The Queensland weather turned out to be the toughest competitor at this years Winternationals, with Saturday's racing being washed out, dealing many teams a cruel blow with their qualifying times set on the first night standing as the qualifying order. John Zappia did not qualify for this last round of Top Doorslammer, denying him a last ditched effort to win the Championship.
"Our first qualifier could have been better, but light rain was drizzling on the track when we started our run, and the burnout was way too short - the RENTCO Monaro started out sideways forcing me to back off early. With cold tyres the car shook and I had to peddle a couple of times and short shift to settle it down - by the time I hit top gear the clutch was slipping and a 6.867 @ 213.57mph was the result. I never saw Stuart Bishop behind me spinning out of control, but I heard he had a wild ride and nearly hit the wall."
"That's twice this season we have not qualified, so achieving Runner-up in the 2005/2006 Top Doorslammer Championship is a great achievement for Zappia Racing. Congratulations to Victor for winning the event, and to Steve Stanic and Lucky Belleri for winning the Championship."
"The weekend has not been a total write-off, as we are committed to competing at the National level, and we understand the bigger picture in drag racing. It was disappointing to see hard hitting Top Doorslammers sitting in the pits not racing, but we enjoyed mixing with our fans and fellow racers, and were able to work on final deals for next season's sponsorship with Striker Crushing Equipment, who have senior management in Queensland."
At a trophy presentation after the finals, the Australian Top Doorslammer Association presented Zap with the inaugural "Five Second Club" Certificate, and a tongue in cheek "Hard Luck Award" for having to sit out the event. Queenslander Aaron Lynch was also admitted to the "Five Second Club" after his stunning 5.973sec pass at the recent Tin Top Titles.
"We hired the Willowbank track today (Monday) with Ben Bray and Stuart Bishop, and were able to put down some test passes. Our first run was a soft 6.21 @ 238.6mph, then ran a 6.10 @ 237.0mph with a lot of clutch slippage. We had spent a fair bit of money on new channels in the Motec data logging system we run, and for the first time had some significant data in areas not known before. So much of Top Doorslammer racing is the 1% changes, and small variables at each track - just look at what Victor was able to achieve this weekend after he made some minor changes".
"We are ready to start the next season in September with a trip to Sydney's WSID in Round 1 of the 2006/2007 Top Doorslammer Championship. It gives us a couple of months to take a break, have our crew and sponsors party and gear up for next season. We have some exciting announcements with our sponsorship deals for next season once the deals are finalised."
A special thanks to all the sponsors, crew and supporters who have been with us through the good and not so good and helped make this one of our most successful seasons in Zap's Rat history. We look forward to going one better next season and with the continued support of our sponsors and fans we will pull out all stops to make it happen.
Also thanks to the ANDRA stewards, ANDRA officials, Track Managers, track officials and support staff who make these events happen.
