13 June 2011
The track record at the Sunset Strip, set by John Zappia at the 2011 Slamfest, was snatched at the Big Bucks meeting held on Sunday.
Gary Bush, driver of the Greg Brown owned Funny Car, set a new track record of 4.017 seconds at 185 mph, which surpassed Zappia’s previous record of 4.02 econds.
Super Street, always the most supported class was taken by Loxton racer Stuart Edwards over local driver Bruce Pain. A tight pass by Edwards pushed Pain to break out on a 6.99 second pass.
Many of the Super Street vehicles were pushing the class limit of 7 seconds with many breaking into the Super Sedan times.
Competition class which included Super Sedan, Modified and Supercharged Outlaws was a hotly contested field with South Australian driver Mark Neumann taking the win over Robert McDonald.
Spectators were treated to the battle royal of the local outlaws of McDonald and Taylor, with the modifications recently carried out on Taylors HQ bringing it down in time by half a second, only to see the HQ haemorrhage water over the track. McDonalds Monaro proved to be the more consistent going through to the final.
Melbourne racer Leanne Braggs had a dirty adventure in her big block powered altered when her parachutes failed to execute to see her in the sand trap at the end of the track. Leanne has been racing a sedan previously and has stepped up into the Bantam altered and was handling the machine and the track expertly by the time she was put out in the second round.
The modified bike class was contested by only three competitors; with Snag Gale fro Hynam South Australia taking the win after winning all three rounds of the Chicago Shootout, leaving Brenton Castle to take second place.
The Sunset Strip will take a winter break, and will return to full racing action in August.