The record counted for nothing in the final though, with Lamattina taking an emotional victory – dedicating the win to one of his longest standing crew members who recently lost his daughter in a tragic road accident.
Race day opened with an almost dead heat between Phil Read and Peter Xiberras, with the margin of victory only of only .001s the tightest Top Fuel race pairing in living memory.
Read grabbed the win with his 3.808, a personal best over the 3.824 from Xiberras.
Harris took the solo in round one and gave the first indication of what was in store, his 3.777 an outstanding run in the heat of competition.
The only other car to dip into the 3.7s zone was Harris’ teammate and championship leader Wayne Newby, however his 3.798 not enough to drive around the quicker reacting Phil Lamattina with his 3.837 enough for the win.
Round two saw Newby take the solo and his 3.776 was another improvement, while Lamattina’s flaming 3.824 was enough for the victory when his opponent Read was unable to front for round two after finding a problem after the warmup.
Harris saved the best for last, fittingly against Xiberras who holds the record with a 3.74 from the 2021 Winternationals.
He was first off the start line and first to the finish, logging the quickest 1000ft run in Australian history with a 3.733 in the win.
In round 3 Xiberras took the solo in the “C” Final and had a massive amount of tyre shake on his way to a 3.84.
The “B” final saw Newby and read do battle, with Newby’s crew thrashing to fix a problem before the final, but it was all for nought when he experienced massive tyre shake whilst Read streaked to an impressive 3.78 at only 306mph for the win.
The Final would pit Lamattina against Harris, with both Harris and Lamattina mounting a championship fightback with Newby struggling.
At the green, Lamattina took the lead and held on by his fingernails to take a holeshot win – a 3.80 beating Harris’ 3.78.
“Oh man…. I won on a holeshot again? I can’t say enough for my boys that put this car back together”.
“Finally … this is huge for our team. I can’t wait to see them”, he said with tears welling in his eyes. “I just can’t believe it!”.
In Top Doorslammer, John Zappia and Russell Taylor both opened their accounts with wins in round one, with both under the Current ANDRA National Record of a 5.64 with a 5.636 and 5.606 respectively.
Other round one winners were Lisa Gregorini, Ronnie Palumbo and Daniel Gregorini.
Pat Carbone had a scary moment early in the run when the steering failed in the loss to Taylor, crossing the centreline and glancing the opposite wall before he fought the car to a stop with minimal cosmetic damage.
Zappia replicated his performance in round two with another 5.60, while Taylor improved to a 5.598 to be the first car into the 5.50s for the weekend.
Palumbo chalked up another round win over L. Gregorini, while Taylor took out D. Gregorini, Zappia beat Adam Tassone and Peter Lovering took the win on a solo pass.
Gregorini took the victory in the “C” Final over Peter Lovering with a 5.66 while Palumbo took the win in the “B” Final with another 5.69 in the ACDelco Monaro.
The “A” final round saw the two quickest cars all weekend on the track, with Taylor having lane choice by only .003s over Zappia.
It was the third time this season that Taylor and Zappia have face off in the final, and Taylor took a massive advantage, but he could not hold off a barnstorming Zappia who took the win with a 5.602.
“We just put a little bit more in it, hoping that we could get into the 5.50’s. We jot the job done; the car ran like a dream all weekend”.
“We had to do a bit of work between rounds but it’s not on fire and there’s no oil coming out of it so it’s all good!”
Pro Stock was controversial with 9-time Australian Champion red-lighting his chances away with an uncharacteristic -.032 reaction time which many onlookers believed was incorrect and the result of a timing system issue.
Regardless, the Result stood, and Ray Oxley recorded his first Pro Stock round win.
Other round one winners were Rick Chilton, Omar Sedmak, Rob Dekert, Chris Soldatos and Tyronne Tremayne on a solo.
Except for Oxley, all winners were in the six second zone.
Round two winners were Sedmak, Chilton, Dekert, Soldatos, T. Tremayne and A. Tremayne with all winners again in the six second zone, a testament to the competition in Pro Stock this season despite the relatively short season.
In round 3 of racing, A. Tremayne won the “C” Final from Chilton and Soldatos took the “B” Final from Sedmak.
Tyronne Tremayne and Dekert were pumped up for the final, and both racers left too early – Dekert with the bigger red light, handing the win to Tremayne in a race where both racers ran 6.89.
Tremayne said after the final, “The last time we race was the winters last year, and we won that. We came out this weekend and had a fast car out of the box thanks to my brother and dad, and we won today.”
“My two kids are here this weekend, this is just the best. It can’t get better”.
Pro Stock Bike round one winners were Maurice Allen, Tony Frost and Luke Crowley, whilst round two saw Jason Lee, Allen, and Crowley take the victory.
The “A” Final saw Allen take on the quickest bike in the field with Crowley on board, but the latter threw away the quickest run of the weekend with a red light.
Crowley’s 6.99 would have comfortably beaten Allen had the light been green however the red light was an instant disqualification and the 7.43 was enough to take the victory.
Allen said, “We had an issue with a cylinder flooding and nearly locking up in the last round, so we thought we would just put it back together and see if it would go down there.”
“I had a great seat to watch the 6.99 for Luke but I had no idea that he red lit – that was a surprise. We’ll take it!” he smiled.
The NDRC now moves to Sydney in early May for the Gulf Western Oil Nitro Champs.
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