There was only a short two week turn around to round seven of the Atura Track Championship Series at Sydney Dragway, but racers were on their game ready to go again on what was another perfect day for racing. The day’s highlight was Paul Mouhayet’s record setting turbo run, the low light was a violent crash for Jeff Wilson’s in his Top Doorslammer.
We will start with the good, Paul Mouhayet and the Moits team again proved they are boss when it comes to turbo racing, again resetting the quickest elapsed time for a turbo powered car in Australia with a 5.86 at a chutes out early 249mph.
The bad, was a hard crash for Jeff Wilson when his Top Doorslammer drove out of the groove and turned hard left impacting the wall. Jeff climbed out immediately unharmed and the car – while looking trashed – held up very well and just needs to be front halved along with a new body, work that is already under-way.
Other testing of note involved the Top Fuel Motorcycles of Michael Gregg and Rod Barchet, though neither bike ran a representative pass.
With Wilson out, Top Comp was down to a single car in Mike Nola. With flames belching from the headers, Nola laid down impressive 6.62, 6.62 and 6.64 runs.
In Super Comp John Culmone bashed the 8.04 second C/G National Record with his Pontiac throughout the day, stopping the clocks in the final and bringing the win light on with a 7.73 against Brendan Markham’s AA/SM Skyline that battled tyre spin all day.
Arthur Yiannitos was unstoppable again in Supercharged Outlaws, the Capri racer has back to back Atura wins, this time over John Ward in the final. Wardy cut a near perfect 7.201 on a 7.20 run only to slip up on the start line allowing the Capri’s 7.779 on a 7.72 run to nab him on a holeshot.
Jason Stares extracted revenge on Neil Constantinou in the Top Sportsman final after losing to the ultra competitive Mustang last round. With the two racers squaring off again this event, Stares was up on the wheel with a .018 light in the final and drove around the Constantinou with a 7.254 on a 7.23.
After nailing back to back perfect lights in eliminations last event Alan White only came up perfect once this event, but he did go on and win Modified against Tim Nielsen with a tidy 8.585 on a 8.58.
A red light from Sean Maher decided the Super Sedan final at the tree, with Michael Little gifted the win. Both racers a generally throwing down the gauntlet in the Super Sedan track championship and this result will help both of them get back to the pointy end of the table with only two rounds to go.
Long time Super Gas racer John ‘JB’ Somoracz showed he still had it with a perfect 9.900 pass in round one of racing, the manually shifted Cortina though was a just fractionally too quick in the final as Joe Catanzariti took the trophy with a 9.914.
The green light in Modified Bike final could not have come quick enough for either racer in the Modified Bike final, as Joe Khoury and Ron Adams both picked off the cherry, Adams went first handing the win to Khoury.
Stan Nikitaras collected his second win in three final attempts for Super Street this season and comfortably leads the points tally, Michael Walsh was his final round victim this time around.
The girls were showing the boys how to race in Junior Dragster with Emma Hazzard and Caitlin Zammit making up the all female final duo. Reaction times were off for both on the green but “Boony” Zammit nailed her dial in with a 8.117 on a 8.11 pushing Hazzard to a breakout run.
Ben Roberts red lighted by a bunch in the Street Fighter final leaving Monica Zahra to earn the easiest of wins in her litte tray backed ute.
In Street Bike, both racers pushed to a double breakout with Ron Welch going under by the most sending the win over to Colin Northcott aboard his Ducati.
Wrapping up the event were the HAMBster’s running Chicago Shootout, again the final was kept in the Danglmaier family and like last event Stephen was the victor.
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