The Coral Dyer Memorial Trophy was awarded to Londonderry’s Deanne Azzopardi for finishing as the highest female point scorer in the 2018 Sydney Dragway NSW Atura Track Championship Series.
The award can be won by any female at any age group and is an amazing achievement for Azzopardi as she has only been riding bikes for two years.
Despite being around racing and bikes for over 30 years, Azzopardi had never ridden a bike before 2016.
“I just decided one day that I would like to have a go,” she said.
“Prior to that I had never really given it a second thought … but I love it now, there is nothing on the planet like it.”
Azzopardi believes that drag racing is a family oriented sport as she competes for her family’s team, Azzopardi Racing which is made up of herself, her husband Leonard, their daughter Bianca and family friend, Alex Borg.
She started to learn how to ride bikes around Sydney Dragway car park, figuring out how and when to change gears and control a bike.
Once she had a good grasp on it all she started to compete.
“My husband is my mentor … he is the quickest and fastest drag bike racer in NSW and quickest and fastest no-bar racer in Australia.”
Azzopardi races a street bike where she must beat her opponent and reach a time no less than 10 seconds.
Azzopardi has reached times of 9.3 seconds in testing and has had a top speed of 147 miles per hour.
During 2018 she had eight meetings at Sydney Dragway and despite never actually coming first, Azzopardi was one of the most consistent racers and was regularly in a competitive position, making her the top point scorer.
This year Azzopardi makes the leap from street bike to extreme bike racing, which will involve her racing her husband’s old bike, Quicksilver, a turbo-charged Hayabusa.
It is considered to be one of the five quickest and fastest no-bar bikes in the country without Azzopardi on it.
She is excited to be racing extreme bike as she prefers the heads up class, where she just has to beat her opponent, not also reach a specific time as she did in street bike.
She has a few goals for 2019 saying: “I just want to be safe at the end of the year”.
“I’m not going to be competitive [in 2019],” said Azzopardi.
“I want to be competitive by the end of this year … currently I am worlds apart.”
People in extreme bike have more experience and can reach higher times and speeds, like 6.9 seconds and 200 miles per hour.
Across the eight races of 2019 she will have four competitive points rounds and four testing rounds.
Azzopardi looks to become more hands on with her bike, working with her husband so she can learn to do as much as she can.
“I’m going to improve and experience getting quicker and faster in heads up racing,” she said. “I like it better.”
“It’s fun … I want to inspire others to get into it.”