The Australian National Drag Racing Association together with Sydney Dragway held a “short, fast and loud” display at the Top Gear Festival over the weekend at Sydney Motorsport Park. A total of twelve vehicles were on display including the Top Fuel dragsters of Terry Sainty and Peter Xiberras, Chris Stipanovich’s Nitro Funny Car, Rick Gauci’s Aeroflow Top Alcohol Funny Car, Jeff Wilson, Maurice Fabietti and Peter Blake’s Top Doorslammers, Joe Signorelli’s world record holding Toyota Celica, Queen St Smash’s gold plated BMW, Emilio Spinozzi’s brand new Pro Stock Camaro, Naomi Lightowler’s Junior Dragster and Nigel Benson’s wild Aussie Bandit wheelstander.
Several of the vehicles did some demonstration burnouts and launches on the main straight of Sydney Motorsport Park, which served as the Sydney home of ANDRA championship drag racing from 1991 to 1998.
ANDRA media manager Luke Nieuwhof said the display opened a lot of new eyes to the power of drag racing.
“We’d like to thank the teams who turned out for the weekend to put their cars on display and also take them on to the track for demonstrations on each day,” he said.
“Drag racing was represented very well and proved popular with everyone attending the festival. Our fire-ups in the pits actually proved too popular on the Saturday of the festival, we weren’t able to do them on the Sunday because there were OSH concerns about how many people were blocking the roads around the display.
“Over the course of the weekend ANDRA and Sydney Dragway handed out hundreds of show bags and were able to provide a lot of information to people about the sport and where they could see drag racing at full blast.”
The demonstration came on the back of a display at the Clipsal 500 in Adelaide, where Top Fuel driver Phil Lamattina, Top Alcohol racers Gary Busch and Frank Intini, Pro Stock Motorcycle rider Maurice Allen and Top Doorslammer competitor Rino D’Alfonso impressed thousands of race fans with their high horsepower rides.
The next major event for Sydney is the Nitro Champs on May 4-5, featuring the full complement of ANDRA professional and Aeroflow sportsman categories.
Image credit: Lee Davis/Western Auto Pics.
