Street Outlaw Qualifying #2

            Street Outlaw Qualifying #2

By Mark Humphrey

Melbourne, Vic/Aus. 5^th August 2014. Drag racing returned to daylight hours on Sunday with round 2 of qualifying for the Street Outlaw Series at Calder Park. After strong support from the local drag racing fraternity, promoter Peter Pisalidis switched the round 2 qualifying event to Sunday which proved to be beneficial with a vast number of racers putting down PB’s throughout the afternoon. With the sun directing warmth into the racing surface it wasn’t hard to get excited about the upcoming season of competition drag racing which includes the qualifying and grand final rounds of the Street Outlaws Series. Stakeholders have been working hard behind the scenes negotiating funding for critical track upgrades which would bring back group 1 drag racing towards the end of the year. Although a very long way from securing any sort of financial funding the talks have been positive and constructive which is somewhat encouraging. Fingers crossed that discussions on this subject keep moving forward.Nichele Racing stepped out for some testing

Out mixing it with the Street Outlaw boys were a number of Super Sedan peddlers going through test n tune sessions logging upgrades made during the off-season. Nichele Racing had their mint Chevy Camaro track side putting down a number of passes in the low 8’s. I caught up with team owner Gil Nichele during test runs to get a handle on the day’s progress, “yeah it’s going good. I said to Darren just get the car off the line and see how it goes after that. The car’s looking good as Darren has driven it through the 1000ft mark a number of times” he said. Gil added “we have completely changed the rear end looking for better traction off the line, initially the car was solid when we first run her but now we are looking to improve our ET’s” he said. With photographic equipment and the latest data logging technology, the team was busy analysing the data in between runs which no doubt will assist the team in shaving valuable tenths off future passes.

Another of the Super Sedan boys to roll out their machine on the weekend was Vince Raschilla in possibly the neatest looking Mustang to ever grace the Calder Park strip. Like Team Nichele, Raschilla was there to get some passes into the car and also looked strong in the low 8’s.The Raschilla Mustang "Awesome"

Close to 120 cars rolled out for the Sunday meet with 25 of them locking in qualifying times in the various Street Outlaw classes. Greg Aitken put down the #1 qualifying time for Street Outlaw in his LH Torana with a pass of 9.244. Aitken shaved a couple of tenths off the previous #1 qualifying time of 9.44 set by Daniel Sharban in round 1. In fact 13 of the top 16 qualifiers for the category posted their time in round 2 with all but 1 driver in the top 13 posting their qualifying time on Sunday. With 9 rounds of qualifying scheduled there is still plenty of time for drivers to make the 16 car field for the Grand Final in late December but with conditions so good on Sunday there is no doubt that this group will be in the mix for some time yet.

Street Outlaw Motorcycle had 5 riders out of the group contesting the series with #1 qualifier from round 1 David Carroll shaving 0.13 from his previous best to remain #1 qualifier after 2 rounds with a best pass of 9.544. Leigh Fitzgibbon put down a pass of 9.569 to take the #2 qualifying spot ahead of the round 1 number 2 qualifier in Maurice Allen. Allen holds down the number 3 spot after 2 rounds slipping back one peg.

Street Outlaw Imported was once again not represented although there were a number of vehicles putting down passes throughout the day. Maybe these guys are getting their passes down pat before they enter the category.

To round out an awesome day of drag racing the Street Outlaw Modified guys put down some strong passes with “Wild” Bill Fannua the highlight of the round with his wheel standing Cortina putting on a show for the spectators and securing 4th quick time for the category with a best pass of 10.613. Actually you’ll be pressed to find a time outside of the 6’s for Bill as he is one of the most consistent runners always running in the 10.6’s. Consistency will definitely be an advantage come finals time with Bill odds on to figure at the pointy end.Bill Fannua launching the Cortina

 Brandon Zito took control of the family Torana for round 2 and quickly posted a qualifying time better than Dominic to sit in the number 2 qualifying spot with a 9.772 pass. Dominic with a qualifying time in round 1 of 9.97 sits in 3rd followed by “Wild” Bill with another 1^st timer in Vincent Stigliano taking the number 1 spot with a pass of 9.664. Driving a sweet Mustang fastback, Stigliano had a strong day out with most of his passes in the mid 9’s and comfortably holds down the number 1 qualifying spot for the category.

With such a successful day run and done the call has gone out for racers and fans alike to show their support for more daytime events. Based on the round 2 reaction I think it’s a no brainer with PB’s having been the order of the day.

Round 3 is pencilled in for Friday 22^nd of August but I suggest you regularly check the Calder Park Drag Racing facebook page for updates.

ALL THE DAYS ACTION CAPTURED HERE 

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