Team Hitman - Winternationals 2008 Experience WOW.....what can I say.   We finished loading Gordon Crawford's truck at around 2am this morning (Monday morning) with the 6 bikes and 2 cars plus a massive amount of support gear.   Less than three hours sleep and back in the hire car for the drive to the airport for a 8.20am flight home (Yeah I know, not the smartest thing I did).   No sleep on the plane as young Chris (21 mths) had had his fill of sleep!!!!!   I was struggling to find the words to describe what we were feeling over the 3 1/2 days of racing (our first trip outside WA to race) when Murray O'Connor said it for me in the staging lanes before our semi-final run.....SURREAL!!!!!!   What an awesome place, what an awesome array of vehicles and what an awesome surface to race on.  Willowbank cops alot of flak but it has a soul and atmosphere I do not think the newer tracks have yet.  We were a little rattled with the way they ran a few things, but we all had to adapt, or let it ruin what we had gone to do, and that was race.  So some of the toilets are a bit ordinary and the pit roads are a shocker, but for a club run venue with very little Government support they do the best they can with the money they have and it is a credit to them.     To see Robin Judd go 5.90 in the Studebaker Doorslammer (after the earlier 5.94) was mind blowing.   I have struggled to find my voice since that run (much to the joy of our crew)!   To see so many records fall, including WORLD records was just incredible.   I think out of the 36 West Aussie teams making the trip, most made the Quarter & Semi Finals which is just a massive effort with the tough fields that all brackets had.   The shade in the pits and staging lanes was great and the hunt for Koala's in those trees continued until the wee hours of this morning.  I never saw a Koala but did get a phone call from team Chapman an hour after our flight arrived in Perth to say they had video evidence of the elusive Koala's and they were watching one right behind where the Hitman had been parked as we spoke!!!   I didn't believe them so they put their Dad on the phone to back them up!!!!   How low is that when you have to get your Dad to fib for you!!!!   Catalano's and Brennan's had already left the track so I had nobody to call for independent verification.  I am thinking they had too many jimmies and the Hogs Breath pink Pig was still running around.   The Chapman's took along their Dad.   He is 82 years old and had a ball.   He told me all sorts of things about his boy's and I have come away knowing waaaayyyyyyy more than I think I should.....HA HA HA HA   Our entire 1st season with the Hitman has been like a huge rollercoaster.   We never thought we would own such a car but to take it to the Winter's in it's first year was just incredible.   To get to share it with Team Catalano, Chapman and Brennan just made it that much better.         Set-up day - Queued 1 Hour to check in, then Plane 1.5 hours late getting out of Perth add the bar being shut and the boys were a bit cranky by the time the plane took off around 2am.   Fog into Brisbane so held in the Air an extra 30 minutes or so and then we get lost trying to get to the track.   I was driving and had four back seat drivers trying to read a road map.....AHHHHHH!!!!!   By the time we arrived, everyone had given up on us and had Maurice Brennan's AA/AP car out with the Hitman coming down the ramp.   After unpacking and setting everything up, we took off for our accommodation in Marburg.  What a magic place to stay.   Built in the late 1800's and at one stage owned by Catholic Missionaries, Team Hitman could not help themselves with a quick prayer to the Virgin Mary at the Grotto.   Even young Chris got in on the act.   However, as Jonno is the only Catholic on the team, and a  non-practising one at that, we were paid back with the gearbox going bang in the 1st Qualifier.   Day 1 - 1st Qualifier and Catalano out first.   The Charger had some of the worst tyre shake I have personally witnessed.   The two chutes popped out and the Valiant badge popped off along with the springs on the injector hat.   On return to the pits more damage was found with body damaged on the back quarters but the worst of it was not found until the end of qualifying when it was discovered the diff housing had spread or changed shape.   Some Oxy gear was  borrowed and they got it fixed overnight to be out for 1st round of eliminations.   Chapman's had an uneventful run with a 7.43 which was only 3/100th of their PB in Perth.   The Hitman torched 1st gear on the launch.   Luckily, Steve McGrath had very genourously given us his gearbox as a spare, given that ours had let us down twice this season already.   It saved us, and I believe that the Budha Bushdog luck saw us through to the Semi-Finals.   Bushdog has a fight on his hands to get it back from us now.  John Payne (Burner Magneto's) took the time to come and see us and what had happened to our gearbox.   He had a sticky nose on the tail gate of his Ute, then blow us away if he didn't take it with him and return lunch time Friday with it fixed (with improvements!!!).   Day 2 - 2nd Qualifier for Outlaws and the Hitman ran 7.23 which cemented us in the field.   Nice, straight, strong pass. Catalano with a 6.62 made them top qualifier after 2nd round of qualifying and the MPH was a PB at 217.08.   Chapman's went 7.47 with a little tyre spin.     3rd Qualifier was mid afternoon.   Catalano ran a 6.59 but he was still not quick enough to take top qualifier with the honour going to Katherine Sitcher and a 6.53   The Hitman went 7.27 with the Hitman drifting towards the double white line.     Team Chapman ran a 7.53, which did not improve their qualifying position from the previous run, but that did not matter, they qualified!    Qualifying ended with all three West Aussie's qualifying in the entered field of 39.   Willowbank would not allow the guy's running outside the 7.99 cut-off to get into the field even though we were under subscribed (less than 32 cars) so went into first elimination with a field of 26.   This is a grey area for many in the ANDRA rule book and I for one wish they would fix it one way or the other.   In my humble opinion we are a sportsman bracket, and the sportsman thing to do is let them run.   Day 3 and 1st Elimination was not scheduled until the end of the day but then the rain arrived.   By the time the track was dry we did not run until 11pm.  The track had 21 degree of temp but altitude was in the negatives and humidity up to 83% with air temp at 14 degrees.   We had a split round which meant no opponent until the staging lanes and no lane choice.    Team Catalano and Team Hitman had qualified in the first half of the field with Team Chapman in the bottom half.   We sent the Chapman's on a couple of laps of the pits so they would not end up racing one of us in 1st round!!!!  I know, I know.....a bit sneaky but it's an awful long way to tow and end up being knocked out by the guy's you made lunch for.     The Hitman had Christine Steffens in first round.   Christine is freshly licensed in the dragster and trying to gain the experience needed to go on and obtain her Top Fuel licence so she can pilot the Funny Car her and Rick (Pilot of one of the Bailey Floppers) has purchased.   Race Control had posted her dial-in incorrectly but the Steffens crew did not picked it up and Christine accepted the green light on the incorrect dial-in.   We ran 7.19 (a PB) on a 7.20 dial-in but because of the race control error, Christine broke out by more.   Christine was very gracious in defeat, as we were in accepting a good-luck win.   I promised the team a roast dinner when they come to Perth with the Nitro Flopper.   The Catalano team had a bad run with the car overpowering the track.   Lindsay pedalled as best he could but unfortunately landed on that double white line and their weekend was over.  The up side is, Lindsay was more than chuffed with his consolation prize of helping with a spark-plug change on the Hitman, although it took him a bit to find out where they were.    The Chapman's did not get off to a great start either with their opponent having an incorrect dial-in posted by race control.   The dial-in was changed on the board but still incorrect so Katherine Sitcher (top qualifier) refused to stage.   During all this, Mark is waiting and finally moves into pre-stage, then the starter called him forward to full stage, even though Katherine is still waiting for the correct dial-in.   Keep in mind the whole time nobody has told the Chapman crew what the problem is.   Mark was in the car thinking they were either, playing games or had mechanical trouble.   The starter gave Mark the green and he took off still being unaware of what was going on.   The end result after several conversations in the pits between interested parties was a re-run scheduled for 8am the next morning!!!!!   The re-run ended up being 8.30am but Mark won running within 1/100th of the previous night with a 7.46   Day 4 - 2nd Elimination.   The Hitman was up against Tim Caswell and we would be chasing.   Caswell on a 7.65 dial-in and us on a 7.20.   Caswell red lit and Anthony saw an opportunity to test our tune-up.   We ran another PB with a 7.17.   This lucky streak was getting a bit silly along with our poor ability to read the weather!   Team Chapman came out against Steven Swinscoe with Swinscoe doing the chasing.   The Mustang broke out and ran a PB with a 7.36 and PB MPH at 189.79.   This left the Hitman being the only WA Outlaw flying the flag.   Who would ever have guessed that!!!!!       3rd Elimination (Quarter Finals) and the Hitman had Steven Swinscoe.   Some useless info to fill more space.....We went to introduce ourselves and do the lane choice thing.   Turns out, Bill is a mate of Tony Harrington (original owner of the Hudson C10) and he runs the original gearbox out of it.   Our box is also out of the C10 but the one that arrived with the truck before Clive stepped up to the Lenco.   There really is a lot of people out there running some really old gear.....nice to know we are not alone!!!   In the staging lanes, the Air was still pretty good and the track temp nice and warm so we thought we would go for it and dial-in at 7.15.   Swinscoe is a bit of a gun with his dial-in usually, but broke out handing us the win with a 7.30, after the Hitman got all out of shape.   This luck thing was getting insane.     Keeping in mind also, this whole time we are receiving text messages from GrandMaster McGrath who is listening to the SpeedFM pod cast on his computer back here in Perth.   He was checking up on our opponent's race history and giving all sorts of tips etc.   We did appreciate the info, as allot of these guy's were totally unknown to us and I think Steve felt apart of the team given we were running / testing his box for the big block he will be running next season.       4th Elimination (Semi-finals) and the Hitman scored Bill Fletcher in his Dragster.   It was close to 5pm when we were in the staging lanes and it was getting very chilly.    We stuck with our 7.15 dial-in from the previous round but made the fatal mistake of misreading the track.....it was a bit skatey for us, ran 7.34 and that finished our race meeting with the car all over the place.         After getting over that horrid feeling of losing we realised what we had actually achieved, not only for the Winters but the season and WOW what a ride it has been.   WE CAME 4th at the Winters, running 2 PB ET's and a PB 60 Foot (1.04 without a trans-brake)!!!!!!!   The car is in one piece and the engine in stellar condition. SO, what a way to end the 2007 / 2008 race season.    BRING ON 2008 / 2009.   If 18 months ago someone had said we would bring in a car from the USA, be running it at the Winter's and make the semi-final I would have had them committed to Graylands!!!  Just goes to show that extraordinary things happen to ordinary people.   This could never have been possible without so many and they need to be publicly acknowledged.   Firstly, Terry Hall in Vermont for selling us the car, our fantastic Winters crew Jonno, Steve and Spencer for not drinking so much that they could not function next day.  Our crew guys who could not make the trip, but who's contribution was no less important for helping us get to this point, Peter, Mick and the Horton Family.   Gordon Crawford for having an enormous amount of faith in the team and for getting the Hitman safely to Queensland and back, all 8700 Km's (5500 miles) of it which was not easy given some roads were flooded going over and it has rained a good part of the trip home for him.   Steve McGrath for the gearbox.   You are a true gentleman and you will never let us forget it.   The Hudson brother's for the tub of other spares lent to us as a just in case, Diff Gears, Barrel Valve, Fuel Pump etc plus the Generator which ran like a dream.     And of course John Payne for fixing the gearbox.  Pino Priolo, I won't embarrass him with why, but we appreciate what he did.     The Pierano family, for arranging for us to all be together in the pits, for the Mobile Cool Room to keep our healthy food, not so healthy food and drinks in plus the portable loo for us girls.   Chad Neylon and the rest of the Commentary team for the fantastic commentary, plus the pushing of the merchandise.     Daniel Illarietti (Motorplex track staff & helping with track safety at the Winters) for camping with the car each night and surprising us each morning with a tidy tool box, the dishes done and Urn hot.   Craig Vogler, our Winters Bracket Marshall.....I will never complain again about the ground I cover in Perth to look after our Outlaw Bracket.  The Pit area is huge and the cars are spread everywhere.   Lastly, our sponsors without whom we would be in all sorts of trouble; Gordon Crawford, The Moving Man (Cougar Racing), Kwinana Performance, Southside Engines, FTC, DJW Engineering, FUCHS and Genie Exhaust.   Lindsay, Shane & Wendy Catalano would like to thank their Crew; Peter Spowart,  Ray Green,  Glen Barnes, Ivan King, John Blythe & Kylie Green And their Sponsors; M andurah Diff and Trans,  G.T.S. Engine Reconditioning,  Quick Brick Cartage and  B&J Catalano Pty Ltd, plus  a special thanks to Dwyer Engineering for the use of their crane to put the container on the truck   Mark & Gary Chapman would like to thank their Crew but they are not home yet and I do not know all their names.