Following the tragic death of Scott Kalitta at Englishtown last year the board of Western Sydney International Dragway in Sydney, Australia announced that the winner of the annual USA Top Fuel Showdown event in late December would receive the Scott Kalitta Memorial Trophy. This was not only to honour Scott but also because he had won both when he had appeared at that event. It was therefore apt that the race saw Scott’s team mate, Hillary Will come to represent the United States.

Words and photos by Jon Van Daal

Following the tragic death of Scott Kalitta at Englishtown last year the board of Western Sydney International Dragway in Sydney, Australia announced that the winner of the annual USA Top Fuel Showdown event in late December would receive the Scott Kalitta Memorial Trophy. This was not only to honour Scott but also because he had won both when he had appeared at that event. It was therefore apt that the race saw Scott’s team mate, Hillary Will come to represent the United States.

December in Australia is hot and humid with Will’s crew chief, Jim Oberhoffer saying that the weather reminded him of St Louis in mid-summer. The previous year’s race saw a severe hailstorm badly damaged yours truly’s car with this year’s event seeing a bad storm delay a large portion of final eliminations until the Sunday after Christmas. The weather wasn’t finished with the race though as the Top Fuel final between Terry Sainty and Hillary Will was also storm affected.