Phil Read had a slight jump on Darren Morgan (near lane) off the line and past the 60-foot clocks, but soon after his black dragster went into shake and after a few attempts to catch the silver digger he had to give up when the blower belt came away. Read’s 5.74 in the final was no match for the 4.70 at 318.77 by Morgan, his best lap of the weekend.
Round one in Top Fuel saw Morgan face Shepherd in the opening pairing, with the Morgan car backed down to try and not strike the tires and it worked as his .900 60-foot time translated to a 4.85/294.18 in catching and passing Shepherd’s .885 instigated 6.48/133.74 after the blower belt came off. Phil Read then took the solo, but not long after recording a .865 60-foot time the car went into violent shake and he shut it down.
Lastly, Steve Read took on Terry Sainty. Both drivers were aiming to finally make it down the track after the Saintys changed their clutch set up and the Rapisarda team putting their heads together to get the car down the track with chief tuner Glen Mikres gone. Amazingly, Read scored a sleepy .418 light with Sainty only slightly better at a .263, but once into the run both encountered tire shake. Read also had a small gasket fire, but managed to claw back his opponent with a struggling 5.50 against a 5.90 by Sainty.
The semis saw Morgan receive the bye and this happened in exactly 10.417 seconds after the car shook and Morgan saved it for another day. The joust between namesakes Phil and Steve Read again turned into a shaking match up. Phil had the numbers early, but had to
back pedal and his 4.964/305.84 was never caught by “the Pom,” who faded to a 6.18/250.24.
On paper the final seemed to be a one-sided affair with Phil Read getting down the track on most passes while Morgan had only one representative run. In the points chase Read had come into this event with a mere 10-point lead and it was on for young and old.
After two solid burnouts both cars backed up and came into stage. As it stood, Read had earned an extra 20 points thus far for low ET and top speed thanks to his top qualifying run, so Morgan was under a lot of pressure to pull something out of the bag—and he did. Read had him early with a .105 to .115 reaction time, but again had shake. He pedalled it two or three times before the belt broke loose and then just had to watch as Morgan finally got down the track to record a 4.704/318.77 as he coasted to a 5.74 losing pass.
While Morgan did not pull off the low ET and top speed, he did end up with the same number of points as Read—518—with Steve Read a distant third going into the last race of the year, the Winternationals.
“We came here with our normal Sydney tune up and nothing seemed to work and we really struggled,” Morgan admitted after the race. “Just getting here required a lot of late nights, but it was worth it. In the end the car ran fantastic and that’s thanks to the huge effort the crew put in.”
Friday night qualifying in the Top Alcohol bracket opened for Brett Stevens with a 5.605/258.02, which was under the national record for Alky Funny Car. Second went to a 5.699 by Gary Phillips, who has not had a good time of it this year trying to defend his Australian title. Third went to current series leader, Ben Bray, who after a couple of less than perfect runs cranked out a 5.721 to marginally lead Wayne Newby on a 5.729 with fellow dragster pilot, Dean Oakey a tad behind on a 5.746. Mark Brew, Debbie Read, and Robert Ambrosi rounded out the field.
