Victor Bray has jumped from tenth to sixth in the ANDRA Top Doorslammer championship courtesy of a semi-final appearance at the weekend’s X-Champs.
Despite shortened qualifying, a major transmission failure and a wild round one ride against fellow Queenslander Gary Phillips, the six-time back-to-back Top Doorslammer champion secured a berth in the semi-final and the points necessary to jump up the title ranks.
“It was a tumultuous weekend at the X-Champs for me that is for sure, we had rain early on Saturday which delayed the start by a couple of hours and then I suffered a major transmission failure towards the end of my first qualifying run,” said Victor Bray, who was one of 20 Top Doorslammer racers who took part in the X-Champs event.
“I missed the second qualifier and then due to cooling conditions ANDRA decided to call-off the third and final session – luckily my first session performance was enough for seventh in the field, which saw me set to line up against Gary Phillips in the opening round.
“The crew worked through the night to get the Sidchrome 57 Chev ready for race day in a massive effort. Just after the 60 foot mark she drove to the right and took me close to the wall, but after a big pedal I was able to recover and take the win light to go to the semi-final against John Zappia.
“Unfortunately the ‘turn right’ issue returned in the semi-final just after the 60 foot and I was unable to recover in time.
“Despite not making it to the final, the points I accumulated have enabled me to jump up to sixth from tenth on the points, so all in all it was a successful day at the race track for me.”
The challenges for TBR weren’t confined to Victor’s side of the pits this weekend, with the Sidchrome Monaro of his son Ben Bray also suffering major damage in the first qualifying session, with the blower pulley shearing off the snout of the blower.
Like his father, Ben missed the second qualifying session while the crew worked madly to repair the damage before ANDRA’s decision to cancel the third qualifying session saw the three-time champion missing out on a race day berth.
“It was certainly a hectic weekend at Sydney Dragway for Team Bray Racing, but as we continue to work on the new converter set-up any track time is good news for us so we will focus on the upsides, including dad’s jump up in the championship standings,” said Ben Bray.
“From here the championship chase travels to our home track of Willowbank Raceway for the Winternationals – the largest championship drag race event outside of the USA; so we will be doing everything we can to put on a great show for our local fans.”
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