X Champs is upon us and it has been a week of frantic testing where for some not everything went to plan, here is a wrap up with loads of photos and video footage.
The only Top Fuel dragster to make appearance was that of Rapisarda Racing driven by Damien Harris, the Harris dragster did not have a good time of it during it’s last outing at the Willowbank event.
The team attempted two passes both ending early.
Talking point of the week came from Top Alcohol with the debut of Russell Mills’ front engined Top Alcohol dragster, though really it is just a stretched funny car chassis which exceeds the maximum allowed altered wheelbase to officially be classed as such.
Built by Richard Botica the car is a work of art as you would expect and just looks bad ass!
After a half track shakedown, the “funster” as it has been labelled cranked a 6.00 at only 201mph with the early shut off as Mills drifted near the wall in the top end.
In a private test session Gary Phillips showed he will still be the one to beat with a off the trailer 5.61 then hammered out a 5.49.
Attempting to rein him in is Steven Ham who put down a 5.55 and a 5.53. John Cannuli made two passes suffered severe shake as evident by the top intro image.
As usual all hell tries to break loose in Top Doorslammer, Stephen Dupond suffered some violent tyre shake that buried the gorgeous Mustang in the wall, fortunately Dupond was unharmed.
Jeff Wilson returned to the track in his rebuilt Corvette, a first up out of control burnout was nearly a case of de-ja-vu.
The team team must think the Corvette is the anti-Christ with three days of testing yielding nothing but tyre shake.
After a very disappointing start to the season with two non qualifying results Peter Kapiris must perform at the X Champs. On Tuesday’s private session the Batmobile smashed a off the trailer 5.79, he backed that up with a 5.89 the next day, the final run of that day had incrementals that would of surpassed the 5.79 pass had the car run out the back door.
John Zappia pedaled a 5.90 best pass.
Doorslammer newcomer Johnny Roso is still feeling his way with the step up in performance clocking a 6.36 in the stunning Camaro
Simon Travaglini made his first appearance at Sydney Dragway with only a single pass yielding a 6.27
A 6.17 was the best Maurice Fabietti could muster in testing.
The Tremayne brothers are on their game, like most of the Pro Stock cars testing very few ran it out the back, Aaron Tremayne’s 7.03, the best numbers to come up on the boards. Interestingly one shut off pass showed a 1.00 sixty and much quicker incrementals to that of the 7.03 run, Tyronne finished with a 7.07 best ET.
The Spinozzi team put in a lot of testing over the past week under the guidance of Michael Marriot, 7.10 was their best performance in that time.
Jason Hedges has NHRA racer and Mountain View Performance’s Dave Beckley in his corner this weekend as they continue to work on sorting out the new car. John Barbagallo also put in some laps delivering a 7.18 at only 181mph as their best pass ET wise.
Nino Cavallo, Bill Perdikaris and Joe Polito all threw down passes as well but yielding nothing representative.
Moving into the two wheel classes, Chris Porter was the only fuel bike out testing and the National Champion carded a 6.74 at 208mph.
Likewise Momo Allen was the only Pro Bike out, the Milwaukee Tools machine stopping the clocks with a 7.33.
There was a bunch of sportsman testing, highlights included a number of spectacular wheelstands from Jason Field’s Ford Pilot.
Craig Hewitt experience a few heart stopping launches from his new blown Monaro, this will be a Pro Street weapon once they can stop it blowing the tyres off.
Paul Mouhayet battling to hook up the 10.5 bags pulled out a 6.28 at 244mph.
Turbo teddy counterparts Rob Campisi and Steve Petrovski recorded 6.17 and 6.35 best testing ETs respectively.
Stephen Willies beautiful Torino took a pretty nasty swipe on the wall, the car has only been back for a few events following a previous accident and I dont think the 8.20 PB will make up for the damage. I hope we will see one of the more unique cars in drag racing back soon.
Racing on radials is chasing ETs the hard way, Victorian Michael Kalaitzakis is in the race for the first Australian six second radial pass and a 7.14 at 207 from the twin turbo big block Supra is seeing the team take chunks off their PB at each outing.
Dallas Whyte was the quickest of the aspirated cars as they look to reset their National Record this weekend, a 6.75 in testing has them on target.
Notable mention to Alf Axiak, we are pretty sure his 9.19 is the quickest naturally aspirated rotor pass in Australia.
More highlights from Madman Productions:
Check out the mammoth testing gallery below:
Photos by Grant Stephens & Neil Larsen – www.cacklingpipes.com
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