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.