Six-times Australian Top Doorslammer champion John Zappia is readying for round one of the 2014 series in two weeks but already has a focus on a new race format that will take place at the Westernationals in March.

Richie Crampton ran a new personal best in pre-season testing in Florida this morning, carding a 3.808 pass at 323mph over 1000 feet at Palm Beach International Raceway in Florida.

Richie Crampton continued to build his Top Fuel experience at Palm Beach International Raceway earlier today, making two tyre spinning runs as the NHRA gets its official pre-season test on in Florida. Crampton, from Adelaide in South Australia, was announced as the driver of the Morgan Lucas Racing/Geico dragster last year. Thanks to the wonders of social media, here are a few images of Crampton at work. We wish the best of luck to a man who is out there living the dream! #NHRA @MLRtopfuel driver @richiecrampton launches off the @RacePBIR starting line during a test run pic.twitter.com/82QaKmV8Jh — Mark J. Rebilas (@rebilasphoto) January 17, 2014 @richiecrampton strapped in and ready to go @MLRtopfuel @GEICOPowersprts #NHRA pic.twitter.com/Y2WBTJzZzr — Morgan Lucas (@Morganlucas34) January 14, 2014 @richiecrampton testing in S. Florida getting ready for the @MelloYello season launch in just 3 weeks. #NHRA pic.twitter.com/dvFdh1HWsK — NHRA (@NHRA) January 17, 2014 Thanks to those awesome dudes at bangshift.com you can watch the replay of the day’s testing below! Richie’s runs are at about 20 minutes and two hours and 19 minutes in. Video streaming by Ustream {fcomment}

An auction of unique motorsport items is taking place to help out a young Darwin boy who is hoping to be able to move to Perth to be closer to where he has his medical treatment.

Mouhamed Ibrahim’s gold-plated, rotary-powered BMW has certainly prioritised show over go in recent years but that is set to change with the blinging Beemer recently heading into the Pac Performance workshop for a massive increase in power.

Australia’s biggest field of nitro cars is heading to one of the country’s prettiest racetracks with the Aeroflow Outlaw show heading to Fuchs South Coast Raceway near Portland, Victoria for February 1.

Pro Modified Australia has made the announcement that the Slamfest series, which took many of Australia’s Top Doorslammer stars to regional venues, will not be happening this season. The predominantly eighth mile-based series said through their official Facebook page that due to the larger amount of rounds than before in the ANDRA national championship, Slamfest would not be happening at all this year. A number of replies to comments on the page had indicated that the series would not go ahead but this is the first official word that has been provided. Slamfest was originally created by Top Doorslammer racers to give themselves more events to race at, but with the addition of Melbourne and Adelaide to the national calendar recently dates have been harder to come by. The Slamfest events were renowned for attracting big crowds of spectators and delivering wild supercharged sedan action. “The drivers and teams of the Slamfest series want to thank all their supporters. And would like to say that we hope to be back in the near future. To bring the fastest door cars on the planet back to the regional tracks where it all started,” the statement concluded. Regional tracks aren’t likely to be left completely in the cold, with the Aeroflow Outlaw Nitro Funny Car series expected to attend many of the same venues as Slamfest. {fcomment}

Jett Racing’s Kelly Corbett is New Zealand-bound after she was selected as just one of four Australian drag racers to compete as ‘feature acts’ in the upcoming 2014 V Four and Rotary Nationals (25/26 January 2014).

Shane Tucker has showed off the new look that will go on to his NHRA Pro Stock Camaro plus the truck and trailer ahead of the season opener at Pomona in just a few weeks time.