Queensland Top Alcohol driver Steven Reed says he may sacrifice the single compulsory qualifying sessions of the Santo’s Cranes Super 3 Extreme Drag Race at Willowbank Raceway in order to find a path to quicker times.
Reed believes the Allstar Batteries/Royal Wolf team has the parts and equipment needed to run into the elusive 5.4 second zone, but needs to find the knowledge to get there and the only way to do that is to test out some theories.
“I’d normally be saying that we will be trying to “5.60” the field to death, but we need to figure out how to go fast,” he said. “To do that we have to try some things but we don’t know whether that will mean we lose our consistency.
“We can always go back to our known set up but it is stab in the dark we need to take.”
With all 11 Top Alcohol teams entered guaranteed to be racing under the three round format, Reed said that the team’s tactic might be to gamble with the qualifying sessions, in the hope it will benefit them in the race rounds.
“On the first run if it doesn’t go down the track we can go back to what we have, unless we are 100% confident that we know what it needs,” he said.
“We have the equipment to run as fast as anybody but we don’t have the 5.40 set up, I don’t know what that set up is. We can try some things but whether or not they will work, I don’t know. We do need to be more aggressive with the car, we baby it too much.”
Reed said he was looking forward to the format of the event, which sees two individual championship events run over two days. Drivers will have a single compulsory qualifying session, followed by an elimination round and then finals.
“One of the main benefits is that everybody gets to run, you don’t have cars just sitting in the pits,” he said. “That’s a win-win for both spectators and racers.”
Reed, a former national champion, will face a quality field including reigning champion Gary Phillips, Adelaide round winner Wayne Newby and quick local Steven Ham.
The Santo’s Cranes Super 3 Extreme Drag Race takes place on Good Friday and Easter Saturday (March 29-30) at Willowbank Raceway.
Current Top Alcohol Point Standings
1 Gary Phillips 212
2 Steve Reed 173
3 John Cannuli 151
4 Wayne Newby 145
5 Rob Pilkington 108
6 Wayne Price 106
7 Jon Sting 85
8 Gary Busch 84
