NDRC: Another Blistering Show At Dragway At The Bend Celebrated

The Riverbend Nationals have delivered another fantastic NDRC show to the delight of a packed crowd at Dragway at The Bend, culminating in dramatic finals action this afternoon.

After Saturday’s history-making performances, the enthusiasm for Sunday’s racing was at an all-time high as the fans – which numbered more than 25,000 over the event’s three days – poured into the Tailem Bend facility.

That enthusiasm was repaid time and time again across a huge day of racing, all the way until Wayne Newby (Top Fuel), Morice McMillin (XPRO Nitro Funny Car), Jeremy Callaghan (Top Doorslammer) and Damian Muscat (Top Fuel Motorcycle) hoisted the NDRC Gold Christmas Trees by taking out the A-Final victories in their respective Group 1 brackets.

Top Fuel Motorcycle

In Top Fuel Motorcycle, Muscat took the A-Final win with a convincing 6.247/329.37kph pass over Greg Durack’s 8.600 effort at 8.600/261.92kph. The B-Final went the way of Danny Rickard (7.582/252.41kph) in what was a highly entertaining side-by-side pass between him and Corey Buttigieg (7.787/197.21kph), which some called the Top Fuel Motorcycle race of the event, and was dampened by the latter hitting the timing blocks at the finish line. Damian Martini took the C-Final victory with a solo run, running into trouble to trundle down the track for a 64.999 and no speed recorded.

Muscat had started his day with a representative pass straight down the middle (6.186/338.56kph) in round one on a bye while Rickard ran it all the way through in his pass (7.852/258.94kph) against Damian Martini (9.681/136.41kph), who gave the wall a little kiss on his way down the track. Durack meanwhile showed big improvement with a 7.646/290.29kph after struggling with tyre shake and traction in qualifying, while Buttigieg (9.199/164.51kph) in the other lane came whisper close to the wall but managed to stay off it.

In the second round, Muscat and Martini faced off with Muscat taking another with a 6.290/291.28kph effort to Martini’s 8.012/195.37kph, while Buttigieg enjoyed a solo win on a 15 second pass. Durack meanwhile took a win over Rickard, with Rickard pushed back from the line leaving Durack to take a solo 9.293/250.33kph journey down the quarter-mile.

“It’s great to get over here. The crew really thrashed it out last night and in the early hours of this morning to get back out here and put on a big show for these fans,” Muscat said.

“How good is this JTS rocketship today?! We’d love to go a bit faster; we didn’t get there today. Keep an eye on us and we’ll keep chipping away.”

Also on-track this weekend was the Aeroflow National Sportsman Championship, with plenty of exciting racing performances laid down across the Dragway at The Bend quarter-mile for these brackets.

When all was said and done, it was the following racers who lifted the NDRC Gold Christmas Tree trophies for their respective brackets: Zayne Condello over Nixon Cannuli (Junior Dragster), Lillian Hagan over Riley Kilvington (Junior Drag Bike), Henry Spicak over Kevin Cooper (Super Street), Craig Geddes over Peter Firriolo (Super Comp), Dave Harrison over Donald Hagan (Modified Bike), Edge Mallis over Cheryl ‘MsVrod’ Beddoes (Competition Bike), Bob Sherry over Greg Angus (Supercharged Outlaws), Adam Ince over Sean Maher (Super Sedan), David Foster over Chris Theo (Top Sportsman) and Adriana Cartledge over Daniel ‘BatDan’ Carranza (Modified).

Next up on the NDRC calendar is the Gulf Western Oil Nitro Champs at Sydney on May 2-4, which will be headlined by Top Fuel and XPRO Nitro Funny Car alongside the full range of group one categories plus the Aeroflow National Sportsman Championship.

Then, the biggest event of the year is back with the return of the Gulf Western Oil Winternationals at Willowbank Raceway across June 5-8, featuring Top Fuel, XPRO Nitro Funny Car, Top Doorslammer and Top Fuel Motorcycle, plus Pro Alcohol, Pro Stock, FuelTech Pro Mod, Pro Stock Motorcycle, and the Aeroflow National Sportsman Championship.

For the full listing of upcoming events, please visit nationaldragracing.com.au/calendar

QUALIFYING

In Top Fuel Motorcycle, Damien Muscat continued his strong Dragway at The Bend form, continuing on from when he set the quickest marker on two wheels back in November to top qualify.

While Muscat sat out Q1, he went right to the top of the time sheets in Q2 with a 6.203s/338.02kph run, and it was enough to see him celebrating come the end of the day’s proceedings.

Second quickest was Greg Durack (7.800s/291.50kph), while Danny Rickard (7.903s/259.13kph), Damian Martini (8.296s/206.78kph) and Corey Buttigieg (8.387s/196.11kph) rounded out the qualifying order.

Muscat didn’t let engine gremlins get in his way today, and he’s planning on putting on a good show for the crowd again on Sunday.

“We’ve had a problem where the fuel isn’t returning correctly, so we’re getting too much fuel to the engine. We changed the motor and a few other things to try and get it right, and we did a quick fire up before the last qualifier today, and it was still putting way too much fuel in. We decided we needed to fix it properly so we could put on a really good show tomorrow,” Muscat said.

“The Bend is a great track, and being that we’ve done well here before, we’ve got the data that should put us on the right track. These nitro beasts are sometimes hard to tame, but we’ll do the best we can to put on a good show.”

In the Aeroflow National Sportsman Championship ranks, the fight for Gold NDRC Christmas Trees and valuable championship points is well and truly underway. Two days of qualifying for these competitors wrapped up on Saturday afternoon with the following racers claiming Top Qualifier honours in their respective brackets: Madalen Datson (Junior Dragster), Seth Jarvis (Junior Drag Bike), Rohan Hutson (Super Street), Craig Geddes (Super Comp), Dean Jamieson (Modified Bike), Edge Mallis (Competition Bike), Bruno Matijasevic (Supercharged Outlaws), Steve Paech (Super Sedan), Darren Whitford (Top Sportsman) and Simon Barlow (Modified), with the opening rounds of racing for a number of these brackets also taking place across the afternoon and evening.

The Riverbend Nationals at Dragway at The Bend concludes tomorrow (Sunday April 6) with three rounds of All-Run NDRC Top Fuel, XPRO Nitro Funny Car, Top Doorslammer and Top Fuel Motorcycle racing scheduled from 11.00am, with the finals scheduled from 4.00pm local time. Aeroflow National Sportsman Championship eliminations also continue from 10am, with finals scheduled to begin from 5.15pm local time.

Drag racing is always better in person and race fans are encouraged to purchase their tickets online at ndrc.tv, but if you can’t get to Dragway at The Bend, you can watch all the action live on 7plus.

For event information, visit thebend.com.au/dragway or ndrc.tv

For more information about the NDRC, please visit www.ndrc.tv

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