Gregorini hops to more Top Doorslammer success

By Auto Action

Date posted: 21 May 2024

Daniel Gregorini took another Top Doorslammer win in the second leg of the Nitro Champs National Drag Racing Championships round at Sydney Dragway.

It was a quintessential Australian start to the day when a kangaroo hopped across the dragway before some of the most hotly contested Top Doorslammer racing of the season got properly underway.

A dramatic A-Final saw rookie Russell Taylor line up against Gregorini, but with Taylor crossing the centre line, knocking out a timing block, he handed possibly the slowest Top Doorslammer win to Gregorini.

Earlier in the day, Taylor set a new quickest ET of the weekend with a 5.634 at 415.88kph pass over Craig Hewitt (6.133/388.60kph) in round one. Gregorini won both of his races against Emilio Spinozzi in rounds one and two to find his way to the A-Final.

“That is not too bad…I was like ‘damn’ (having had to get off it), but then next thing I saw timing blocks flying across in front of me, so I was like, ‘yeah we got the win,” Gregorini said.

“Thank you to all my sponsors and all of my team and Lisa’s team – we got the win in the A-Final and the B-Final, so that is awesome.

“Every single team in Doorslammer is stepping up, it just shows how hard the class is, and you take the wins where you can get them.

“This is our last race for the season so we will go home now, rebuild, and try and find some more power and some more go fast parts and go from there.

“My boys have done an awesome job all weekend, Lisa is just unbelievable, she is a great driver, and her team is great, and they are killing it. Thank you to all my sponsors for all of their support.”

In the B-Final Lisa Gregorini enjoyed a solo run after Ronnie Palumbo was unable to make it to the starting box.

It was a stellar weekend for ‘Mrs YoungBlood’, who set two new PBs across rounds one (5.704/373.93kph) and two (5.689/408.99kph) despite having battled mechanical issues throughout Saturday’s qualifying.

In the C-Final, Top Qualifier and title leader John Zappia was looking for redemption after losing to Jeremy Callaghan on a holeshot in round two, but sadly, this wouldn’t be the case.

The 11-time champ was pushed back from the startline in a heartbreaking scene with fluid dripping from his Monaro, with the win going to Callaghan (10.491/133.8kph).

In the D-Final, Craig Hewitt kept the fans happy, delivering the biggest Top Doorslammer wheel stand this weekend on his way to a 6.068 second 373.96kph victory over Geoff Gradden (9.400/192.75kph).

The NDRC title chase now heads to Willowbank Raceway across June 6-9 for the Gulf Western Oil Winternationals for the final round of their 2023/2024 season.

Image: Cackling Pipes Photography

READ THE LATEST ISSUE OF AUTO ACTION DIGITAL HERE

Don’t forget the print edition of Auto Action available via subscription here. For more of the latest motorsport news, subscribe to AUTO ACTION magazine.

Podcast: Supercars Perth and F1 Imola preview

On this week’s show, Andrew, Bruce and PG rejoice at the return of Supercars after what feels like and eternity, but is only four weeks. We preview the Perth round in this week’s Auto Action RevLimiter.

Listen to our latest episode on your podcast app of choice or here

Recent Stories

array ( 0 => WP_Term::__set_state(array( 'term_id' => 2957, 'name' => 'Drag Racing', 'slug' => 'drag-racing', 'term_group' => 0, 'term_taxonomy_id' => 2957, 'taxonomy' => 'category', 'description' => '', 'parent' => 6, 'count' => 174, 'filter' => 'raw', 'cat_ID' => 2957, 'category_count' => 174, 'category_description' => '', 'cat_name' => 'Drag Racing', 'category_nicename' => 'drag-racing', 'category_parent' => 6, )), 1 => WP_Term::__set_state(array( 'term_id' => 11, 'name' => 'Latest News', 'slug' => 'latest-news', 'term_group' => 0, 'term_taxonomy_id' => 11, 'taxonomy' => 'category', 'description' => '', 'parent' => 0, 'count' => 16553, 'filter' => 'raw', 'cat_ID' => 11, 'category_count' => 16553, 'category_description' => '', 'cat_name' => 'Latest News', 'category_nicename' => 'latest-news', 'category_parent' => 0, )), 2 => WP_Term::__set_state(array( 'term_id' => 2029, 'name' => 'ZZZ-Email', 'slug' => 'email', 'term_group' => 0, 'term_taxonomy_id' => 2029, 'taxonomy' => 'category', 'description' => '', 'parent' => 2031, 'count' => 7111, 'filter' => 'raw', 'cat_ID' => 2029, 'category_count' => 7111, 'category_description' => '', 'cat_name' => 'ZZZ-Email', 'category_nicename' => 'email', 'category_parent' => 2031, )), 3 => WP_Term::__set_state(array( 'term_id' => 2031, 'name' => 'ZZZ-RSSFeeds', 'slug' => 'zzz-rssfeeds', 'term_group' => 0, 'term_taxonomy_id' => 2031, 'taxonomy' => 'category', 'description' => '', 'parent' => 0, 'count' => 6466, 'filter' => 'raw', 'cat_ID' => 2031, 'category_count' => 6466, 'category_description' => '', 'cat_name' => 'ZZZ-RSSFeeds', 'category_nicename' => 'zzz-rssfeeds', 'category_parent' => 0, )), )

Gregorini hops to more Top Doorslammer success

Recent Stories

Wallace wins as SVG fights to top 20

Piastri holding “a lot of confidence” in championship fight

Piastri makes further history with Spa success

Teams regain starting choice for enduros