The craziest sedans in all of drag racing hammered the Sydney Dragway blacktop once again at the Australian Pro Street Association (APSA) Shootout in a spectacular display that only Pro Street racing delivers.
On a meretriciously prepared racing surface thanks to the hard working Sydney Dragway A-Team track crew, Australia once again proved they are on par with the rest of the world when it comes to the numbers these under-tyred and over-powered machine clock.
Radial tyre racing is certainly the most popular trend in the scene right now, and it does not come more frantic than in Outlaw Radial.
The stage was set early in qualifying when Perry Bullivant with the world’s fastest chocolate bar blasted out the first six second pass on a 275 wide radial tyre in Australia with a 6.904 – and at a new World Record speed of 216.97mph (349.17kph)!
The other Outlaw Radial competitors were not going to be left out of the action, Tim Cross smashed the 275 mark with a 6.809 ironically against Bullivant in round one. Bullivant’s improved 6.879 on that pass would form the quickest side by side 275 radial pass in Australia.
Second generation racer Marc Leake would upstage them all winning an uneventful final when Cross red lit.
Personal bests rained down in the Outlaw 10.5 class where anything goes as long as it’s on a 10.5 inch wide tyre – though it was still a bittersweet day for Danny Makdessi with his Valiant chariot. An idler pulley issue caused three broken blower belts before fixing the issue and running back to back 6.50 and 6.49 personal bests.
Attention turned to Pro Street icon Mark Hayes who was chasing his first “six”, but his stunning new nitrous Torana is still cleaning out the new car bugs. “It wasn’t the six second one kit result we were looking for, but we did sort out a lot of small issues from broken accelerator cables to leaving the front shocks on full loose after Powercruise. Our best run of the day was a 7.20 with nitrous in only 7 cylinders after a line came out of a distribution block,” said Hayes.
The Michelle Davies driven Davies Racing Torana was also ironing out the kinks after a complete rebuild. “Well what a weekend that was, and where do we start?. We’ve been chasing the new setup on the car since we rebuilt it, but after 3 outings and 8 attempts of getting it down the track with some real ugly results, we finally got it back to where we were before the rebuild.” said Gareth Davies.”
“We went consistent 6.4’s all through the rounds of racing and then unfortunately we shook the tyres hard in the final against Jeremy Callaghan who was a well deserved winner after running hard, fast and consistent all day.”
“To the Sydney Dragway Team you guys killed it again – the track you have supplied us racers with lately has been totally awesome and second to none.”
Victory bragging rights went to the turbo brigade with Jeremy Callaghan living in the 6.50’s all day in his twin turbo Camaro.
If it has swinging doors, then you can race it in the no limits Outlaw Extreme class – and they don’t come any more extreme than the Moits Mustang. Paul Mouhayet blew away the field in qualifying with a 5.88 at 254mph (410kph).
Racing kicked off to a rough start when Joe Sabato was unharmed after a chute failure saw the debut of his big block nitrous Pontiac end up in the sand trap and catch fence.
Boom! – Sydney Dragway hosted yet another World Record with the TRP Racing WRX eclipsing its own record as the quickest WRX in the world at 7.294 seconds.
Mouhayet headed into the final on the back of a flying 5.83 to face off witht Sam Fenech’s doorslammer that had been fighting tyreshake all day. Unfortunately the Moits machine could not start as Fenech rattled the tyres again on the way to a event win.
Pro Street Blown was feeling the star power with world famous DJ Carl Cox debuting his turbo Capri -the DJ witnessed Pro Street racing several years ago and just had to be part of it. Cox felt the pressure but still earned his racing license on the back of a 8.00 at 187mph (300kph).
Chris Stevermuer may not have the star power of Cox, but his little orange Torana reached for the stars, not once, but twice with broken wheelie bars. Stevermuer’s high flying antics which saw copious amounts of daylight under the rear wheels caused a social media meltdown.
Nick Uncevski was not afraid to dangle the front runners all day as well, and coupled with consistent times saw the Torana into the final round.
He would be facing a Pro Street original in Tristan Ockers with the iconic [MINCER] Capri. Ockers has just returned to the track after a break from racing with the mean green Capri with two goals in mind – six seconds and 200mph. In the third round of racing a 7.10 at 200mph (321kph) ticked the double tonne box with the final just to run, alas the Capri needed a quick pedal in that final resulting in a 7.38 at 187mph, but still brought on the win light.
With only two entrants in Pro Street Unblown, it was a Holden versus Ford match race between Darren Edwards’ immaculate Candy Apple Red HT Monaro and Daryl Dando’s equally well turned out XT Falcon. At the end of the night Edwards would hold the winner’s trophy.
It was an invasion of the Rotarys and imports in Mod Street Blown with not one V8 prepared to take on the flame throwing two steppers.
Back in the driver’s seat after a recent leg injury, Moustafa Sakina drove the wheels off his RX7 to win over Luki Soldatic’s 8 second front wheel drive CRX.
Over in Mod Street Unblown there was finally a challenger to Daniel Sharban’s class dominance in the form of Tony Cusolito. The red rocket Capri top qualified with a 7.76 before disaster struck during racing with the Capri spinning into the wall.
Unable to front for the third round of racing meant the event was over for Sharban, with Peter Alexander and Luke Purdie to race off in the final. Overcoming a lazy reaction time the Camaro of Alexander drove around Purdie’s Torana to cross the stripe first with a 9.42 against a 9.91.
Into the restrictive tyre classes and X275 to begin with, Paul Spatino brought the wheelstands.
Mick Voase another legend of the NSW Pro Street scene had a solo in the final.
In the smaller X235 tyre limited class, hooking up was no problem for Dom Perri. The RX2 went sky high repeatedly and still top qualified with a 9.18.
With Perri too quick for the class 9.50 index during racing, the final would be Caine Reed against Sam Danaskos. Reed’s Torana had the performance advantage and with a safe reaction drove around Danaskos’ Capri to pick up the final victory.
All the genuine streeters slot into the True Street class, where Greg Brooks wowed the fans with giant launches from his Torana all day. Brooks went on to wheelstand to the victory prize against Carolyn Tzortzas in an all Torana final dual 9.23 to a 9.83.
If your car had no Pro Street class to run in then the Dial Your Own bracket was your place – but Bobby Mihaljevic may of wished he left his car in the shed after this ugly nitrous backfire.
Sean Maher has always been a threat locally at Atura Championship rounds in Super Sedan, and the Torana racer used his wares at the APSA shootout to win rounds and record another event win after he defeated a red lighting Adam Attard in the final.
Possible future Pro Street stars were on show in the Pro Junior class. Racing against a dial your own pro tree proved a different challenge for these racers, with tactics on staging and reacting being widely discussed between driver and crew.
Second generation racer Denis Plessas, in his fourth ever event was understandably ecstatic after coming away with his first event win against Georgia Fardella, who was unfortunately disqualified due to a staging infringement.
