Outlaw Nitro and Pro Street testing day one review

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This weekend’s Outlaw Nitro Funny Car and Pro Street extravaganza is nearly upon us and as a teaser we have three days of testing to whet the appetites for what is to come, here is what day one delivered at Sydney Dragway.

Into the Outlaw Nitro Funny Cars first and NHRA star Tommy Johnson Jr shook down the L.A. Hooker for a low six second pass to become accustomed to a slightly different funny car set up than he is used to.

Shane Olive had the race face on and drove through some heavy shake to record a 6.02 at 244mph on his only pass of the day.

Aaron Hambridge made several attempts in the Fuchs Flyer with a few gremlins hampering the machine in recent testing, early numbers though show this is a record setting car.

Into Pro Street and the highlight was the debut of Dom Luppino’s Mustang, packing 670 cubes fed by twin turbos. The car has run both radial and 10.5 set ups, it looked like Dom settled for the 10.5s today with a few shake down passes.

Conditions today did not seem to favour anyone with no real quick representative passes made by the majority of runners, Jeremy Callaghan looked good to about 3/4 track on his last pass before getting squirrelly.

Relative Pro Street Blown newcomer Glen Foster made a few steady low seven second runs with the ex Dom Luppino Muzzy.

Looks like radial tyres are all the rage, both the Outlaw Radial and X275 class having big entry numbers for the event. Six second radial man Daniel Nunziate failed to hook up the Cortina for a full pull, like wise Darren Mood with a new engine combo in his Mustang.

Danny Busbridge is another new Outlaw Radial contender, the twin turbo Torrie did not execute a full pass, but a low eight with a way early shut off more than hints at that potential.

Look who is back, the Steve Sarkis owned Sam Fenech driven Grand Am has been repaired in no time after a crash just over a month ago and will be looking to lay down some laps in coming days.

There is no shortage of mint machines in the Pro Street ranks, Tomi Raikko’s Torana is up there in the high quality stakes. No serious numbers today from yet another twin turbo boosted beast, but be sure they will be sorted in no time.

Still in the upper echelon of quality, Marc Leake who won a ANDRA Best Engineered award for this car just last year when it was in its aspirated form has also given the Torana the twin turbo treatment for Outlaw Radial duties.

Up from the Apple Isle Darren Triffett wheelstood his Holden wagon as he makes the transition from a Powercruise tyre torturer to Pro Street Blown runner.

Factory Xtreme is on the bill this weekend as well for their series Grand Final, Queenslanders Scott Porter and Collin Willshire attempted a number of passes, Willshire literally shaking the doors off the Eclipse on one run.

Not exactly Pro Street, but Pro Stock’s Emilio Spinozzi took the opportunity to begin testing already for next season with a re-signed Michael Marriot calling the shots. After a few aborted passes the team capped their day off with a 7.05 and 7.02 second laps in less than ideal conditions for naturally aspirated motors.