Saturday Perth & Sydney

DeBrief

XIBERRAS BRINGS HOMES THE CHOCOLATES AS SUPERCARS BATTLE CONTINUES IN PERTH

PremiAir Nulon Racing has secured the Top Fuel victory on the East Coast today while simultaneously bringing home P12 and P14 on the other side of the country in today’s opening race of the Supercars’ Perth SuperSprint with the PremiAir Racing Nulon Camaros.

In Sydney, Peter Xiberras and the PremiAir Nulon Top Fuel Dragster raced through to take out the A-Final victory at the Gulf Western Oil Nitro Champs this afternoon in the first of two championship rounds for the NDRC Top Fuel title chase to be held this weekend.   

Xiberras had the fans on their feet with an incredible 3.823 second run at 320.58mph in the A-Final against defending champion Damian Harris (4.101/290.63mph).

The PremiAir Nulon Top Fuel Dragster secured its spot in the coveted A-Final thanks to a round two win (3.804/323.12mph) over Phil Read, and a strong ET in what was a narrow opening round loss (3.828/316.97mph) to Harris in the all-run format.

Xiberras and the PremiAir Nulon Top Fuel Dragster team are now hard at work preparing the dragster for tomorrow’s racing, which will mark the penultimate round for the 2023/2024 NDRC Top Fuel championship season.

At the Perth SuperSprint, the day’s proceedings opened with a 20 minute practice session where the team concentrated on set-up, before heading into the 40-minute three-part knock-out qualifying format, with both Golding and Slade running through to the final stage to qualify for this afternoon’s race P9 and P10 respectively in the #31 and #23 PremiAir Nulon Racing Camaros.

Come the 55-lap race, both Slade and Golding struggled for pace and tyre life while Golding also got into some tangles, with the pair holding on to bring their entries home in P12 and P14 respectively.

Also in Perth, the #92 RM Racing Cars supported by PremiAir Racing ZB Commodore finished this afternoon’s first Super2 race in eighth position – a strong result which saw driver Cameron McLeod improve six spots from his P14 qualifying position.

The action will continue tomorrow in both the East and West with three more rounds of racing for Top Fuel in Sydney (scheduled for 11.00am, 1.30pm and 4.00pm local time), practice, qualifying and a race for Supercars in Perth (scheduled for 11.40am, 2.00pm and 5.45pm local time), and qualifying and a race for Super2 (1.05pm and 4.15pm local time). For event information, visit www.ndrc.tv and www.supercars.com

QUOTEBOARD: PERTH SUPER SPRINT – SATURDAY, MAY 18, 2024

Peter Xiberras – PremiAir Nulon Racing Top Fuel Dragster

“This is bloody awesome! And a bit of a monkey off my back. This thing is a bracket car – it doesn’t matter what we do to it, it seems to hover around that three-eighty-two, three-eighty-three marker. It is amazing with drag racing, you can start off having a bad day, and finish up with the chocolates. We missed out on the win in the first run, but we got to the A-Final with the ET and the second race win and that was amazing, and then to win it was just brilliant. I just can’t thank my team enough, and I have to give a big shout out to my beautiful wife for all the support I get doing this. To come home with a win, this is for them, and this is what keeps us all smiling when we are putting this thing together at 2.00am in the morning to go racing at 11.00am. Words are escaping me a bit at the moment, but I can tell you, this is absolutely bloody awesome!”

Tim Slade – #23 PremiAir Nulon Racing Camaro

“It was a mixed day, we struggled as a team throughout practice, but we unlocked a bit of speed for qual, so good job by the engineers for that. We got off to a reasonable start in the race, but ultimately we didn’t have the speed or the tyre life, so we were just hanging in there pretty much. We have a bit to look at tonight, hopefully we can qualify in the ten again tomorrow and then have a stronger race.”

Jimmy Golding – #31 PremiAir Nulon Racing Camaro

“It was a bit of an up and down day once again. We had some highs coming out of qualifying with two cars in the top ten, it has been a while since we have had both cars in the top ten together so that was awesome. The race didn’t quite go our way in the #31 car, we got into a couple of battles and came off second best early on and probably were on the back foot a bit from there. We still want to find more pace in the car, but we did come back through a bit from where we were to P14 so it was not a terrible race, but we will definitely make it better for tomorrow.”

For more information on PremiAir Nulon Racing, please visit www.premiairracing.com or follow the team on its social media platforms at www.facebook.com/PremiAirRacing/, www.instagram.com/premiair_racing/, www.linkedin.com/company/premiairracing/ and www.twitter.com/premiairracing