Angelo Locantro’s dragster survived just long enough to take home a Modified win from the opening event of the season and he is hoping for a more trouble free event at the 45th Annual Goldenstate Championships this Saturday, December 1 at Perth Motorplex.
Locantro said the six cylinder rail first had troubles shifting, before a more serious problem literally came knocking later in the night.
“We had problems early, on the first pass it hit the rev limiter and didn’t shift into second,” he said. “We thought it was a driver error so we didn’t think much of it until it did it again on the next run. We found an issue with the shifter cable and were able to sort it out for the third qualifying session, running a track record 9.91 in the BB/MD class.
“After the burnout in the semi finals the engine started knocking. Luckily we were on a solo and I cruised it down and into the finals.”
The final round was an unusual affair when Locantro’s opponent Jeff Acton ran quicker than his nominated dial-in, resulting in a ‘break out’ disqualification – even though Locantro was stranded on the start line.
“We fired up the car for the final and rolled it into stage hoping that our competitor would red light or break out – which he did,” Locantro explained.
“We won the event and now lead the WA Modified Championship. We damaged the number cylinder big end bearing, so the engine is apart and we are waiting to get the crank and rods back from the machine shop so we can get it back together for the Goldenstates.”
Locantro said the track record had been a goal when putting together the car.
“We’d previously run the car in B/MD and after checking the track records online I saw that BB/MD would be possible for us to break, so we stepped it up.”
With a freshened motor for the Goldenstates, Locantro will look to maintain his points lead and see if he can’t improve that record.
“We’d like to get on to the tune up early in the day and then have consistency from there,” he said. “I’m only new to Modified racing so the more runs we do, the better I’ll get with my reaction times and we will see if the car can do the rest of the work.”
The 45th Annual Goldenstate Championships brings racers from across the country to compete as part of the Summit Sportsman Series.
The event will also see the Beach Bomb and Fun-da-mental Nitro Funny Cars doing battle, plus the second round of the Summer Slam Series for Top Doorslammers.
Qualifying begins from 10am, with eliminations racing from 4pm and the feature program from 5.30pm.
