13th Jan 2007 - Jet Car Meeting - Perth Motorplex.
18th January 2007
Zappia Racing continued their local testing program in the Striker Monaro Top Doorslammer at the Perth Motorplex last weekend. The Jet Dragster meeting featured a “Top Comp” class for blown alcohol sedans, altereds, and dragsters running national indexes.
“We wanted to further test the BAE engine with the experimental Walt Austin heads, as they showed potential at the last meeting with 6.026et and 6.030et passes with a fairly mild tune.” said John Zappia. “This combo is our No 2 engine, as the original world record setting engine combo is well and truly sorted and consistent.”
High track temperatures, requiring Zap to pedal to settle the car down and point in the right direction, hampered afternoon qualifying runs. A 6.238et @ 227.84mph, and a 6.376et @ 233.16 was enough to qualify second in the seven vehicle field, on a 6.420 index.
First elimination round saw the Striker Monaro up against rookie and Top Comp points leader Aaron Deery in his BB/D dragster. A 6.062et @ 236.22mph by Zap was not quick enough to beat Deery’s 6.349et off a 6.75 index, but ensured the two would meet again in the “B Final” later in the evening.
The “B Final” saw Zap rattle off what would have been a round winning Top Doorslammer pass of 6.034et @ 236.84mph, but Deery was the man on fire and hole shot with a .008 reaction time and rattled off a personal best 6.315et to win the race.
“We are happy with the passes tonight” said Zap, “This is index racing and we have to take into account that we race in a heads up manner as practice for Top Doorslammer, and that hurts our index sometimes on the day.”
“We are getting excited about Round 4 of the Top Doorslammer Championship
“Summernationals” on February 16 – 17th 2007 at Western Sydney International Dragway, NSW. We have had some bad luck and forced errors in previous rounds, but the team and the car are settling down nicely into a groove, and we expect to do well.”
Zappia racing will race at the next local meeting in Perth on 3rd Feb 2007, and then take the long trek across Australia to Sydney.
