Nitro Slam opened racing for the New Year at the Perth Motorplex quickly followed by Nitro Max, the nitro-fuelled event double in January saw popular NHRA star Tommy Johnson Jr take on the local Perth Motorplex Nitro Max stars.
The third round of the NDRC Top Doorslammer Championship was also contested in conjunction with Nitro Slam, you can read about that here: https://dragnews.com.au/ndrc-2025-nitro-slam-event-notebook-gallery/
Perth Motorplex’s local nitro series fields Funny Cars, Altered and Front Engine Dragsters on restricted nitro regulations for affordability making an attractive event headliner. TJ Jr was once again shoehorned into Rory Taylor’s ‘Nitro Thunder’ Trans Am for the two events and team up was virtually unstoppable across both the Nitro Slam and Nitro Max events, leading the series with one round to go on March 22.
At the Nitro Slam event, Johnson Jr thundered to a cracking event final win over James Kemp’s altered 5.677 to 5.759, and while the Nitro Max final wasn’t quite a quick, a 7.80 was good enough for the win light over Shannon Taylor’s ‘Grumpy’ fuel altered.
Nevertheless TJ Jr is always a hit with the fans.
With NDRC Top Doorslammer racing the Nitro Slam event, Nitro Max saw the return of the Blown Alcohol Allstars series, field a number of local Top Doorslammer and Top Alcohol teams. In a effort to overcome recent challenges in the NDRC series, John Zappia top qualified with a 5.72 and continued the performance with a 5.68 round one solo, capping the night of with a 5.69 A-Final win over a wildly out of shape Danny Costello Top Alcohol Altered.
Looking ahead to the Westernationals, John is hoping for further improving his performance. “A new engine with upgraded components is being prepared, and the team aims to push the car harder to find its limits,” said Zappia.
The B-Final went to John’s nephew Brodie on a 5.97 who was also testing and gaining valuable seat time ahead of upcoming NDRC rounds. The event was still a bit of a rollercoaster, but more of a learning curve for the Brodie Zappia Team. “We started by testing a new fuel system in the MAX Plant Monaro, and it showed some real promise. However, I encountered a few hiccups with the supercharger lifting off the car during the 2-step launch,” said Brodie.
Back in the pits, they discovered a misfire. The crew went about replacing several parts of the ignition system but kept the tune-up the same as the previous pass.
“On the next run the car practically left the ground – we definitely found some missing horsepower! Now, the challenge is to tame this beast and find a new baseline for consistent performance,” said Brodie.
The Nitro Slam event was initially a round for NDRC Top Fuel Motorcycle, but that round has been moved to the Riverbend Nationals event. Instead both Nitro events featured Travis Lorraway’s grumbling Nitro Harley and Tony Wood’s flame-throwing Kawasaki battling each other, with more the focus on working on the setup for their own nitro-fuelled two wheelers. For the record Tony Wood won Nitro Slam and Travis Lorraway took out Nitro Max.
In Top Comp it was a case of de-ja-vu, Connor McClure keeps on going quicker in his AA/APIA turbo Corvette defeating Madison Brown’s BB/FCA funny car at both event finals dipping into the 6.2 second zone. Super Comp was only run at the Nitro Max event with Rick Johns’ B/AA altered doing the damage winning the event over Todd Stacey’s 13B Rotary RX7. In the two-wheel index class, Daniel Natalotto proved to be unstoppable claiming both event win in Comp Bike over Brett Ghedina and Ross Smith respectively as he runs away with the Track Championship points lead.
Following in her brother’s footsteps, Kasey McClure did the event double win in Supercharged Outlaws, McClure took the win light with her dragster in the final over Vince Belladonna at Nitro Slam and Jeff Acton at Nitro Max to set up yet another Track Championship series win. In Top Sportsman Yvette Gregg survived a .002 reaction from her Nitro Slam finals opponent Sinisa Brecich when both racers broke out at the stripe to win in her XE Fairmont. While at Nitro Max Jason Lippi with his sweet Grand Am was gifted the win with David Cocciolone going red on the hit.
The Outlaw Radial win went to Brock Moresby and Nitro Slam over Mick Wormall, while the following event saw Stephen Lundy take his LSX powered Mustang to the stripe first in the final over Adrian Hynes in the heads up bracket. Paul Garbellini was to feature in both Modified event finals but just could not get the win light. Michelle Morrison wrapped up Nitro Slam when Garbellini could not take the green and Andrew Frost dropped a .001 reaction in his FED to take the Nitro Max trophy.
Denise Downe had her Nova on song in Super Sedan as Ryan Gosling was too late on the pegs and broke out against her in the Nitro Slam final, Nitro Max saw Kyle Higgins drive around a big holeshot from Paul Mobilia to take the win at the stripe. In huge Modified Bike fields at both events, Brian Hotker rode to victory over Ben Edwards and Luke Seaton likewise over Paul DeKlerk at Nitro Slam and Max respectively. Abundant field were also present in Super Street with Beau Higgins winning a tight tussle against Dean Burtoft at Nitro Slam, while the win went to Craig Caton over Jason Ludlow at Nitro Max.
Junior Draster at Nitro Slam was won by Nathan Townsend over Brock Ferguson and at Nitro Max Ferguson went one better winning the event by defeating Tahlia Martin in the final. Riley Kilvington and Kobe Ashelford fought out both Junior Dragbike final with Kilvington winning Nitro Slam and Ashelford getting comeuppance at Nitro Max.
Photos by Phil Reeve and On The Limit Photography
