Bums on seats at Adelaide International RacewayOver 300 racers, crew and interested observers gathered at Adelaide International Raceway last night to hear from Rino D’Alfonso, principal of Racing Onn Promotions, about the future of drag racing at the track.

The meeting kicked off at 7pm sharp with Rino spending about 30 minutes explaining the current situation to listeners and dispelling a number of rumours about the financial position of Racing Onn Promotions.

Rino indicated that drag racing will continue at Adelaide International Raceway with the scheduled ANDRA Championship event on February the 23^rd and 24^th of February. A vote was then held on how many major events should be run each year at the track.

Matt Forbes is sparing no expense to take a shot at the Super Gas title (Photo courtesy Fred Dwyer)Ballarat drag racer Matt Forbes is sparing no expense to take a shot at the Super Gas title come the Aeroflow Sportsman Drag Racing Championship at Fuchs South Coast Raceway in Portland on January 5 and 6.

Forbes said the car suffered from a mysterious lack of horsepower at the Australian Nationals recently in Sydney and the team has been going over his Lucas Oil Products hot rod one piece at a time to find the gremlin.

"We stripped the car, had the motor back on the dynamometer, rebuilt the transmission, refitted the fuel system - you name it, we did it," he said. "We have also had a new configuration torque converter built for it and this seems to have cured our issues. We feel very confident that now we have these issues out of the way our season will really take off from here."

Allan Dobson and the Rapisarda Racing team will be shooting for the national record come round four of the ANDRA Top Fuel championship at Perth Motorplex on February 1 and 2.

It is part of a renewed philosophy among the Rapisarda Racing team and its Western Australian driver. Realising that they will not be able to make it to every round due to commitments racing in the USA they are looking for a new way to leave their impression.

Dobson said the Santo's Cranes team is hell bent on running in the 4.5 second zone and claiming the record, which was set by Phil Read at 4.56 seconds way back in 2008.

According to some of their incremental times from the last Top Fuel championship round in Perth, the team was right on track.

Following on from a relatively disappointing debut of the new engine in the GXP at the Australian Nationals I returned home to Melbourne and got underway ordering parts for the carburettors and transmission.

I mentioned in my last update about the engine being very rich off the line and through 1st gear and it wasn't until the top end of second gear that it started to clear itself up. One of the first things I did when I got home was to call Bob Book at Book Racing Enterprises as he built the carburettors for the motor and we spoke about a number of changes that needed to be made. I ordered a handful of parts from Bob and they were promptly on their way to Australia for me to fit to the carbs.

Back in the late '80s Wild Bunch was introduced to Australian Drag Racing; crazy blown sedans that match raced around the country in front of hordes of excited fans. I can still hear Big Darrell Eastlake calling all action from Eastern Creek. Never mind he didn't know what he was talking about...

From these somewhat humble beginnings, today's 5 seconds Top Doorslammers can trace their roots back to the Wild Bunch days. Sure they've come a long way but the DNA of a blown tin top is still there.

The return of championship drag racing to Victoria is imminent with the running of the Aeroflow Sportsman Drag Racing Championship at Fuchs South Coast Raceway, Portland on January 5-6.

It will be a highlight of the season for Victorian Competition driver Craig Geddes as he gets to showcase his drag racing skills again to many of his local family and friends. He will be one of many top level drivers heading to the southern Victoria venue.