The PremiAir Hire Racing team rounded out their Santo’s Summer Thunder experience at Sydney Dragway on Saturday evening with a round victory over Damien Harris.
A .064 to .089 reaction time advantage saw Xiberras better Harris by one hundredth of a second at the finish line with a 3.872 second pass at 304.46 miles per hour over the Rapisarda Autosport International driver’s 3.857/301.60mph effort.
The victory came after a strong yet challenging weekend for the PremiAir Hire Racing team, which conducted two shakedown passes on Friday evening ahead of the three-round, all-run format on Saturday.
The second pass of Friday evening saw the team come oh-so-close to their personal best ET of 3.853 seconds with a 3.854s effort at 308.43 miles per hour before Saturday’s hot and humid conditions saw the majority of the field sit out the final shakedown session before getting down to racing.
In the opening two rounds, Xiberras took on Phil Lamattina, with the first pass seeing the PremiAir Hire driver off the gas early before the second round resulted in the race being decided by just 19 thousandths of a second in Lamattina’s favour following an impressive full-track, side-by-side pass (3.884/314.46mph to 3.915/312.64s).
The final race was yet another impressive side-by-side pass at full flame, leaving the fans and the PremiAir Hire team grinning from ear to ear.
“It was great to end the weekend with a race win, even if we didn’t make it into the final,” Xiberras said.
“With the new combination in the PremiAir Hire dragster and these hot and humid conditions, we have been struggling to get the set-up right as we are essentially learning how to make the new combo work in this kind of weather with so much water in the air.
“While our second and third passes today were definitely strong, there is a lot more in it. The team will never give up and I think we made some really great progress across the weekend.
“Now we turn our attentions to Perth! We are all very excited to be heading over to the Perth Motorplex to race with ANDRA for the 49th annual Westernationals against some great Top Fuel racers, including this weekend’s runner-up Phil Lamattina!”
– PremiAir Racing Media Release
