Pick Ten: Perth Motorplex 2012 Season Opener

The Perth Motorplex's 2012/13 Drag Racing season kicked off in style on the 27th of October. Here are a selection of 10 of my favourite photos from the night.

Pick Ten: Perth Motorplex Pre-Season Test and Tune

This season's pre-season Test and Tunes at the Perth Motorplex were scheduled as a Saturday - Sunday affair, however rain over the course of the weekend ended up giving us a much reduced session, with Saturday cancelled and Sunday shortened by a couple of hours.

Here are 10 of my favourite shots of the day, in chronological order.



Rhiannon Allison was licensing in her dads dragster. At this stage, Craig will be back in the car for the regular season, but this is definitely not the last time we'll see Rhiannon in a race car.



The name Pete Veersma is well known to Western Australian drag racers, Pete made a return to the sport last season to help out Jeff Clarke in his final season, and is now running a car for his son, Luke Veersma.





Another car from the Hort racing stable, I believe this is Ethan's girlfriend Jayme behind the wheel of the teams third car.



Sam Treasure had a very busy couple of weeks getting the Cleveland Express back together with a new motor. The work paid off when the team ran their first ever 7 second pass on their first full track pass with the combo.





Kyle Putland has a new car this season, and had brought a tuner from the USA to help out for the weekend. In his first hit out with the new AMA deal, Kyle ran under the national record with a 6.85 second pass.



Simon 'Gonzo' Travaglini was out testing 'BA Baracus' and laid down a 6.44 second pass during the afternoon. With a previous best of 6.41 seconds, Gonzo was happy with the way the track and car performed in testing.



Supercharged Outlaw racer Ian Foster has a new Funny Car on track.



Mosman Park racers the Champan Brothers have a new Saratoga Doorslammer on track this season. This will also be a car to watch this season.

Busy Weekend For Car Lovers in WA

Well, it was a pretty busy weekend for me anyway, although it kicked into gear a little later on Saturday than normal with the running of the second Night Masters round for the WASCC's championship season.



I started the day off with one of the longest walks in Western Australian motorsport, down to Kolb Corner. This entails walking around 1.5km on the narrow wall that lines the circuit, interrupted by speaker poles and fences that have started to fall over. The walk to Track 6 at the Perth Motorplex is a breeze by comparison, plus you can often get a lift to Track 6 with a passing race team.



The Night Masters presents a number of challenges and opportunities for photographers, and one of those is catching the glowing brake rotors at the main braking points. This shot was taken at the entry to V8Race.com corner (formerly known as a number of things, but I still know it as Shell Corner).



Looking from V8Race.com corner down through the Esses and showing Westrac Cat Corner, this is a 30 second exposure showing the light trails from the HQ Holdens as they round Cat Corner and climb the hill to V8Race.com corner.



Sunday was definitely a day for those with an interest in classic iron, with two events catering to the hot rod and custom fraternity. The Cranksters Rod and Custom Club's annual Pipeline Picnic was held at Mundaring, with hundreds of hot rods, customs and street machines filling the grounds of the Mundaring Hotel and the neighbouring Mundaring Community Sculpture Park.



Ben Forster's 'Las Drogas', shown below, was built by members of the Cranksters, Goodfellas and a number of other Perth clubs, while the paint on the doors was laid down by signwriter and auto artist Scully, owner of the white three window coupe shown above.



After leaving Mundaring, I headed down to the Perth Motorplex for their Retro Drags event, these are a great relaxed event where owners of nostalgia type cars can race against similar cars or park up in the pits and check out some racing.

Ron Crosby has been a long time supporter of nostalgia racing in Western Australia and was racing today in his Holden 6 powered Front Engined Dragster.



Unfortunately, I know nothing more about this 68 Charger than that it was sitting in the pits and I just knew I had to get a photo of it as I was walking.

This was the final Retro Drags event for the 2009/2010 season at the Perth Motorplex, so if you want to run at the next Retro Drags event, keep an eye on the Motorplex's website for their 2010/2011 season calendar when it's released. In the meantime, Nostalgia type vehicles have their own bracket at every Fast Friday event.

Over the next couple of days I'll be sorting through the rest of the photos from these three events to upload to High Octane Photos.

One More Sleep Until the Westernationals!

The 2010 Westernationals will get under way at the Perth Motorplex at 11am tomorrow, and I'm thinking back over the Westernationals of the past. For some reason, I have it stuck in my head that the first major drag racing meeting I shot was the 2003 Westernationals, however, I cannot find any of the photos from that meeting, or any drag racing photos from 2004. I can, however, find photos from the 2005 Westernationals, and the other day I went through those photos and picked out a number of shots that caught my attention in some way.


South Australian Gary Busch drives a Funny Car in SuperCharged Outlaws, but 5 years ago he was behind the wheel of this Altered, also a SuperCharged Outlaw.


Tony Argentino is another SuperCharged Outlaw driver who has changed cars since 2005. Tony and wife Gillian purchased "The Hitman" from the USA a few years ago, retiring their 34 Ford coupe to do so.


Yet another driver making a few changes over the seasons has been Mark Sheehan. As a relatively new photogapher back in 2005, this dragster, running in Competition, didn't grab my attention any where near as much as it did looking back over the photos the other day and spotting a few markings that suggested it belonged to Mark. The first time that I can remember hearing about Mark Sheehan was as a methanol powered Altered driver. Mark has since moved on again from methanol fuel to nitromethane, having run a couple of half track passes in a nitromethane fuelled Altered before switching to a funny car body and joining an elite group of Australian Nitro Funny Car drivers.


This photo is one that has me wondering what happened to my older photos. While it's always possible that I'm just confused and this was my first Westernationals, I definately remember seeing Steve McGrath racing the Toppolino Altered that he sold to Mark Mackay in order to build this car.


The Westernationals is a round of the Australian Top Doorslammer championship, and here, Ben Bray is driving the 57 Chevrolet that used to belong to his father, Victor Bray, and is currently being driven by the Northern Territory's Matt Abel.


Looking forwards to this years event, the official Motorplex pre-Westernationals Test'n'Tune is always a great event that most people probably don't even know is on. Due to the nature of Test'n'Tunes, it's probably best that people who aren't drag racing tragics don't usually know these are on, as there is no set program and it's not uncommon to have long periods where nothing is happening on the track. For the die hards however, the Test'n'Tunes are an opportunity to get a sneak peak at a new car or bike, or perhaps a chance to see a team in action that may not have raced at the Motorplex for a while and want to re-acquaint themselves with the track. It's also a chance for even the regular teams to try something a little different with their setup, which can often make for some interesting viewing.


I wasn't able to make it to this years Westernationals Test'n'Tune, however Kate Bovell borrowed my camera gear and took a few photos so that I didn't miss out on all the fun.


Here, Carmello Belladonna guides his father Vince into the staging beams as they attempt to license Vince's shiny new AA/AP Torana. Vince's long term plans for this car include running in Australia's Top Doorslammer category.


Murray O'Connor's stunning Falcon Top Doorslammer has been repaired after a recent incident and is looking as impressive as ever.


Over 350 teams have entered for this years Westernationals, including around 60 interstate teams, making it the biggest drag racing event ever held in WA, and the biggest 2 day event in Australia.

ANDRA Pro Series Top Fuel - Round 3

This weekend saw the running of round 3 of the ANDRA Pro Series Australian Top Fuel Championship. Seven cars fronted for this round, with most of the teams electing to leave their transporters parked at the Motorplex after round 2 in December.



Friday nights qualifying session saw good strong passes from all concerned, with Phil Lamattina setting quickest time with a 4.708 second pass, while Bob Shepherd rounded out the field with a 6.290 second first pass, exploding the motor just after half track, leaving a big mess for the track crew and a hole in the track.



All 7 cars were able to make it to the first round of eliminations on Saturday, and the huge crowd at the Motorplex were treated to some of the best Top Fuel racing the venue has ever seen. The first rounds racing saw Darren Morgan defeat Mark Mariani with a 4.834 second pass to a 4.858 second pass. Phil Read ran 4.870 to defeat Allan Dobson with a 5.002. Martin Stamatis made his way to the next round with a 4.809 over Bob Shepherd's 5.481. While Phil Lamattina's top qualifier spot had earned him a solo through to the next round, he certainly didn't take things easy, with a 4.694 second pass, the second quickest lap of the meeting.



The semi-finals saw Read defeat Stamatis 4.708 to 4.967, while Lamattina's 4.709 accounted for Morgan's 5.011. In the final, Read left the line ever so slightly earlier, with a 0.095 reaction time, against Lamattina's 0.120, however by the 1000 foot marker, Lamattina had edged ahead, finishing with a 4.682 to Read's 4.852.

Boxing Day Nitro Funny Cars Are Coming!!

Well, we're about half way through the drag racing season here in Perth, which means only one thing. The Nitro Funny Cars are coming! At 6pm tomorrow, the four fuel floppers of Ricky Steffans, Fergie Donaldson, Damien Harris and Mark Sheehan will hit the track for the first of two meetings this season.



Mark Sheehan is a well known name to many WA race fans, holding both the ET and speed records in Top Alcohol Altered. This team is well and truly capable of running a 4 second pass if the conditions are right.



West Australian Damien Harris campaigned a Top Alcohol Funny Car before getting the call up to drive Paul Shackleton's Queensland based Nitro Funny Car. Harris is the only Australian Funny Car driver to dip into the 4 second zone so far, having run a 4.98 second pass at Willowbank in June, and the team will no doubt be looking to back that up with another 4 second pass on the other side of the country.



Allan and Cheryl Greene's (now red) Greene Machine was driven by famous WA driver Allan Dobson for many years before he decided to move across to a regular Top Fuel drive with Santo Rapisarda Racing. Dobson helped to train Fergie Donaldson to take over driving duties in the Greene Machine, and late last season Fergie was awarded his Nitro Funny Car drivers license. This is Fergies first race meeting, and this team is certainly one to watch.



Rod and Ash Bailey's Queensland operation is another team well known to West Australian race fans, as the loyal Nitro Funny Car racers were well known for keeping the sport alive (along with the Greene's) during it's darkest days, when there were only 3 cars regularly racing. The Greene Machine and Bailey's Chemical Warfare were regular competitors for many years, and the Baileys would usually bring another car as well, driven by Ricky Monserrat for many years, and lately by Ricky Steffans. Steffans stepped back from driving Funny Cars after the Boxing Day round in 2008, to concentrate on wife Christine's Supercharged Outlaw career, however business commitments for Ash Bailey mean that Ricky has been called back to active duty, stepping into Chemical Warfare for this meeting, as well as 2 meetings at Willowbank in the new year. (Ricky Steffan's Nitro Freak is pictured below)



Gates open at the Perth Motorplex at 11am tomorrow, and the first Nitro Funny Car pass is set for 6pm.

2009 Perth Motorplex Pro Stock Round

The Perth leg of the ANDRA Pro Series Pro Stock Championship was held at Perth Motorplex on October 31st. This was the first time that Pro Stock had visited the Motorplex venue, and saw some of the quickest passes in the categories history, with John Barbagallo resetting the national ET record and Aaron Tremayne taking the win over Lee Bektash in the final with the pair also laying down the quickest paired pass for the category.


You can check out all the photos from the 2009 Perth Motorplex Season Opener, featuring the ANDRA Pro Series Australian Pro Stock Championship plus all the local categories over at HighOctanePhotos.com.

2009 Perth Motorplex Pro Stock Test'n'Tune

The Perth Motorplex hosted a midweek Test'n'Tune event on October 28th. The main reason for running this event was to allow the Pro Stock teams visiting for their round of the ANDRA Pro Series National Championship to get some track time before the event. In addition to the visiting drivers, a number of local teams were in attendance to complete licensing procedures and test their vehicles.


You can check out all the photos from the Pro Stock Test'n'Tune over at HighOctanePhotos.com.