The Atura Blacktown NSW Championship Series at Sydney Dragway has reached its fourth round before going into a Winter break. Despite the ultimate in weather conditions, racing was adversely effected due to a high number of oil downs.
As a result of the down time the scheduled third qualifier was abandoned so racing could be finished before racers and track turned into popsicles when the cold night moved in.
Unfortunately Pro Extreme, Super Comp, Top Comp, Supercharged Outlaws and Super Gas did not have fields due to either lack of numbers or entrants just wanting to test. Even so, the event still hosted over 200 entries.
The Constantinou father and son duo are dominating Top Sportsman, son Neil scored his second straight event win defeating a breaking out Thomas Leake. With finals number that read 7.721 on a 7.72 dial in, with a .010 light, Neil will win a fair share of contests on that form.
Modified has been closely fought this season to date, with no one racer dominating. In fact you have to look down to tenth place in the championship points to find an event winner. And so the trend continued at this event with Mark Bool and Paul Linnett fighting out the final – both racers outside the top ten in points. Bool broke-out by a hair trying to stay ahead of Linnett’s hard charging altered, the win to Linnett was a payoff for a diabolical learning curve with the car for the relative Modified newbie. After spending an age trying to get the altered to hook up without shaking tyres solved, a broken wheelie bar sent the altered skyward nearly destroying the chassis a few months ago, the team just back on track repaired.
In Super Sedan, David Gruber is amid a purple patch of form after finishing runner-up at Nitro Thunder in Strip Rat, with the Canberran again featuring in the final. Ironically he was also against Marco Tolomeo who defeated him for that Gold Christmas Tree, and looking to string together his second straight Atura Championship win. With nearly a 5 hundredths startline advantage to Tolomeo’s Falcon, Tolomeo nudged ahead of Gruber at the stripe for a holeshot win, and cementing a championship lead over the second placed Gruber.
It was a case of third time lucky for Luke Griffiths as he fronted his third straight Super Street final. Michael Walsh picked off the cherry in the other lane, handing the win to Griffiths’ American muscle. The pair are one-two in the championship fight.
With Robert Simmonds eliminating himself via a red light in round one of Modified Bike, it was the perfect chance for racers to cut into his championship lead. By the end of the night, Dale Williams competing in his first round of the season held off the wheelstanding Ian Smith for the win, and Smith moved within 20 points of the championship lead going into the Winter break.
Championship guns Joel Burns and Georgia Fardella were shock first round losers in Junior Dragster. A very excited Zac Refalo cleaned house and won his first ever event, defeating Lachlan MacCaskell in a double breakout final.
In Street Fighter, David Jennings moved into equal top in the championship thanks to back to back finals. This time the Commodore driver took home the trophy after Peter Thompson red lit in his Starion.
Wayne Odgers was looking to go one step better than his last round runner-up finish in Street Bike, but broke out by 5 thousandths to a better reacting Shane Torok.
Ezio Cacciotti stormed to his third straight HAMBster event win, this time taking Jeff Danglmaier down in the final.
In case you missed it, here is our event highlight gallery posted the other day – http://dragnews.com.au/news-all/local-news/3965-gallery-sydney-dragway-atura-blacktown-track-championship-series-round-4.html
