6 February 2011
Rob Pilkington elevated his Force Equipment/Alutech team to first position in the WA Top Comp Championship standings on Saturday night with a runner up at Perth Motorplex.
Pilkington's Funny Car reached the final, losing a close race against Daniel Gregorini's Camaro.
It was a testing event physically for the team as temperatures reached the high 30s with humidity at 80% for most of the weekend, not to mention
“A very interesting weekend to say the least with a full field of competition cars and the worst possible conditions to try and work with both mentally and physically,” Pilkington said.
“The track temp was through the roof on Friday and over 100 water grains in the air on Saturday made for extremely tough conditions to try and tune for.”
With every team struggling to make horsepower in the unusual atmospheric conditions, a respectable first up 5.91sec. pass put Pilkington on top of the qualifying list early, backed up with a second session 5.88sec.
“The first qualifier on Friday night was an educated guess in the conditions but by the third session of we made multiple changes to the fuel system and clutch settings and the 5.88 that came up on the timing boards was a welcome sight,” he said.
“With top qualify position once again we were confident of going all the way to the final to secure more valuable points to regain the championship lead.”
The team elected to use a fresh clutch for eliminations to give them any advantage possible and the move paid off with a 5.87sec. run, enough to put the team into the A Final.
The opponent was Daniel Gregorini, who was running sub-record numbers even in the atrocious air conditions and had lane choice
“We knew it was not going to be an easy race based on Daniel’s form throughout the meeting,” Pilkington said.
“It was another great race with Daniel having the head start due to the handicapping system and the Force Equipment/Alutech Monte Carlo had to chase him down.
“At half track I could see I was catching the Camaro and as we crossed the finish line we were both side by side, I knew that it was going to be close, but then I saw Daniel’s win light in his lane.”
The race was one of the tightest of the night, with Gregorini taking the win by just .008sec.
“All up it was a great race meeting for us and congratulations to Daniel and his team for their first win in Top Comp at the Motorplex,” Pilkington said.
Importantly, the runner up spot has given Pilkington the boost in the points he needed over rivals Shane Weston and Jeffrey Clarke.
“We now have the championship lead again by 15 points with three rounds to go,” he said.
“It will be an exciting end to this highly competitive drag racing series.”
The next event will be the Westernationals on March 5 and 6, where the team has the opportunity to reset the national record and to score national Rocket Allstars Racing Series points.
To check out what the final looked like from the driver’s seat, go to http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jFlyk9U50s0.
Pilkington Racing would like to thank its sponsors for their support:
Force Equipment service and hire, Alutech, Prestige Tile Gallery, FLN Commercial Repairers, RAE Motorsport, National Tyres, PerthMetro Builders, Appealing Signs