Qualifying for the Summit Racing Equipment Sportsman Series presented by the Southern Downs Regional Council, the first ever National Championship drag racing event to be held at Warwick Dragway, has been completed with four ladies and four men topping the eight categories on show.
The fifty-fifty male-female split of top qualifiers across all eight fields represents the first time in ANDRA Drag Racing history the unique stat has occurred.
One of those fast femmes, Christine Steffens, topped the list in Ice Slushee Supercharged Outlaws with a 4.463 elapsed time at 154.63 mph in the final session followed closely by Adam Murrihy with a 4.475 ET at 156.01 mph.
“We’re pretty pleased to be top qualified,” said Steffens. “We put the go-faster pulley on, the track held it and it was the nicest pass all weekend.
“We still didn’t get a full powered pass, I lifted a little bit (on the last qualifier). We still didn’t get a full pass with the big pulley so we’ll change it back to the setup we had and we’ll be back to that tomorrow.”
Following Steffens and Murrihy in first and second place, Brian Trott qualified third, Tim Caswell fourth, Matt Loy fifth and Darryl Woods sixth.
Scott Porter blitzed the field in Hungry Jacks Top Sportsman running an impressive 4.572 second pass at 154.71 mph in the third qualifier of his first ever appearance at Warwick Dragway.
“Today was a good day,” said Porter. “We’ve not raced at this track before, obviously every track is different so we’re just managing the power to get the car down the track.
“We had to take a fair bit of power out of it to make it go down so we’ve just been working on that throughout the day. It can probably go faster but it’s a fine line. But it’s a good venue and it was a nice and relaxed day.”
Jason Stares qualified second with a 4.993 ET at 142.97 mph followed by Neil Maxwell, Phil Penny, Troy Daniel and Brendan Edyvane.
Katie Cunningham heads K & R Plumbing Modified following her 4.847-second pass at 140.48 mph. That run came in the second qualifier as did Paul Doeblien’s 5.278 ET at 128.65 mph for second place. Sarah Glanville secured third from Travis Liefting, Michael Hyde, Chloe Williams, Rodney Williams and Lucas Holz.
Kaylene Gourley’s 5.841 ET at 121.60 mph was good enough for first in Speedflow Super Sedan to edge David Foreman from top spot into second with his 5.851 ET. Michael Scahaper was close behind with a 5.885 ET with Sam Ward, Kevin Langridge and John Kapiris rounding out the top six of a 17-car field.
Daniel Sekli lead Denweld Modified Bike all day and ultimately went even quicker in his final qualifier to wrap up first place with a 5.667 ET at 124.84 mph. Ace Edwards qualified second with a 5.775 at 122.15 mph from Tammy Goldthorpe in third, Ken Collin fourth, Mark Woods fifth and Peter Strudwick in sixth of a 16 bike field.
Fiona Moloney stole top spot in her final Image Ink Super Street qualifier of the day with a 7.261 second pass at 93.37 mph to pip Andrew Stathis who had earlier recorded a 7.279 at 95.15 mph. Rob Price, Philip Armstrong, Rob Winterburn and Ian Duetscher make up the top six of 15.
Warwick Dragway Track Champion Dylan Leo qualified first in Summit Racing Equipment Junior Dragster completing an 8.012 second pass at 79.34 mph from Garth Spooner with an 8.731 at 72.71 mph. Andrew Tinney qualified third, Charlee Wilson fourth, Jordan Spencer fifth, Joshua Langridge sixth, Jake Porter seventh, Kyle Magner eighth and National Championship points leader Daniel Carranza ninth.
Finally in FG Loy & Sons Earthmoving Super Gas, 2015 Championship runner up David Gauldie took top qualifier running close to the fixed 6.30-second index for the class over the eighth-mile with a 6.301 elapsed time. Darryl Stephen qualified second, Dale O’Dwyer third, Kerry Boyde fourth, Phillip Youlten fifth and National Champion Graeme Spencer sixth.
Eliminations for the Summit Racing Equipment Sportsman Series presented by Southern Downs Regional Council begin from 10am on Sunday November 29.
For final qualifying orders please click here.
Images: dragphotos.com.au (top, middle), Warren Jackson (bottom)