Reigning ANDRA Drag Racing Series Top Doorslammer champion John Zappia gained valuable championship points with his team’s performance including a B Final win and top ET and mph in Round 2 on Saturday night at the Westernationals this past weekend.

“We were thousands off doing really well,” said Zappia, “but overall we are happy with the progress on our new package with new NRE X1 heads. Our 5.797 pass was our first ‘seven’ in Perth, and reset the track record”

Round one qualifying was dramatic for Zappia and the Fuchs Lubricants/Striker Crushing and Screening Monaro, as he rattled the tyres on launch causing the car to head right towards the wall.

“I pedalled and hit second gear and the car powered back up against the wall – scraping the headers and door pretty bad. The crew managed to put a door on Zap’s Rat from Craig Pedley’s Crusher and head out for the first eliminator against Andrew Sutton.”

A pedalling 5.957 at 249.3mph was enough for Zap to defeat the Corvette’s 6.423 at 231.95mph, but missed out on an A Final by 0.005 seconds. The match up against O’Rourke in his Pontiac in the B Final was a chance for revenge as Grant has had a couple of wins over Zap lately.

“We were just about right with our tuning on the new combo, and I was confident the car would hook up, and it certainly did. A 5.797 at 250.69 mph dead straight and hitting all my shift points was a great win over Grant’s 7.533”.

Kapiris was winner of Round 2 with a win over mark Belleri. Round 3 on the Sunday saw a great qualifier by Zap to gain Top Qualifier position with a 5.863 at 251.39mph. This also gave us top points for ET and MPH for the second night running.

Points standings after Round 3 sees Stuart Bishop leading with 165 points, followed by Pino Priolo on 157 and Zappia on 138.

“We are happy with the points and our standing in the championship at this stage of the championship. We have got a better start than in previous years and hope to gradually work our way up the points table.”

“The owner of the Crusher and Managing Director of Striker Screening and Crushing, Craig Pedley, was at the meeting and was very happy with how we are going. His staff and clients in the corporate box got to see his car running quick times and getting the B Final win”.

Top Doorslammer now heads east to Calder Park in Victoria for Round 4 on April 4 – 5 before the Nitro Champs in Sydney May 2-4.

Image courtesy: Phil Luyer / High Octane Photos