AMERICAN EXPRESS

THE STREET OUTLAWS: NO PREP KINGS JUGGERNAUT HITS THE PERTH MOTORPLEX, WITH AUSSIE RACERS FACING A TOUGH WEEKEND AGAINST THE US INVADERS

DISCOVERY Channel’s Street Outlaws: No Prep Kings has landed in Australia, kicking off with two days of no-prep, eighth-mile racing at Perth Motorplex. Ten personalities from the hit US series brought along mostly smalltyre cars to race against some of our biggest names. Thursday was for testing, with racing kicking off on the Friday.

The event itself was divided into two sections. The Street Outlaws stars took on the Aussie racers chosen by Discovery Channel, while big- and small-tyre classes raced amongst themselves on 6.0- and 7.0-second indexes.

As per the Street Outlaws norm, grudge racing against the Americans was negotiated in an effort to create parity between small- and big-tyre cars. Some racers were granted a ‘back tyre’ advantage, in which they were allowed to stage with their rear tyres on the startline instead of the fronts.

On Friday, the first race between Jeff Lutz’s twin-turbo GTO and John Zappia’s 20-yearold ‘Zap’s Rat’ Monaro notably saw Lutz given the ‘hit’ on Zappia, meaning the latter couldn’t move until he saw Lutz leave first. He held the Aussie challenger on the line for five seconds after the green light showed, before taking the win. Zappia looked promising in their second race of the night, but broke loose and got out of the throttle, granting Lutz two for two. While these negotiations are commonplace on Street Outlaws, they were something of a foreign concept to many local punters, which led to some robust discussion online.