Piranha Racing - Supercharged Outlaws

Well after a lot of encouragement and work particularly from our good friend John Cannuli who enticed and helped a couple of racers to Mackay, we ended up with a field of seven. Unfortunately after all the qualifying was over on Saturday afternoon we found out that we needed eight starters to score points first round, even though we had three rounds of racing. This meaning the first three losers would receive no points at all, which to me is an absolutely ridiculous situation. Whether you have seven or eight competitors you still have three rounds of racing but never the less it was quality racing provided from the seven starters in Supercharged OUTLAWS. Friday night started off with some good runs and considering the voluntary work that they do it’s a pleasure to race there as it is an excellent, Australia’s premier regional track. The Real Deal Motor Sports Insurance Team put on a special breakfast for visiting Supercharged OUTLAWS competitors on the Saturday morning in Mackay and it was well received. Our reasoning was simple for the breakfast, as there was a lot of effort put in by fellow competitors travelling great distances we wanted to show our support and appreciation of this and its always nice to catch up. We also invited the Bettes Family from Brisbane and our hard working ANDRA CEO Tony Thornton and Technical Director David Baker also called in, it was a good time to sit down for some off the record discussions and thanks again especially to Tony & David.

The lead up was quite eventful with the precession of racers travelling through town, it was lovely to have our good friends John, Sharon and Kimmy Ward stay at home Wednesday and Thursday night on the way up to Mackay and again on Sunday night on the way back. One thing you can be assured of with drag racing is you will have quality friends all over Australia. The Ward’s generally leave early for any long trips as the bus has had a fair few runs and Wardy likes to be sure they have plenty of time in case of any mishaps, but he made it up and back without any trouble staying with John & Kirsten Cannuli on the Tuesday night on their way up from Sydney. Unfortunately the same can’t be said about our crew chief Darren White on his near new Harley Davison which sustained a puncture near Mackay and had to be rescued by Des Brown from C.Q. Cabinet Makers. Lucky Des’s Ute was available to pick the tractor up as per photos attached. Des is one of our generous sponsors and has joined us now for two meetings, I am sure he will be back for some more.

We also had the pleasurable company of Anthony & Bob Buckley (comp racer) on their way up from Dalby on the Thursday night, a house full of drag racers it was close on heaven for me. Thanks to my darling wife Heather whilst not a great lover of motor racing herself, Heather puts up with my obsession and is very supportive. Our Head Man Alan Croft who is still recovering from a hernia operation couldn’t ride either of his two Suzuki’s at Mackay but he is at least back in the saddle and going to the drag racing meetings and getting away from that disastrous caravan lifestyle.

You can’t say that they have not done a good job with the track at Palmyra, on the concrete launch pad for Friday night’s qualifier Nathan ripped off a 7.667 @ 174.32mph from the “Lexus Piranha Real Deal Motor Sports Insurance Hot Rod”. Then when Saturday rolled around also came some pretty ordinary cross winds, gusting up to 20 to 25 knots and was far too dangerous for the pencils. Especially for Christine Steffens who as she put it has been over the wall once with a cross wind and has no desire to do the same again. A unanimous decision was made along with the help of the ANDRA officials to run over the eighth mile; it was either that or nothing. We have never run the eighth mile before and it certainly closes up the field. Our first eighth mile qualifier was 5.015 @ 141.02mph followed up later in the day at 2.53pm with a 5.0517 @ 140.54mph. The third qualifying round was at 4.48pm produced a 4.897 @ 145.45mph and it was very pleasing to see Rob Coleman get in some good runs after breaking the snout off the crank in the small block Chevy HQ, he put a huge effort in getting it ready in time to get to Palmyra then had some gearbox problems on Friday and had to rebuild the gearbox overnight with the help of Phil Cruikshank. Also Ricky & Christine Steffens put a new set of heads on after pulling a Rocker post out, they two made a huge effort to be there and support the field.

You wouldn’t read about it but who do we encounter first up, round one John Ward. One of the pleasures with drag racing and I suppose other sports are the same but this is our sport, you can pit beside and still be best mates with your competitor whilst maintaining a magnificent friendship and healthy rivalry. The last person we would ever want to beat in the first round is John Ward as we have been pitting together for so many years now. It was especially disappointing for the Ward’s as this was their third trip to Palmyra two of which were rained out and now a first round loss with no points, under different circumstance they would of at least got 40 points and got something back for their time, money and effort.

On a zero tree Nathan cut a .094 light against John’s .113 and went 4.854 on a 4.84 dial in whilst John went 4.654 on a 4.65 Dial in there was not much in it, margin being .0105 but a win to the Hot Rod, never the less the end result was it was a 3/2 lead to the Peirano’s against the Ward’s.. Round # 2 whom do we come up against again but the Northern Territorian, for years when Daniel Reed owned this car he beat up on us with it until we finally scored a win against him on his final run in the car at the Summer Nationals this year in Western Sydney. With the new owner Fastass Couriers, Watts family from Alice Springs racing us in the final at the Top Fuel meet at Willowbank it was a double red light and as we were the slower car Matty picked up the win, this time double break out but yet again we loose. A brilliant light by Nathan .008 against an average one by Matty .183 running a 4.801on a 4.84 dial in @ 145.56mph Matty went 4.769 on a 4.80 dial in @ 145.33mph not much in it extremely close racing we knew we had him on the light and were quite surprised when the win light lit up in the other lane.

Peter A. "The Legend - The Cheque Book" Peirano.

Photos in the Gallery!

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