Rapisarda Racing teammates, Allan Dobson and Mark Mariani, were both bundled out in the first round of eliminations at last weekend’s Australian Top Fuel drag racing championship series at Queensland’s Willowbank Raceway, Ipswich.

However, while disappointed at their early exit from the Enzed Top Fuel Championship event, Sydney-based team-owner Santo Rapisarda and Mariani, Perth-based Dobson and US crew chief Glenn Mikres, were upbeat with the progress of the team’s recently imported former David Baca Motorsport Dragster. 
 
Despite both team cars over-powering the track in all three qualifying sessions, Mariani, who was racing at Willowbank for the first time, qualified in fourth place with a 5.437-second time, while Dobson, who was driving one of the ex-Baca US cars, finished in sixth spot with an 8.071-second time.
 
“We just couldn’t get the cars to stick to the track in qualifying,” Dobson said.
 
“The first qualifying session, my tyres shook early in the pass. The second session, the tyres shook a little further out and the third session the tyres shook further out again.
 
“I thought I was on a good pass in the third session when I went past where the car shook on the previous passes, but then it (the car) went into tyre shake again.
 
“I tried to peddle it, but the car just went straight into a wheel-stand, bounced off the wheelie bars, came down and basically just slapped me around in the @#%$pit. I could not control the accelerator and was unable to take the car home.”
 
Mariani said despite the sun setting on his first-ever pass down the Willowbank track, it did not faze him.  
 
“My first-ever pass at Willowbank was at dusk and the sun was right in my eyes. Everything was just a silhouette, including the backup guy. That was certainly a bit different from anything I had experienced before. But as soon as I put my (helmet) visor down, I could see the Christmas Tree and track and everything was fine.
 
“Then the air temperature dropped in the next two sessions and the track got stickier and we just kept smoking the tyres,” Mariani said.
 
In round one of eliminations, Dobson (4.931sec at 306.60mph) lost a close race to Darren Morgan (4.770/290.94), while Mariani (14.637/53.45) lost to event winner, Phil Read (5.766/190.22).
 
“I had a terrific race against Darren Morgan,” Dobson said. “I got a holeshot on him and lead at the 330ft (100m) mark, then at 1.47sec (into the race) it (the engine) dropped a cylinder on the seventh and Morgan slipped past.
 
“I pulled back six hundredths (of a second) at the top end (of the track), running 306mph to his 290mph. He (Morgan) ended up with a winning margin of 16 hundredths of a second.
 
“When we first raced this (Baca) car (in Perth), it was with the tune-up that came with the car. It would wheel stand in the first-half of the track and spin the tyres in the back-half of the track
 
“We scrapped that tune-up, backed it down a little too far and the car went into tyre shake. On that (first round elimination) pass, we hopped it up enough to handle the tyre distortion. The first-half (of the track) was clean and the car came home without wheel spin in the back-half,” Dobson said.
 
Mariani said despite clutch problems on the final qualifying and first elimination passes, he gained a lot of experience racing at Willowbank for the first time.  
 
“We had a few clutch issues, which caused the car to sit up on the tyres, but I certainly gained a lot of experience racing at Willowbank.”
 
Next event for Rapisarda Racing is the seventh annual Nitro Champs at Sydney Dragway, Friday to Sunday, April 30-May 2.

images: Grant Stephens (www.cacklingpipes.com)