Tristan Triccas and Jason Mansweto came to the 2010 Nitro Champs and unleashed hell on their Pro Street competitors.
The battle to be top dog in the Australian Pro Street Association’s (APSA) Pro Street Aspirated class has been a fierce tug of war between the Capris of Matthew Basanovic and Trick & Mansweto.
The Trick & Mansweto team have raised the bar that could see the performance level out of reach of their competitors for some time to come.
At the 2010 Nitro Champs Tristan Triccas wheeled out their Capri fitted now with a 694ci mountain motor between the rails and clocked a 7.14 second best at 191MPH, far surpassing the Pro Street Aspirated class best of 7.32 held by Basanovic.
Despite the massive jump in performance for the car, the team did fall short of their goals for the event.
“We wanted to run a six second pass naturally aspirated, to be the first Pro Street sedan to do this, but time got the better of us and the right converter could not make it here in time, so we had to use the old one and make the best of it,” Triccas said
“The new engine is based on a 429ci Boss and the heads are castings that were used in the early days of Pro Stock.
“These days the heads are used by Kaase & Sonny for their mountain motors but their cubic inches are much greater.”
The old combination was a leader in the class for a number of years, but recently competition from Basanovic has forced a change
“The old engine was a 604ci wedge headed deal,” Triccas said.
“We needed more power to become number one again, and even if we used our old deal and we went up in cubes it would only just step in front of Marto, so we wanted to make a big jump to show people what we are capable of and what we can supply them if asked.”
Despite not achieving a six second slip, the team was reasonably happy with the results.
“We were very surprised on how tame the car was previously, but then turned into animal when extra power was added” he said.
The event wasn’t all smooth running, Triccas fronted for an exhibition run to close Saturday night qualifying, but the cold conditions nearly bit hard.
“It shook the tyres and a little bit of inexperience on my behalf, I thought when it shook I could shift top gear and it would bog the engine and accelerate through that point and still run okay,” he said.
“However it was not a good thought with 1100 Ft Lbs and 1550 horsepower, it just sent the wheel speed through the roof and turned right.
“Honestly I thought we were stuffed and it was going to need panel work again, but only with luck on my side I managed to steer it away from the wall and back straight.”
With the six second pass the team’s primary goal, there is a chance of bigger and more potent things to come.
“We want to run a six second pass aspirated first and then not too sure at this point, it was getting a 700 horse nitrous shot but that might not work as well as we are imagining, it might get a new rear end and then gas it or it might go into a Pro Stock style car and run Super Stock in an actual class for a short while,” he said.
“This whole exercise was to show people what we are capable of, and to see customers bring their motors to us so we can make them number one, this is our aim.
“This motor is actually owned by one of our customers and it is going in his Mod Street car, for him to try and secure the number one spot in Mod Street and Mod Street Blown. At that point we will step back from racing, watch and support him on his journey to we hope the number one position, fingers crossed he can pull it off, but it’s going to be a some great racing between all the Mod Street boys.”
Last month the APSA changed hands and the new owners aim to lift the profile of Pro Street to a whole new level in Australia. Trick & Mansweto have been out spoken in the past about the direction of Pro Street but hold positive views for the future.
“Looking at the big picture it sounds like a good thing to add more people to control the racers,” he said
“Fab (Anthony Di Fabio) had done a great job and the APSA would not be where it is if it was not for him and guys like Barney (Demaj). Now Simon Kryger, John Habib and Johnny Wilson have control and we think it’s going to grow very quickly. It needs a common set of rules that agrees with all states and then we can all race together.
“We need to get back to the old days when we all got together as friends after racing and enjoyed our time together.”
Trick and Mansweto Racing couldn’t achieve their goals without the valued support of Dominator Converters, BSM Transmissions, Underwood Smash, Craft Differentia, Pro System Carbs and their good customer Darko for the use of his engine.
Copyright Drag News Australia
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