Barnard’s Nomad then proved to be no match for Stuart Bishop’s Camaro that ran an easy 6.33 over a wildly swerving station wagon. Lynch’s Corvette was fixed and took on second generation racer, Mark Belleri in a Camaro with Lynch giving the youngster a lesson in reading the lights and a 6.18 easily outpaced a second best 6.44. In the Stevens versus Andrew Sutton tussle both cars got loose off the line but Stevens recovers first to take a 6.38 to 6.70 win. Finally Ben Bray improved somewhat but his better reacting 6.45 still wasn’t enough to hold off Zappia’s 6.26 despite swerving violently off the line.
Round two saw Stevens’ clutch woes just get worse and a 6.21 at a booming 246.04 from Bishop easily handled a 7.85. With Stevens falling early he lost all chance of winning the Australian Top Doorslammer title and John Zappia was now in an unbeatable position as far as points went. Fabietti showed the form that won him the Summernats when his better reacting 6.30 proved too much for Phillips’ second best 6.34.
Misfud kept the momentum going in his Willys when his 6.08 more than handled Lynch’s 6.30. Prior to the run the announcer asked Camp Stanley what the car would run and he was spot on when he announced – a 6.08. Finally it was a battle of the Westralians with Zappia’s low ET of eliminations 6.01/239.39 more than enough to handle a better reacting 6.30 from Judd’s Studebaker.
The semis were run at 9.45 pm and already the track was super slippery for the high horsepower cars. This saw Fabietti leave on Bishop but both swung around wildly as they went down track – Fabietti recovered first and a 6.43 held off a game 6.57. The same scenario greeted Zappia and Mifsud despite long tyre heating burnouts as both cars struggled to put any real power down – Misfud recovered first with a 7.09 doing it to Zap’s 7.69.
It was 11.25 pm when the final was run and unfortunately all that swinging from one side of the lane to the other had damaged Maurice Fabietti’s differential with the car not even attempting a burnout. Once Misfud staged he took a “safe” .692 light but instantly found no traction what so ever and shut off to coast to the first 16 car win in only 9.80 seconds. “I couldn’t be happier,” Misfud said after the event. “I had a good car and a good crew and I can see us winning more of these in the future,” he said. For Fabietti he drew solace from making his second final in three events in Top Doorslammer.
 Despite running low ET of the event with a 6.03 and winning the Australian championship, John Zappia went down to eventual winner, Sean Misfud in the semi-finals when he got out of shape and in a wild peddle fest on a cold track. |
 Dave Newcombe in his Pontiac GTO was the early leader in early qualifying with a 7.19 that eventually stood for fourth however he fell to a dreaded red light in the second stanza to Scott Porter’s Mustang. |
While the fortunes of Top Doorslammer were really in the hands of the horsepower gods the lower horsepower Pro Stockers had no such problems. There was quite a lot of interest in the Jeg’s sponsored GTO of Shane Tucker. The 22 year old second generation has been working in America at Victor Cagnazzi Racing with the hope of getting a ride this year, however with Dave Connolly not being able to fund a ride [as of this writing] his dreams are on hold at this time.
Tucker had a car that was put together in some three weeks and in qualifying it was stuck in the 7.3 zone. Despite all the planning a round one red light would put an end to his comeback dream down under. The first qualifying session saw Dave Newcombe in a GTO taking top spot thanks to a 7.195/188.68, however after that it seemed just like a two horse race between points leader Aaron Tremayne in his Chevrolet Cobalt and Lee Baktash’s Dodge Avenger.
At the end of qualifying these two cars were less than one hundedth apart with Tremayne gaining the top spot thanks to a 7.169/189.63 to lead the Mopar’s 7.177/189.95. Third went to Aaron’s brother, Tyrone in an almost identical Cobalt that recorded a best of 7.182 at a higher speed of 190.22. Newcombe was the only other car in the 7.1s and his earlier time stood for fourth.