An A Final win for Daniel Gregorini and a B Final runner-up for Lisa Gregorini at her first competition event had the Scratch & Match Motorsport team celebrating following the 52nd annual MacTrack Westernationals at Perth Motorplex across the Labour Day long weekend.
With Lisa earning her ANDRA licence on Saturday, she was free to make a qualifying pass to attempt to make it into race day. A 6.107 delivered what she needed to sit in fifth position, while husband Daniel’s first-session 5.875 would slot into fourth.
For Daniel, it was an unusual day of racing as he adapted to concentrating on both his own driving while also trusting Lisa and her crew to manage their Camaro.
“Obviously I tried my best to be out on track with Lisa every time she raced, but Lisa and her team are very capable to run on their own so there was never any stress or worrying taking place,” he said.
Daniel’s qualifying did have a hiccup, with the team identifying a transmission problem after an interruption to their second-session run. That required skipping the final session of qualifying in favour of all-night repairs that wrapped up at 5am. With just three hours of sleep, race day was upon the team all too soon.
Lisa would have the first race of the first round against Ryan Moresby, while Daniel would take on Maurice Brennan. With this being the first time Lisa had an opponent in the other lane in an elimination round, she simply ran her own race and took her time on the line. But when Moresby had problems down track, Lisa swept by for a 6.119 and her first victory!
“Getting the first win light was a pretty surreal feeling as I definitely wasn’t expecting to win the race,” she said. “My reaction time really wasn’t the greatest but we managed to drive around Ryan and there were plenty of smiles afterwards.”
Daniel had a slightly tougher time, but a 5.834 delivered the goods to get past Brennan.
“We started conservative knowing we might miss out on some ET points, but we needed that first win on the board before anything else,” he said.
In the second round, Lisa took an impromptu solo when John Zappia had troubles firing up, which she took with a personal best 6.008/241mph.
“It was an awesome feeling driving through the top end under full power,” she said. “Being the only one on track meant I could focus on my race and it paid off.”
Daniel stepped up to a 5.753 to defeat a 6.241 from Ryan Moresby, who was having a hard night at the hands of the Gregorini family! The run was enough to put Daniel into the A Final, while Lisa’s two wins got her a spot in the B Final.
Lisa faced Peter Kapiris as she searched to keep her perfect winning record in shape. Unfortunately it was not to be as she lost a close 5.923 to 6.071 race.
“The car was fast early but it felt like it was moving out towards the wall, so I backed off,” Lisa said. “The car has been running very consistently, and it gives me a lot of confidence as a driver knowing we have a good tuning window where we can get the car down the track in different conditions. We now have a baseline to improve to get some quicker times.”
That just left Daniel to take on points leader Kelvin Lyle. They delivered what might have been the race of the event with a 5.752 by Daniel defeating a quicker 5.747 thanks to a 0.073 to 0.130 holeshot.
“It was a rematch from Sydney and with Kelvin and I having a history of close races, this one didn’t disappoint. To earn my second win this season was great and we are building a great record at the Westernationals now too with four event wins. These Christmas tree trophies are starting to take up some room but I’m not complaining!”
The Scratch & Match Motorsport team will be back on track on April 15 for the Summer Slam Grand Final at Perth Motorplex.
Major sponsors :
Scratch & Match Autocolour, Kerb Doctor, Westcoast Siteworks, Kendall oil , S & S Industries, Dalisa Estate Winery
Supporting sponsors :
Signbiz WA , Go print, Dirty detailing, Final Drive Engineering, Gforce race cars, Resolution racing services, DMPE, Applied Automotive, Kinetic Engineering
