WARRNAMBOOL drag racer Stephen Griffin has launched his bid for national series success with victory at Portland’s South Coast Raceway.
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Griffin steered his Holden 355ci LJ Torana to super sedans honours as part of round one of Australian National Drag Racing Association’s sportsman series.
The 50-year-old qualified quickest on Saturday and won four knockout races on Sunday, including the final against Jason Arbery, to secure 100 series points.
Arbery false-started in the final. But he would have struggled to win regardless, with Griffin running a near-perfect 6.162 seconds off a dial-in of 6.160.
Dial-in is a handicapping system in which drivers estimate their time for the eighth-mile strip. They are disqualified if they break their prediction in a race.
“The quickest I ran was 6.14 (in qualifying) and the slowest I ran was 6.17. I was thereabouts. Saturday we had a tail wind, it ran a little bit quicker,” Griffin said.
“I was lucky I had a bye run in round two. I could test the car out without having to worry about anyone next to me. I was a bit lucky that way.
“I was confident I could go a few rounds. My reaction time and dial-in times have been fairly good of late. I was quietly confident but I wasn’t sure I’d win.”
Rounds two and three of the ANDRA sportsman series are in Perth in coming weeks. But Griffin said his next start would be in Adelaide in March.
He needs only one more solid result to reach the points cap of 160.
ANDRA officials cap drivers’ points to create a winner-takes-all showdown in the series finale at Winternationals, at Willowbank in June.
“The series is only a six-month series this time. They were running the calendar year but they’ve gone back to the financial year,” Griffin said.
“This year there’s only going to be six rounds (before Winternationals). It might make it a little bit easier to win it.
“We’ll do the Adelaide round, see how we go, and then we’ve got the option of going to Queensland.
“And we’ll do the Sydney round for sure.”
Griffin was among 140 competitors at Portland for the meeting. Including support crews and fans, about 2000 people converged on the track over two days.
Griffin said the success of the meeting showed how much money Warrnambool was missing out on by not having a drag strip.
“With a dedicated track in Warrnambool, this is something we could do here. You’d have an influx of a couple of thousand people over a weekend,” he said.
“They’ve really taken advantage of what they have over there. They’ve got a great set-up. It’s something Warrnambool is missing out on.”
Among other round one results, Warrnambool racer Tony Frost reached the final four of modified bike aboard his Suzuki GSX-R.
Frost false-started in a semi-final against Nathan Stone to end a productive weekend on a disappointing note.
“We only ran modified bike this weekend because there wasn’t enough for group two competition bike,” he said.
“We’ll head to Adelaide in March and hopefully run competition bike over there.
“This season is all about learning, testing. If we have to run modified bike, we’ve gained 60 points already and it’s a shortened season.”