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Top Bike was a great bracket with a full compliment of nitro flyers and in the case of Westralian Jay Upton and his unique body hugging Puma powered aero scooter.
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He faced eventual finalist Troy McLean on a Harley in qualifying and they pulled off the quickest side by side fuel bike that this old fossil has seen - 6.51 to 6.52 for Upton for number one and two. As it turned out they were both destined for the money round. McLean was lucky in the first frame when opponent Phil Parker broke after the burnout and a 7.09 sufficed. A 6.71 was lucky to get by an improving Craig Bonwick also on a Harley who was a breath behind on a 6.76.

Upton on the other hand only needed 1000 feet to turn back the Harley of Chris Jackson as a 6.63 at a slowing 184.12 was more than enough for an 8.71. In the semis Upton had to wring the white flyer's neck as a .304 reaction time was buried by Brett Stevens's .96.

At the other end Upton ran low ET of the meet with a 6.47/214.83 to cover a 6.75/211. Upton used his patented bike parachute while Stevens went into the sand trap on a number of his runs. Unfortunately for Upton, he needed another 45 minutes to prepare his bike and this meant that McLean took a 6.67 solo for the gold.


Peter Cochrane certainly would have gotten the best appearing vehicle at this event, but performance-wise his 7.5s were never going to get near the 7.3s of Langley and Peaty. To add insult to injury, his bike broke in his semi final match with Peaty.

There were a number of sportsman winners who were whittled down from the hundreds of entries who came through the gate on the Friday. In Group 2 the Competition bracket Shane Baxter's blown CC/DA dragster take out Wayne Cartledge's normally aspirated C/DA in the final. Super Stock saw the two Camaros of Ross Sacre and Colin Lloyd with Sacre getting up. Comp Bike had a small field and in the end Ross Lemberg red lighted to Robert Wilkinson in the money round.

Group 3 saw Allan White beat his son Brett in the final of Modified, Steven Fowler beat Matthew Marsh in Super Sedan, Mark Leinhop felt the lash from Raymond Gould and Grant Wormald was taken out by Leonard Azzopardi in Modified Bike. Group 4 saw Dave McDonell win Super Gas, Craig Gerdes take the Supercharged Outlaws title and Matthew Kemp did it in Junior Dragster.








 
 

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