When Peter Kapiris was taken to hospital following his clutch explosion at the Australian Nationals, his thoughts were pre-occupied with getting his Top Doorslammer back together and being able to make race day.
It would have been easy for him to miss just how concerned his supporters were about him. He was reminded of that when young fan Jordan Spencer approached him in the ambulance.
“Jordan is the son of one of the racers in Super Gas who hangs around me all the time supporting the team,” he said. “When I had the accident I was in the ambulance holding it all together and trying to be a hero and he came up to me and told me how he thought I was hurt and he was so worried, we both had tears, I had to tell him to stop it because it was making me cry!”
The next day Jordan returned to follow up on his favourite driver to see how he was.
“Later on he came up to see how I was and he told me about the remote control car he wanted to save up for,” Kapiris said. “So I went over there and bought him the car he wanted to say thanks.”
It was a generous gesture from one of Top Doorslammer’s fan favourite drivers.
Kapiris ended up going on to win the Australian Nationals and take an early lead in the points, while chief rival John Zappia was a shock DNQ (did not qualify), missing the field cut off by just 0.013 seconds.
Kapiris will this weekend be competing at the 41st annual Goldenstates in Perth for the second round of the ANDRA Top Doorslammer series. He said repairs have progressed well on the 400kmh Dodge Saratoga.
“(Crew chief) Mark Brew has been working until 11pm every night to get the car ready,” he said. “We have another lock up clutch back in it and have fixed some damage to the rear main bearing so we will have two engines ready for Perth.
“We should be back to running in the 5.80 second region in Perth. We had to run without a lock up clutch in Sydney after the explosion. We won’t have time to test the new clutch unfortunately but we haven’t got a choice.”
Kapiris said the 19 cars entered for the weekend’s racing was a vote of confidence in the category and showed that despite the bonus points that used to apply to the Perth round being removed, entries were still strong.
“It will be one of the biggest fields this season and one of the toughest,” he said. “I’m sure John (Zappia) is going to be hard to beat at his home track, he will be out for some revenge.”
Qualifying for the ANDRA Drag Racing Series featuring Top Doorslammer and Top Alcohol at Perth Motorplex begins at 6pm on Friday, with eliminations from 6pm Saturday.
