Tyre shake and mechanical issues saw Team Bray Racing’s Victor and Ben Bray endure a ‘tough day at the office’ during the weekend’s Top Doorslammer racing at Sydney Dragway’s Nitro Champs.
Victor opened his campaign with a promising five second pass (5.967 seconds at 233.96 miles per hour) before his second qualifying attempt (6.295s at 185mph) became expensive indeed when an intake rocker broke late in the run, causing significant damage to the engine.
The six-time ANDRA Top Doorslammer champion decided to sit out the third qualifying session, instead giving his team more time to concentrate on repairing the car ready for race day.
“I was sure our five second result from earlier in the day would keep me in the race field and indeed it did, seeing us line up against local West Aussie Murray O’Connor come race day,” said Victor.
“Both of us suffered from tyre shake off the line, but unfortunately for me O’Connor was able to recover more quickly and beat me to the finish line.
“While Team Bray Racing might not have had the best of weekends, I was really happy to see my friend Peter Kapiris reset the national record during qualifying to 5.792 seconds – congratulations Peter! And as always, big thanks have to go to our crew who work so hard on both of our cars, it might not have gone our way this weekend but that’s just racing!”
Victor’s son Ben also endured some tough times in Sydney, with the blower belt coming off and damaging the motor front seal of his Sidchrome Top Doorslammer at the 1000ft mark of his first qualifying run (6.052s at 243.33mph).
The crew worked tirelessly to ensure Ben and his machine were ready for the second session, where tyre shake intervened for a 6.334 second result. His third attempt of the day saw a best effort of 6.022 seconds, which was unfortunately not enough to make the highly competitive race day field.
“It was a pretty hard day at Sydney Dragway for us for sure, but it wasn’t all bad – we made some good progress on battling the tyre shake issues and also the problems we have been having with the car turning right which has been bothering us for some time,” said Ben.
“We have plans in place now to take my car out for some more testing in the coming weeks, after we take it back to the workshop and put it on the scales.
“The Winternationals at Willowbank Raceway are now just weeks away, and we are certainly looking forward to throwing everything we have as a team at that event.”
The semi-finals saw O’Connor and John Zappia face off, they both left before the starter activated the treefor a ‘no winner’ result. After defeating Peter Kapiris in the other semi-final, Mark Belleri went on to win the Top Doorslammer final with a solo ‘accepting of the tree’ following engine damage incurred during his semi-final win (solo pass due to ‘no winner’ in the other semi-final).
In other racing, while Michael Baghdadi tried his best at the weekend to regain his Australian four cylinder record in the sport compact class, Ben’s Nissan Altima record – set at the Willowbank Raceway just weeks ago – still remains in place.
For full results from this weekend’s Nitro Champs, please visit www.teambrayracing.com./results
Team Bray Racing will next be out and about for the Moreton Shire Council ‘Rodz Rock N Roll’ show, to be held on Saturday 25 May 2013 at Pine Rivers Park (visit http://www.moretonbay.qld.gov.au/rodz/ for more information). Two weeks later, they will be on track for the largest drag racing event held in Australia – the Winternationals at Willowbank Raceway.