Hidden Valley Drag Strip’s Nitro Up North event underwent a transformation this year, with a switch from the 400 Thunder series and Top Fuel exhibitions to a round of the Aeroflow Outlaw Nitro Funny Cars.
With the opening round of the ANDRA sportsman series pushed to a separate event, Nitro Up North had a different flavour to the last few years but still enjoyed good spectator support on the hill.
Anthony Begley took his first win in six years of trying as part of the series, going to the victory with a 5.69 win against daughter Emma Begley in round one, followed by a 5.72 against Andrew Katavatis and another 5.72 against Shane Olive, who blew up big time after spinning the tyres at the hit.
“I thought it was never going to happen,” Begley said. “I have driven few different cars for Graeme and Wendy (Cowin) and I have had some super quick times, but never quite got it over the line. I have been drag racing for a lot of years and there is not a better deal than what we have here.”
A circumspect Olive was left surprised by the carnage in ‘Red Devil’.
“It was a big bang,” he said. “I haven’t had one of them before. I’d say it has dropped a valve which means catastrophic stuff happens (in the motor).”
Check out the video of the incident below, at about 1:06:40.
While Begley had the consistency for the win, low ET for the night went to Josh Leahy’s 5.58 in ‘The Bandit’.
The Wild Bunch lived up to their name with some crazy driving and crowd pleasing half track burnouts. Greg Angus took the win from Mark Hunt when Hunt’s Customeline crossed the centre line.
Todd Knight returned to Hidden Valley for the first time in 2019 to compete in Top Eliminator, with an untested combo due to the new fuel regulations. However this didn’t hold him back, setting a new personal best of 6.96 in the nitrous-assisted Pontiac and taking the win from Dwight Brieffies.
Super Modified saw Craig McGregor in his nitrous injected Holden Rodeo take the win from veteran racer Ron Heyes.
Modified Bike was one of the largest brackets of the event, with Tony Clarke taking the win over Al Henry.
Theo Karamanidis came out victorious in Super Street over Claude Petrilli.
Street Bike was taken out by Andrew Reid over Reece Tjung and Joe White claimed the Street Car win over the ever-consistent Grant Radcliffe
The hero story of the night went to Scarlet Sherwood, who after recently gaining her Junior Dragster license, won at her very first competition meeting over friend Danielle Abel.
Check out the gallery of pics below thanks to Craig Radcliffe.
