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Collin Matiza Sports Editor
SEASONED campaigner Angelo Pereira began the new drag racing season with a bang when he emerged as the top dog in the bikes section during the opening event of the 2017 hp lubes Castrol Drag Racing Series at Donnybrook Raceway in Harare on Sunday.

Pereira, one of the sport’s pioneers in Zimbabwe, riding a Kawasaki, was crowned the top eliminator motorcycle rider in what was a dramatic double red light pass, which required probing of the rules and regulations to determine the winner.

And Pereira was all smiles after he stole the thunder from a number of other local bikers on an exciting and action-packed Sunday afternoon at Donnybrook.

In fact, the first event in the 2017 hp lubes Castrol Drag Racing Series did not disappoint.

A good crowd of over 2 000 drag racing fans attended this first event of the year, having been starved of drag racing action since the last event in October. In spite of the challenging economic environment, 69 competitors registered at Sunday’s event, including an impressive number of new competitors in both the car and bike classes.

New title sponsor, hp lubes Castrol, was served its just reward in heralding the success of its two sponsored (car and bike competitors) ,who both took first place in their respective classes and who both took the crowns of Top Motorvehicle Eliminator and top Motorcycle Eliminator respectively at the end of the day’s Eliminations event.

In spite of Terry Allberry’s best efforts in his AC Cobra, crowd favourite Mano Zevgolis, in his hp lubes Castrol Toyota MR2, passed the traps with a comfortable win.

These two hp lubes-sponsored vehicles also posted the quickest times of the day in the motorcycle and motorvehicle classes, posting elapsed times of 10.397 secs and 11.213 secs respectively.

Times were slightly down in general on Sunday, possibly due to weather conditions, but this leaves plenty of room for exciting development into the series.

Alan Cacace’s popular AC Cobra suffered mechanical problems after just a couple of runs, but is expected to be back in action at the next event.

Adding great excitement and atmosphere to the event was the participation of the Team Al Tezza Zimbabwe and their guests from Mozambique.