The build up to the 2006 ANDRA Winternationals at Willowbank Raceway was immense as it bought together 606 competitors from all over Australia and New Zealand. After a promising start on Friday rain took out the entire day of qualifying on Saturday, meaning eliminations didn’t finish until early Monday morning.
The Winternationals not only was the biggest race of the year but also the final round of the Australian championships with some being decided by the narrowest of margins.
TOP DOORSLAMMER
There were 20 entries trying to qualify for an eight-car field and of those 18 went down the track on Friday night.
As it turned out with Saturday’s Pro sessions rained out the fate of many was decided by their one and only run. This befell five-second runner John Zappia, who was in the other lane when Stuart Bishop spun out in his new '68 Camaro and could only muster a 6.86 when he got on and off the throttle and thus lost any chance of winning the ’06 Top Doorslammer title.
While Zappia had crossed the continent for nothing the news was much better for six times Australian Doorslammer champ, Victor Bray – he ended up top qualifying on his
one and only pass with a 6.095. The others who got in were Bray the
younger, Paul Greghini, Robin Judd, Gary Phillips, Brett Stevens, Maurice Fabietti and Steve Stanic who with Zappia out annexed the Australian crown.
Bray made his way to the final with another 6.09 to dump Brett Stevens' Studebaker with a 6.03 semi final solo for Low ET of the meet as Robin Judd hit the kill switch on his Studebaker during the burnout. The last time Victor Bray won a Top Doorslammer round was last year’s Winternationals and he faced a surprising Maurice Fabietti in his GTO (Monaro).
Bray left with a couple of hundredths in the bank but Fabietti was the first to the sixty foot mark, but from then on the Bray’s six zero combination cut in and his fourth straight six zero – a 6.059/228.33 to a second best 6.221/237.62. The king is back.
While Victor's son, Ben Bray, might have bowed out earlier than he would have liked in Top Doorslammer, he had a better chance in Top Alcohol. He ended up top qualifying in the combination bracket (dragsters, altereds and funny cars) with a 5.76. Dean Oakey had an outside chance of winning the Top Alcohol championship however he could only muster a 10.10 on what would be his only qualifier and he had to watch Bray annex the Australian title.
In eliminations Bray in a Pontiac ran the second 5.5 of his career with a winning 5.56/258.07 which obliterated opponent, Damien Harris’ personal best of 5.703.
The semi saw him crank out a winning 5.529/256.89 which was the third quickest alky flopper pass of all time and set the new ANDRA record. Oh yeah, he defeated Mark Brew who ran a 5.75 in defeat.