The Riverbend Nationals have delivered another fantastic NDRC show to the delight of a packed crowd at Dragway at The Bend, culminating in dramatic finals action this afternoon.
In Top Fuel Motorcycle, Muscat took the A-Final win with a convincing 6.247/329.37kph pass over Greg Durack’s 8.600 effort at 8.600/261.92kph. The B-Final went the way of Danny Rickard (7.582/252.41kph) in what was a highly entertaining side-by-side pass between him and Corey Buttigieg (7.787/197.21kph), which some called the Top Fuel Motorcycle race of the event, and was dampened by the latter hitting the timing blocks at the finish line. Damian Martini took the C-Final victory with a solo run, running into trouble to trundle down the track for a 64.999 and no speed recorded.
Muscat had started his day with a representative pass straight down the middle (6.186/338.56kph) in round one on a bye while Rickard ran it all the way through in his pass (7.852/258.94kph) against Damian Martini (9.681/136.41kph), who gave the wall a little kiss on his way down the track. Durack meanwhile showed big improvement with a 7.646/290.29kph after struggling with tyre shake and traction in qualifying, while Buttigieg (9.199/164.51kph) in the other lane came whisper close to the wall but managed to stay off it.
In the second round, Muscat and Martini faced off with Muscat taking another with a 6.290/291.28kph effort to Martini’s 8.012/195.37kph, while Buttigieg enjoyed a solo win on a 15 second pass. Durack meanwhile took a win over Rickard, with Rickard pushed back from the line leaving Durack to take a solo 9.293/250.33kph journey down the quarter-mile.
“It’s great to get over here. The crew really thrashed it out last night and in the early hours of this morning to get back out here and put on a big show for these fans,” Muscat said.
“How good is this JTS rocketship today?! We’d love to go a bit faster; we didn’t get there today. Keep an eye on us and we’ll keep chipping away.”
