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Peter Xiberras might have been on the East Coast this weekend while his PremiAir Nulon Racing Supercars team was racing in the West, but that didn’t stop him from leading by example this weekend, bringing home no less than two NDRC Top Fuel Championship round wins at the Gulf Western Oil Nitro Champs double header.
Today’s A-Final victory for Xiberras backs up Saturday’s championship round win and sees him become the first Top Fuel driver to win two championship rounds this season, after becoming the fifth winner in as many events yesterday.
Two-time champ Xiberras lifted his second big trophy in two days thanks to an incredible holeshot (better reaction time) win over defending title winner Damien Harris, with a three hundredths of a second advantage off the line seeing him cross the line first in 3.795 seconds at 319.82mph to Harris’ 3.793 effort.
Xiberras had booked his place in the A-Final with a race one victory (3.800/319.90mph) over Phil Read and a race two win over Phil Lamattina (3.843/319.52mph) in a weekend where everything came together for the PremiAir Nulon Top Fuel Dragster and its hard-working team.
In Perth, a short and sharp 20-minute practice session opened the day for the PremiAir Nulon Racing Supercars outfit, with the team locking down the 12th (Tim Slade) and 21st (Jimmy Golding) quickest times respectively, before heading to the three-phase knock-out qualifying for this afternoon’s race. Slade would qualify the #23 PremiAir Nulon Racing Camaro on P10 while Golding would start the race from P20 in the #31 PremiAir Nulon Racing Camaro.
In the afternoon’s 55-lap race Golding was able to move up three places to finish P17 despite getting boxed in off the start to lose a position and struggling for pace, while Slade crossed the line in P15 after starting P10, but was reclassified to P22 due to a 15-second penalty for contact with the quarter panel of a DJR entry while exiting the pit box in his first stop, which also left him battling bent steering for the remainder of the race.
Also in Perth, the #92 RM Racing Cars supported by PremiAir Racing ZB Commodore had an unfortunate yet trophy-getting end to the second Super2 race of the weekend, being turned into a heavy roll with plenty of time in the air while battling for the pointy positions. The race was declared at that point and the results taken back to the lap before, with McLeod – who was thankfully unhurt in the heavy impact and had earlier qualified fourth – awarded third place.
PremiAir Nulon Racing now prepares for the NDRC season-ending Winternationals at Queensland’s Willowbank Raceway across June 6-9 and in the Supercars, the Darwin Triple Crown in the NT across July 14-16. For event information, visit www.ndrc.tv and www.supercars.com
QUOTEBOARD: PERTH SUPER SPRINT – SUNDAY MAY 19, 2024
Peter Xiberras – PremiAir Nulon Racing Top Fuel Dragster
“This is unbelievable, I don’t know what to say, I am a bit gobsmacked actually. It has just been one of those weekends where things have fallen into place. There have been times where we thought we had blown it and it just comes in. I can’t thank my crew enough – we were here past midnight servicing, there was a little problem we thought with the rear end with the diff and we probably didn’t need to change it, but we did to make sure, so we pulled the diff out and put the spare in and these boys and girls are just amazing individuals, and I can’t thank them enough. Without them I wouldn’t be doing this, so kudos to them.”
Tim Slade – #23 PremiAir Nulon Racing Camaro
“It was a bit of a difficult day on my side of the garage – we had not a bad qualifying being in the ten again but similar to yesterday we didn’t quite have the pace, although the tyre life was a little better, so we have plenty to work on for next time. There was decent qualifying speed, but we would still like to be better, and we are working on the race car as well – I am looking forward to the test day now and to Darwin after that.”
Jimmy Golding – #31 PremiAir Nulon Racing Camaro
“I unfortunately missed out on the top ten in qualifying today, we had saved a tyre set for the last run, but we didn’t make it in, so we didn’t get to use them there, but we put them towards the race. We tried to utilise those green tyres, but we didn’t quite have the car beneath us today, but still managed to peel off a couple of cars and had a couple of good battles. Now we move on and focus on the next round – we tried a lot of different things on the cars today so I can’t wait to go for a test day now and try and get some more development into the cars and make them faster heading to the next round in Darwin.”
Cameron McLeod – #92 RM Racing Cars supported by PremiAir Racing ZB Commodore
“I am all right, it was a bit of a bad end to our weekend, it was a pretty scary incident flying through the air for a little bit there. I have chatted to Cooper, and we are all good, there is no bad blood between us. Hopefully we can push through from this. We showed some good pace this weekend, it is a shame it didn’t end how we wanted it to, but thanks to the boys for making it possible all weekend, the car was awesome, and I can’t thank everyone enough.”
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
