It rained nearly as many three second passes as wheelstands at the inaugural showing of the Kenda Tires 660 Drag Racial Series at Sydney Dragway in a stunning day’s racing.
It was an explosive start on day one that featured testing and the $15k shootout. Craig Burns ran a string of three second passes to take the $5k win over Craig Hewitt in Outlaw, Ash Mason defeated Scott Cortina in Outlaw 235 and Steve Bezzina took the cash over Sean Muscat in Outlaw 275 in the shootouts.
On race day, the headlining Outlaw Radial class were dropping three second bombs everywhere. Craig Burns ran the first three second radial pass recorded at Sydney Dragway on the day prior but ended up carding an amazing string of ten consecutive runs into the threes – the only pass not, was an off the trailer 4.00! Unfortunately for Burns a holeshot in the third round of the Chicago Shootout format saw him lose to John Ricca 3.94 to a 3.96, the run still creating Sydney Dragway history serving as the venues first side-by-side three.
Perry Bullivant debuted his gorgeous “Maltesers” Corvette and recorded the first 200mph radial pass at Sydney Dragway the day before. It had been a rough preparation for Bullivant with the car damaged in its first testing outing a few weeks prior, but the car was looking stronger after every pass as they dialled it in, going to to reach the final against Ricca.
It had been wild and crazy day on track with wheelstands, explosions and general madness only radial racing can bring. The only serious incident came when Shaun Hale’s beautiful Outlaw Radial fox body Mustang had a heavy top end accident, Hale was able to climb out, but we haven’t any information yet if he suffered any injuries in the impact with wall.
So it was no surprise to see the drama continue into the Outlaw Radial final. Ricca’s Mustang looked to have the Corvette covered with a tidy .039 to .084 jump at the green, only to erupt in a ball of flame just short of the finish line as Bullivant stormed by with a 3.93 at 202mph to take a win on debut for the Maltesers Corvette. Hopefully there is not too much damaged sustained to the Ricca Mustang in the incident.
Wrapping up Outlaw Radial, and Wade Wagstaff debuted ‘The Grinch’ look on the country’s quickest Outlaw Radial machine. The ’57 Chev though was having an up and down event and couldn’t make an impact in racing, but did on the time boards in qualifying with a 3.84, the quickest radial pass of the event.
In the other classes, Steve Bezzina has made it back to back Kenda 660 wins. The XW Falcon teetered on the edge of a huge wheelstand in the final but stayed down to 4.53 defeating a red lighting Andrew Coles who through it all at the tree with his VL in a hope to beat the all conquering Falcon.
Ash Mason backed up his shootout win from the night before to win Outlaw 235. His V8 RX7 took down Graeme MacKinnon’s Hb Torana 4.77 to a 5.27.
In Radial Renegade, Dale Hartill-Law strapped the radial boots onto his Mustang for the first time ever and found himself needing all his bracket racing reaction experience by winning the final over Mitchell Ford’s Torana with a 5.52 to 5.44 holeshot win. Ford though will feature in many photo highlights from the event with some monster wheelstands during the day.
Dave Gardiner’s wheelstanding LX Torana scrapped home in Radial Rumble A over Matt Loy’s nitrous snorting HQ Wagon – 6.42 to 6.44 in the final. With the holeshot to Loy the margin of victory was just .0007 at the stripe.
Radial Rumble B went to Mitchell Bean’s Holden 1 tonner after Daniel Ward red lit my a mere one thousandth with his VG Valiant.
Scott Harker, Justin Simpson and all the Kenda Tires team have to be commended on bringing the Kenda Tires 660 Drag Radial Series to Sydney. It was a extraordinary effort with the team so dedicated they have their own tyre machine, traction compound sprayer and import radial track prep guru Kurt E Johnson from the U.S to deliver the finest racing surface possible. Hopefully the series and radial racing in Australia will continue to explode and capture the fans attention.
Check out the insanity from our wheelstand gallery. Full gallery to come soon.
