Champion Read too good

Phil Read showed just why he is the Australian Top Fuel Champion on Saturday at Perth Motorplex when he handed the West Australian Crank-N-Stein team a resounding defeat.
Read's 3-0 victory began with a 4.72sec. opening pass as Allan Dobson in the other lane stripped a supercharger belt on the launch with the car only on power for a brief moment. Read also lost a belt but only as he was passing through the finish line.
The errent belt took out some equipment on the Auto One dragster, including a throttle cable which was discovered only just in time during the pre-race warm up.
With the track record a reachable 4.69sec., Read returned and mustered a 4.76sec., again losing a belt through the end of the track.
Meanwhile Dobson was having a hell of a time just trying to get traction and despite hitting the pedal about four times he could not get 5000 horsepower to stick to the track.
Come the last race of the night the respective tuners were going to have a tough time with the dew settling in.
Crank-N-Stein brain Allan Greene was still coming to terms with his new engine set up while Bruce Read set about continuing the softly, softly approach of his brother's ride.
Come race time both cars left well before Dobson went up in smoke shortly followed by Read. But it was read with the momentum to win, a 6.80sec. not pretty but doing the job on his rival.
The racing provided good information for both teams who will return for the Australian Top Fuel Championship round in February.

Morrison on top

Trevor Morrison proved the best of a small field of Top Comp racers in what became a battle of the fittest in tricky conditions.
Doug Bird was an early casualty, failing to sort out a new fuel system to satisfaction in his supercharged Altered.
Mark Sheehan looked a shoe-in over Aaron Deery in round one when Deery's dragster had problems on the start line but Sheehan committed a cardinal sin and crossed the centreline, disqualifying him from the race.
This set Deery up for the final against Morrison but with both racers out of shape on the slick track the nimble Altered of Morrison proved too good for a 7.02sec. victory.

Simms slammed

Graeme Simms was Saturday's only major incident at the Perth Motorplex.
Simms had some fluid come from his car just before half track and spun into the opposite wall.
He emerged largely unscathed but was taken to hospital as a precaution.
There were some other close calls later in the day including Shane Wynd who had his Super Sedan travelling completely sideways at about 200kph but miraculously managed to keep it off the walls and had it pointing straight again.

Leader no-shows

One of the oddest things about the Grand Opening event at Perth Motorplex on Saturday was the absence of many of last season's champions.
As reported last week the McSweeney team is sitting out of Top Comp this season, Terry Stacey failed to show in his Super Comp Mazda RX7, Daniel Gregorini is letting dad Peter have a shot in the family Super Sedan, Les Holden missed Modified Bike due to an unrelated injury and Matt Johnson has grown too old for Junior Dragster.
Neil Anderson was still carving up the opposition in Comp Bike, running a personal best 9.26sec. time and defeating Tim McClure in the final.
Super Street's Neil Scott and Modified's Jeremy Ball were not as successful however with first round losses.