 As the Australian Anthem reaches its last bars the two dragsters of Terry Sainty (left) and Martin Stamatis are about to fire into life to start the Saturday evening show. While Stamatis was to win this stoush the Western Sydney International Dragway was the big winner with solid crowds arriving on Friday and Saturday nights. |
f the recent ANDRA Nitro Champs at Western Sydney International Dragway is anything to go by then Australia has cemented its reputation of world-class drag racing to the fans down under. With Top Fuellers in the 4.5s, alky cars in the 5.5s and a five-second doorslammer, it was non-stop action - in fact three of the Aussie fuellers could have qualified in the field at the O’Reilly Midwest Nationals held on the same weekend.
If there was one downer it was the fact that the usual Indian summer weather conditions experienced in years past had been replaced by particularly cold nights. As such a large number of passes, particularly in Friday night qualifying, saw competitors either go up in smoke or use all of their lane and in some cases part of their opponent’s real estate to try and get down the track.
In the days leading up to the event interviews with Top Fuel debutant, Amanda Shepherd, were screened on television. Her outgoing personality certainly had an effect on spectator numbers as many thousands of new fans made their way out to the track to see what all the fuss was about.
The result was the biggest ever Friday night crowd with almost an equal number coming out on race day. Here are just some of the highlights.The final of Top Alcohol came down to a match up between current Australian champion Wayne Newby in his blown dragster and the funny car of Aaron Lynch. After an even leave the funny car had a blower backfire and the dragster started to pull away to finally record a to win.“I had been fighting bad tyre shake all weekend long,” a relieved Newby said after the pairing. “The 5.59 (low ET of the weekend) pass was the only run where I didn’t have too much shake but in the end it was good to finally take the win.”