Jim Denaro - Meeting Report

After the Nitro Champs it became clear that I had a fuel delivery issue which turned out to be heavy floats that I had slowly been adjusting over the last couple of meetings.

We got to the track Saturday morning to fine skies and started to prepare for a big weekend of competition with a bunch of racers vying for the runner up spot in the track championship and being the last hit out before the Winternationals. (Congratulations Harry Plessas on winning Track Championship after fronting up for the first round but went through to the semis to remove all doubt) Everything seemed good after the warm up; our first qualifier was a bit of a disappointment as on the hit of the throttle the engine fell in a hole then recovered to a 10.077 @ 134.54. We corrected a secondary carb linkage issue and jetted down ready for the next run. The second qualifier was a good one running 9.874 @ 134.15 and going by the incrementels the first run would have been a 9.85 at worst so I considered changing the jetting back but decided against it in favor of a slight timing change. The third qualifier saw it run very similar in the other lane with a slightly slower half track but coming home a bit stronger running 9.877 @ 135.96 that was it for the day, I went home happy feeling that the car is ready for race day.

Sunday:

We had one more qualifier and it was the quickest the car has gone in some time running 9.835 @134.67 the only problem being the 0.016 redlight which can not happen again during the day.

Round 1: I dialed 9.83 to Gordon Taylor in his mustang 9.11, I got the start .024 to .035 and was able to back of to a 9.86 to 9.14 for the win.

Round 2: I dialed 9.84 Joe Valenzi in his monaro 9.31, he left a cherry on the tree so I cruised through.

Quarter Finals: I dialed 9.85 to Ryan Taylor in his chev ute 9.26,he got the start .015 to .031 and as we crossed the finish line I thought I was gone but he had broken out to hand me the win.

Semi Finals: I dialed 9.88 to Frank Palumbo in his torana 9.19, he got the start .020 to .036 but as we approached the finish he was nowhere to be seen so I backed of to 9.90 for the win.

FINAL: What a fitting final leading into the Winternationals with Neil Constantinou in the other lane, equal leaders in Australian championship. I left my dial in at 9.88 to his 9.84, I got a slight advantage of the line .021 to .027 and at the other end I was able to back off and take the win 9.89 to 9.86 Woo Hoo!!!!!!!

Finally a win in the new car, perfect lead into winters and runner up in track championship……

Thanks to my crew, my family and everyone who has helped along the way.

Winners are Grinners……
Tim Nielsen - Meeting Report
Leading up to this event, I was given the opportunity to drive Geoff Wright's Modified Dragster. The last time we teamed up together was back in 2004, when Geoff had one of his engines between the rails of my Modified Dragster. Geoff had parted ways with his driver and asked me if I could steer his dragster as he knew that I was have a break after 20 odd years behind the wheel. Geoff's dragster was taken to my house were we could fit me up and get me as comfortable as possible aswell as fitting a few items onto his dragster. (as Kel would say..Tim will turn it into a Lincon). We fitted a shift solinoid and a  Biondo CO² Launch Control, a must for bracket cars which are chasing. With everything fitted we were ready for racing.
Saturday:
With the Dragster ready for our first qualifier, I had decided that I would only do a half track pass, as it had been almost 12 months since I had driven. I drove Geoff's dragster back when it was brand new 10 years ago, so I knew all was good.
Qualifier 1: The burnout felt good, nice to have some horsepower up my ass again and a couple of hundred more than I am used to. I left the line and we headed right towards the wall then it headed left towards the centre line and it all happened real quick, but the dragster felt safe and I got it back in the groove just before half track, at that point it all felt good so I left my foot into it for the full quarter (that felt quick) I pulled the chute and got nothing, I started bouncing and got the dragster under control and safely off the track. Not an ideal situation, first pass back. When my crew came and picked me up, Geoff had a huge smile on his face comenting on a nice 7.80 @ 170 mph half track pass. I told him that it felt good so I kept into it, we just need to fix the chute cable and bleed the brakes before out second qualifier.
Qualifier 2: We seemed to having a little trouble with the launch control as the Dragster rocked forward while in full stage, which didn't help on the reaction time. We ran 7.801 @ 171mph and straight down the centre of the lane.
Qualifier 3: I gave the break pedal some more pressure to stop it from rocking (my dragster has a line lock installed to stop this from happening). We got some tyre spin off the hit which effected the ET only running 8.01 @ 165mph.
We would get one more qualifier the next morning and we have a decision to make regarding the launch control...more rpm should fix it.
Sunday:
We adjusted the rpm on the launch control, but the ram still didn't look like it was working correctly. We had a brand new solinoid for the ram and decided we would fit it just in case something was a miss.
With the new solinoid fitted everything looked and felt like it was working correctly.
Qualifier 4: The 3 previous qualifiers my reaction times were shocking. This time out I absolutely nailed the tree leaving a -055 red light, but I knew I was bang on. I just need to adjust the delay box. The dragster ran 7.99 @ 165mph with the engine being a little hard to start in the morning.
Eliminations Round 1: I was paired up against Greg Smith in his Chev powered altered. Gred had dialled 8.49 to our 7.84  When coming into stage I noticed that the oil pressure was down, I got Geoff's attention before going into stage and showed him, but he gave me the thumbs up to race.Greg left with a .045 light to my .009 light. I caught Greg really quick, but could not get around him with the dragster running 8.043 @ 165.88.
That was it for our weekend of racing. When we got the dragster back to the pits we pulled the oil filter apart, and there were a few uglys inside so Geoff had decided to call it a day as we probably have some bearing issues.
Thanks to Geoff Wright for giving me the opportunity to drive his 7 second dragster in which was a dream to drive.
Thanks to  Geoff Wright, Rod Perkins, Kelman (Brother) Sutherland, Sarah Perkins, Cassandra Richardson and Cheyene Nielsen.
 
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