(^94) themotorhood.com
With a full field of 80 cars, though, one or two
vehicles wouldn’t be missed. The added exhibition
field, comprising a wide range of comp cars, meant
that dedicated drag racing fans and first-time drag
racing attendees alike got their money’s worth.
The format for the event — clearly a successful
one — sees a couple of qualifying runs in the
morning before the field gets split into five classes,
ranging from ridiculously fast (class one) to not
so fast (class five). These five classes then run in a
head-to-head format, which sees luck-of-the-draw
pairing — whoever you line up next to is the car
you’re going head to head with. While the winner
from each round gets to go through to the next,
the loser gets to lament their poor choice at line-
up time. Obviously, for 50 per cent of drivers, the
pairing went well, and for 50 per cent, not so well.
But, win or lose, it was clear that the drivers were
having just as much fun as the spectators were.
With this being a street event, timing boards were
absent, but, for those who were interested, the
results were being streamed live on the Port Road
website. Most present were happy to hear the
familiar voice of MC extraordinaire Gavin Doughty
keeping them informed of who was doing what.
Gavin had his work cut out for him, too, with a
couple of unexpected breaks in proceedings for
various reasons.
With a breakout time of 6.50 seconds, having
a seriously quick car is a double-edged sword,
as it becomes a fine line between beating the
opposition and breaking out — as class-one
driver Tristan Teki found out in the semi-finals.
His Impala’s 6.41 seconds saw him gift the pass
to the finals to previous winner Darren Riches in
his Ford Pop. With Gary Bogaart having beaten
Dan Southall’s ever-impressive ‘PRO406’ Camaro, it
was an all-Ford final — nitrous Falcon versus nitrous
Pop. However, the pressure got to Riches, who also
broke out and thus handed the overall win to first-
time attendee Bogaart.
In class two, it was Hutt local and long-time entrant
Mark Coffey’s ’57 Chev against Anthony Cancian’s
Camaro in the finals. Despite being noticeably slower
off the line, the ’57 had the power to drive around
the Camaro and take the win, 7.47 to 7.72 seconds.
frankie
(Frankie)
#1