WARR had the great pleasure to catch up and spend a few hours with John ‘ZAP’ Zappia at the Perth Motorplex Nitro Slam meet in January, 2015. Driver of the world’s first Super Stock car to hit 7’s, first Doorslammer in the 6’s, the 2nd driver to join the 200mph club, first Doorslammer in the 5’s and most recently 7-time back-toback and 2014 Top Doorslammer Championship winner and recently, the new track Top Doorslammer record holder at Perth Motorplex. ZAP has raced a few drag cars during his long career with a personal best time of 5.683 @ 253.52mph. ZAP celebrated his 38th racing Anniversary on Sunday the 28th of December, 2014 and we are proud to publish this exclusive interview with such a truly iconic Australian drag racing champion. WARR: Congratulations for winning seven back-to-back ANDRA National Pro Series Top Doorslammer Championship’s in your Fuchs Lubricants/Striker
Crushing and Screening “Crusher” HQ Monaro. What was your first drag car and how many cars have you raced during your career? JZ: I started racing in a 194 CI, 14-second Torana. Then in 1981, I jumped to a 383 Chev in a 4-door HQ ‘71 Monaro and fitted a WB Statesman front and rear onto it, the spare parts had come out for the WB but the cars hadn’t hit the Showroom yet and I already had the front end, back panel and tail lights. It had a turbo 400 trans’ and 9” diff which ran a best time of 12.86 at 113mph. Later we fitted a LS7 454ci with 550HP but it was thirsty and a bit hard to drive a hot 454 on the street and wasn’t using it much so, I started dragging it with a best time of 12.76 at 125mph. In Easter 1983, I started to build a drag car in a factory unit. I bought the original 2-door Monaro body for $350 and then decided a pro-chassis car was the way to go. So, I built my own box tube chassis out of mild steel and fitted
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stainless steel interior and wheel tubs with the help of Kounis Metal Industries. Then with Southside Engine Centre’s help, I fitted the big block 454 LS-7 with crower fuel injection, a roller cam, 3 speed trans and a McLeod clutch. My white, all steel bodied HQ Monaro called Zaps Rat ran 9.39 at 148mph on its first pass and later at 460 ci, this early Zap’s Rat ran a best time of 9.11 at 151mph normally aspirated. Then we fitted a 427 crankshaft making it 434ci and a Khul 8/71 Supercharger and on its first pass, it went 8.64 at 164mph running in AA/Gas and the Australian record was 8.68 at the time. Zap’s Rat with a steel 2-door body, became the world’s 1st Super Stock car to hit seven’s with a 7.98 at 173mph and my 452ci later produced a record 7.95 at 174mph. I designed and built the entire chassis at home and USA chassis guru, Tom Alston proclaimed Zap’s Rat to be the quickest ladder-bar rear end car in the world at that time.