The highs and lows of drag racing are being experienced in full force by Scratch & Match Motorsport right now, with the Riverbend Nationals at The Bend Motorsports Park delivering another rollercoaster of emotions for the team.
Lisa Gregorini recorded best-ever numbers in her Camaro Top Doorslammer, but husband Daniel continued to battle parts failure in what has been a tough season in both the national and state series.
One of the most exciting moments of the season came during the third qualifying session of Top Doorslammer, where Lisa recorded a new personal best of 5.646 seconds — also making her one of the quickest Top Doorslammer racers outright in the nation.
“At first we were shut down on the line before going into stage due to our opponent having problems out on the track after their burnout,” Lisa said.
“We were pushed to the rear of the field to make our final attempt at qualifying. With the motor and transmission hot from already doing a burnout we opted to do a short burnout and get into stage as quickly as possible. I shut the car off at 5.3 seconds into the run as it started to move around near the finish line. I knew the run was quick but never expected it to be that quick, especially as I lifted early.”
Round one should have seen an all Scratch & Match Motorsport pairing, but engine damage for Daniel’s Camaro ruled him out of race day.
“In Q1 we shook the tyres on a green track that had to be totally re-prepped after a rain shower came through,” Daniel said. “In Q2 the car left hard and fast, then boom! One massive explosion later we got back to the pits to find rods out. The problem ended up being a $45 fitting that supplies the cylinder head with fuel to the down nozzles. The fitting was leaking and cylinder eight was the last cylinder in the row on that head, so it was starved of fuel, seized up the rod bearing to the crank and broke the rod.”
The bad news at least meant an easy win light for Lisa, despite tyre shake. The second round matched her against South Australian Mick Mahoney, where a 5.718 pass delivered maximum points for the team and earned a place in the B Final against Ronnie Palumbo. In a tight race to the finish line, Palumbo took the holeshot win but Lisa was able to hold her head high with a 5.684 pass at a new personal best speed of 252.58mph.
“We are still holding onto second position in the national championship points and have slightly extended our lead ahead of third position,” she said.
“It’s certainly a dream to be performing this well in the Australian Top Doorslammer Championship and we will be looking to finish the season as strongly as we started.”
As for Daniel, the challenges facing his car seem more related to bad luck than preparation.
“It seems parts failures are our issue at the moment and we just can’t catch a break right now,” Daniel said. “We will rebuild with our awesome team and sponsors and push on in Sydney at the Nitro Champs.
“The positive from the weekend was that I could spend time on Lisa’s data with her and make good choices in her car’s tune up to make her go fast. Lisa goes through her own data, then I take a look and I’ll explain what went wrong or what we can work on and I give her choices on what to do. We make a decision moving forward and as Lisa gets more and more racing experience she can then make calls independently with her great team.”
Major sponsors :
Scratch & Match Autocolourr, Consolidated Group, Oil & Energy Pty Ltd, Kerb Doctor, Westcoast Siteworks, S&S Industries, Dalisa Estate Winery
Supporting sponsors :
Applied Automotive Performance Engines, Signbiz WA, FuelTech Australia, FuelTech USA, Harness-Tech, RACIN, G-Force Race Cars, Resolution Racing Services Inc, Dirty Detailing, Final Drive Engineering, DMPE INC, Kinetic Engineering
