One dragracer who has really been enjoying his racing this year is Roger Murray (Te Rapa). During the 1970's and 80's Murray was top of his game in the Street Rod Class in his T-bucket with a distinctive Shotgun engine. This car carried him to a string of national and track records around New Zealand.
These days Murray is racing in the Super Street Eliminator at Fram AutoLite Dragway at Meremere. This bracket caters for street driven cars where the cars race under a handicap system. And just like the early days, Murray has a distinctive drive, an F150 Lightning.
This year marks the fortieth year the Meremere track has been operating, first as Champion Dragway and today as Fram Autolite Dragway. To celebrate this occasion there will be some formalities at the Nationals on March 15, 16, 17.
The kings in the sport are the top fuel dragsters. These fire breathing supercharged monsters run on nitromethane fuel and shake the ground when they run. We are lucky to have two of these machines in New Zealand, Reece Fish's Prepared Produce dragster and the Mount Shop dragster of Tony and Anthony Marsh. Both machines have proven pedigrees under previous owners. Anthony Marsh has also been driving another of the teams nitro cars, an A/FD. To date he has had a very successful run in the car.
All the teams have just one more race before the nationals on the 3 March. This meeting is the forth and points final in the summer series at Meremere. This will be the last time to sort out any gremlins before the big one, the nationals.
