The 2013 Slamfest series moved to the Victorian seaside Fuch’s South Coast Raceway in Portland where John Zappia dominated the field and Sean Mifsud suffered a serious accident.
Fuchs South Coast Raceway is known for its killer start line traction, cool but often blustery conditions and is a real favourite for racers. Slamfest kicked off with a non compulsory test session which saw Russ Pavey in the United Tools Corvette blast the track record into the ocean with a 4.14.
Qualifying round had nine entries, that was reduced to eight when Marcus Chambers had mechanical problems that retired the Monaro from the event. Pavey could not back up the previous run going 4.76, and it was the big fella Victor Bray who headed Doorslammer pack with a 4.16 just out nudging nemesis Zappia’s 4.19.
The qualifying session was marred by the vicious crash of Sean Mifsud, driving John Cannuli’s Camaro, the Camaro smoked the tyres turning hard left, Mifsud quickly caught it from impacting the left wall but could not pull out of the over correction needed to just miss Kapiris and slammed into the right hand wall at 170MPH hurtling the car back across the track. Mifsud suffered broken ribs and a broken leg but was in reasonable spirits showing off his new “race boot” on Facebook.
Mifsud crash
First round featured Grant O’Rouke downing Pavey 4.23 to 4.76, Zappia decimated the track record with a 4.01 in handing a defeat to Ben Brays 4.26. Kapiris had a nail biter against Slamfest debutant Pat Carbone 4.232 to 4.234 and with the reduced field Victor was on the pace with a 4.07 bye run.
With the seven car field running the three round format it would mean all winners would advance to the semi finals.
Zappia took the long route for his 4.06 while O’Rourke was out of shape and clicked it. Victor and Kapiris were door to door before the Chev went silent fortunately for Kapiris who begun spinning the tyres for a 4.30 to the coasting 4.70.
Kapiris had the holeshot in the final but was getting loose down track to allow the Zappia Monaro to storm past with another 4.01 at event top speed of 184MPH to the Saratoga’s 4.32
Semis and final.
The victory leaves Zappia atop the points with 210, Kapris with 195 and Victor rounding out the top three with 130.
The next round of the Slamfest is currently scheduled for Benaraby in Gladstone, QLD on June 29th.
In the support classes the winners were:
Extreme Outlaws
L 4749 Dean Cleary 4.82 0.024 0.107 1.150 3.154 144.84 4.844 WIN
R 3764 Mick Braggs 4.87 0.036 0.191 1.085 3.144 139.43 4.906 LOSE
Super Sedan
L 2115 Stephen Griffin 6.29 0.026 0.078 1.422 4.061 107.52 6.316 WIN
R 3166 Dominic Zito 6.23 0.037 0.097 1.410 4.031 109.92 6.267 LOSE
Modified
R 1031 Stewart Johnson 5.40 0.065 0.053 1.226 3.490 122.37 5.465 WIN
L 3460 Josh Voigt 5.43 0.068 0.059 1.174 3.493 121.45 5.498 LOSE
Super Street
R 4966 Malcolm Todd 7.04 0.018 0.125 1.596 4.512 92.08 7.058 WIN
L 2150 Chris King 7.07 0.007 0.148 1.628 4.570 97.72 7.077 LOSE
Bike
L 1590 Jamie Dohnt 6.30 0.004 0.043 1.637 4.175 114.97 6.304 WIN
R B19 Mathew Ireland 6.99 -0.045 0.077 1.749 4.573 103.32 6.945 LOSE
Nostalgia
L 3576 Julian Carafa 5.15 0.074 -0.064 1.167 3.362 131.80 5.224 WIN
R 2787 Damien Kemp 6.90 0.092 -0.001 1.510 4.449 95.94 6.992 LOSE
Super Gas
L 1017 Bruno Romeo 6.30 0.034 0.040 1.520 4.301 123.14 6.334 WIN
R 1013 Matt Forbes 6.30 0.015 0.067 1.593 4.199 116.13 6.315 LOSE
Checkout all the sportsman action courtesy of Jesse Kelly.
Extreme Outlaw – Modified – Super Gas
Super Sedan – Super Street – Super Gas – Nostalgia
Photos by Tom Dowden and Jesse Kelly
