ROYAL AutoFEST – Mega Car Show & Drag Racing
Daniel Gregorini was rewarded for an astonishingly fast rebuild of his Camaro Top Doorslammer with an emotional win on Saturday in round two of the Summer Slam Series at Perth Motorplex.
Gregorini crashed his car in the first qualifying session of the opening round of the championship three weeks ago and it looked as if the team would be out for an extended period of time as repairs were made. After surveying the damage, his crew and the Perth drag racing community rallied around the team and managed to complete repairs on the car at 3.30am on Saturday morning.
From there Gregorini took the wheel and qualified second, before reaching the final to face Ryan Moresby. Troubles for Moresby shortly after launching saw his Ford Falcon get loose and tap the wall, handing a relatively easy victory to Gregorini after a lead-up that had been anything but.
“We are all very emotional right now,” Gregorini said. “We worked so hard to just get to the track.”
The result was perfect, but Gregorini had to get his head around several issues, the most major of which was an electronic issue preventing the car from getting into fourth gear.
“We decided to re-wire the box and skip fourth gear, so it meant the motor would pull down a fair bit in top gear. It’s hard for the motor to recover from that and we didn’t know what the fuel pump pressure would do when the RPM dropped.”
While Gregorini was off his hot pace of last season, a 5.87sec. run in the elimination round was enough to put him into the final against Moresby.
“In the finals we tried to copy our earlier run but the car got a bit loose and I decided to get off the throttle. Luckily for us, but unluckily for Ryan, he tagged the wall which left us to roll through to take the win.
“To come back after a crash and then win the meeting is something I will never forget. I didn’t win the meeting – the crew, helpers, volunteers and supporters from the last three weeks did. Thank you to everyone who helped and came past to say well done. I’ll be forever grateful.”
As Gregorini took the honours in the Summer Slam, he was joined on the winner’s podium by Greg Durack (Nitro Bike), Wayne Keys (Top Comp), Todd Stacy (Super Comp), Wayne Patterson (Competition Bike), Norbert Claite (Supercharged Outlaws), Alby Bakranich (Top Sportsman), Kevin Boulton (Outlaw Radial), Nicholas Wroe (Modified), Kathy Regan (Super Sedan), Luke Seaton (Modified Bike), Richard Stevens (Super Street) and Lucas Green (Junior Dragster).
The next round of the WA Drag Racing Championship will take place on December 12 with the running of the Outlaw Nitro Challenge.
Story: Luke Nieuwhof – Photos Phil Luyer-High Octane Photos
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