
Yvette Gregg scored her first win in her new Ford Falcon, defeating a red lighting Jason Lippi. Gregg said the car behaved itself all day besides the final round but fortunately Lippi’s early start line launch decided the result.
“I look at every race as being a tough race and just focus on running my own race,” she said. “I think that there is no harder person to beat than yourself
“We made a diff gearing change for this meet then we only made a couple of minor tweaks on the day to the front suspension and two-step rev limiter with guidance and advice from our talented engine builder and tuner Sandro from SCM.”
Also taking wins on the day were Alan Mahnkoph in Supercharged Outlaws, Phill Paton in Competition Bike, Ian Read in Modified Bike and Chris De Bruin in Super Street.
The next event on the WA drag racing calendar is expected to be one of the biggest of the season as the Aeroflow Outlaw Nitro Funny Cars return on January 5.
– Perth Motorplex Media Release, images courtesy High Octane Photos.
