The NDRC New Year Nitro event at Willowbank Raceway proved to be an oppressive start for Top Fuel and Nitro Funny Car in 2025 with hellish weather condition forced upon the teams doing battle at round two of their respective NDRC Australian Championships.
Tuning 11000hp nitro engines is a difficult enough task in good conditions, but with humidity hovering around the 90% mark, it was a real testament to tuners skills with some of the numbers that were dropped.
NEWBY BOOMER: For the second event running the RAI had a thrash on their hands with a full rebuild after Wayne Newby experienced a big nitro boomer on his first qualifier. Dropped cylinders on the hit weren’t felt by Newby, loading the engine up before it let go with a spectacular fireball at the finish line, the concussion so violent it damaged the RAI enclosed cockpit. The team missed Q2 to completely strip back and rebuild the car with most componentry toasted.
Race day presented no such issues, in the stinking heat Newby powered past a red lighting Peter Xiberras in round one with a 4.03, then in the humidity rich evening dropped a 3.88 but left a cherry on the tree against his teammate. Still Newby earned and A-Final shot again against Harris but was too safe on the tree with a hole shot lost, but ran a stunning event Low ET 3.78, losing to a 3.806.
Post race a error in the live points calculations was discovered, while it would not affect the outcome of the event, if affected Newby’s round two pairing, which should have been against Xiberras. As a result, Newby was awarded win points for that round post-race, and also claim the championship lead.
HARRIS REBOUND: The defending champ is back. After a disastrous opening round that saw the team withdraw from the Spring Nationals after round one following a series mechanical failures. The Harris RAI camp with Santo Rapisarda Jr tuning made a statement that they are still a championship threat this season.
Harris is back in his repaired chassis that was involved in the crash at the Westernationals sporting a slick new livery, it is a car he feels far more comfortable in to drive. The Springnationals failures were put down to no testing and the thrash to make the event with the repaired chassis, better prepared for the New Year Nitro event, the team delivered with a number qualifying 3.99 before being unstoppable in the All Run Format rounds.
A round one solo set up a 3.81 win over Newby in round two, and Harris’ .045 reaction in the final – the best by any Top Fuel driver of the event – saw a 3.806 cut down Newby’s quicker 3.784 to put Harris back in championship contention moving into third place.
“Thank you to the Rapisarda family for all of the support, thank you to Atlantic Oil and Suzanne for all her help, and thank you to Wayne – seven months ago we were here with different colours (trophies), so life is good!” said Harris post-event.
“That was a killer race man!” Newby enthused while clutching his Sliver Christmas Tree. “I could hear him and everything! I couldn’t be happier for Santo and the team, thanks guys and let’s go to the next one!”
LUCKLESS XIBERRAS: The PremiAir team made their first appearance of the season after skipping round one and were behind the figurative eight-ball all event. The team called it a ‘character building’ weekend, but you can be assured the former champion will be back on it at the Westernationals.
After qualifying fourth with a 4.51, lady luck was not on Xiberras side with a round one red light and tyre smoke, round two saw the PremiAir fueller running ragged – that was later diagnosed as a electrical fault – leaving Xiberras no choice but to abort the run. Facing Phil Read in the B-Final the team dropped a clean run but could not pick up the win.
“It was such a relief to finally feel like we were going in the right direction in that B-Final, and while we couldn’t take the win, to deliver such a crowd-pleasing, full candles side-by-side pass for the fans was rewarding for me and the entire team,” Xiberras said.
“We worked our butts off in preparation for this event and in between every pass, but sometimes the luck just doesn’t fall your way, and that was certainly the case for us this weekend.
“The conditions out there were brutal with the heat and the humidity, which certainly didn’t help things for any of the Top Fuel or Nitro Funny Car racers.
“Even so, I am so proud of my team for their relentless commitment and dedication – they never gave up and never slowed down as we threw everything at it this weekend.”
JUST LUCKY TO BE AT THE EVENT: After dominating the opening round of the series and setting a new Australian Top Fuel Record, the Hydraulink Jim Read Racing team were lucky to make the event at all after Crew Chief Bruce Read had emergency surgery on his appendix just days before the event. Fortunately Bruce was able to recover in time to attend and work in what was just horrible conditions at the track.
Unfortunately for JRR, the team could just not get on top of those hot and tricky conditions all event.
“It was an intense weekend and it was hot, hot, hot, that is for sure. It was trying conditions for everyone and we must say congratulations to the RAI team, they made the best of the conditions,” Hydraulink Jim Read Racing Crew Chief, Bruce Read, said.
“To have some redemption in the B-Final put a smile on our face to end our time here for New Year Nitro and we now turn our attention to Perth where we have had some considerable success in the past.
“Nothing in particular was wrong this weekend, it was just a matter of adapting to really tough conditions and we didn’t quite get it right.
“While that is frustrating, what it means is we aren’t scratching our heads about something not working or dealing with damage or broken parts, so we can regroup and head to Perth confident that we can make a good shake of that and hopefully bring home a third straight Westernats victory!”
ETs steadily improved for the team on each run culminating in a 3.93 win in the B-Final.
“We buttoned off early in the B-Final as we had a cylinder out towards the end, but it was a good way to end the weekend, taking out the win,” Hydraulink Jim Read Racing Driver, Phil Read, said.
“We had issues all day but changed engines ahead of the final and I think that cured it; it didn’t bang and it didn’t torch any heads there, so maybe we should have changed that earlier, hindsight is a wonderful thing!
“Thank you to the crowd for coming out in what have been atrociously hot conditions and sticking around to the very end, we hope you enjoyed the show.
“I want to make mention of my brother and our crew chief Bruce Read – Bruce unexpectedly had his appendix out on Wednesday and here he is on-track just days later working his butt off. We couldn’t do this without him.”
PREMATURE ENDING: Steve Read unfortunately had an early exit from New Year Nitro, the team snatched a nice round one win over Phil Read 4.33 to 4.49 on the peak hot track conditions, however 11000hp erupted across the finish line causing too much damage for the team to repair in time for the rest of the event. While the team had a spare engine, it was the damage to all the wiring harness that was death knell, with no spare ready to go.
Check out the teams video diary of the event here:
RESULTS:
TOP FUEL GALLERY:
ROCKET & AEROFLOW DUEL: Like Top Fuel, the Nitro Funny Car A-Final was fight between teammates. Young gun Josh Leahy was coming off an emotional first win at the opening Spring Nationals and the Rocket Nitro Funny Car team were looking to hang on to their championship lead. On the other side of the pit were the Aeroflow team and Morice McMillin wanting to turn around a frustrating opening event plagued by errant parachute releases early on each pass.
The pair raced each other in the hot and ugly round one conditions with McMillin’s 4.17 besting Leahy’s 5.34. With both Leahy and McMillin ending up with singles in round two, they ran near identical ETs – 4.09 to 4.10 respectively with Leahy just edging out the boss.
Come the final and Leahy was smoked at tree, not that it was likely to make a difference at the strip with McMillin powering away to a 4.04 against a 4.12.
“I didn’t see nothing!” grinned McMillin after being told he had taken the win.
“The thing was moving around and I was driving the crap out of it. Then I saw Josh come past me in the braking area, and I had no idea who had won it at all. He was flying, and I was just trying to get to the end.
“We have the best team in drag racing, there is no two ways about it, and I am so happy to represent the brand, Rocket and Aeroflow and everyone – thank you so much to everyone, this is a team victory, that is for sure.
“It was hot, it was humid, and these boys and girls delivered and awesome race car in very tough conditions. Super proud of the Aeroflow-Rocket-Harts teams running three fuel cars. and not swapping a single short block for the second event in a row, shows how bad ass the boys are!
“Awesome to race Josh in the final, our quickest of 4.04 in the final with an early shutoff shows we are heading in the right direction with this new combo. Can’t wait to get at it again.
“It is unreal to do this beside my mate, and it is so cool we are out here doing this as a team – we keep saying it, but we really mean it: one team, one dream! I can’t thank everyone enough,” Leahy added.
‘Huge shout out to the boys for working their tails off in some very hot conditions this weekend. We ran our best of a 4.09 at 276mph and raced an epic final against our team mates. Congratulations Morice McMillin and Team Aeroflow Performance!”
WALSHE LIT: Running a new 6 disc clutch combination, the event started with Walshe on top in qualifying after a stout 4.13 at 291mph in the relentless humidity. A round one win over a broken Stipanovich funny car set up round two nicely, unfortunately a fuel leak in the warm up left the team thrashing to make the call, in the end they were unable to source the origin of the leak and repair it time to make round two.
Relegated to the B-Final and all hell was about to break loose. The Stipanovich driven Valvoline funny car loaded up on the clutch and Stipanovich could not stop the car from pulling through the beams. As a result Stipanovich elected to drive down track, pulling up in the braking area when the chutes deployed, meanwhile the Harts funny car was still cackling away on the start line waiting for Stipanovich clear the track so Walshe could stage. Eventually Walshe was given the signal to shut, and an irate Walshe climbed out of his funny car with a few choice words directed at the opposition.
Stipanovich was remorseful in the braking area interview, and Walsh recollected his composure, the car was backed down and prepared to re-run delivering a 4.26 on an early shut off.
“It definitely wasn’t the ideal finish we wanted for the racing meeting,” said Walshe at the end of the track.
“Chris obviously had some problems there after the burnout, and I definitely come out of the roof hot and wasn’t real happy, because the smart thing to do would be shut the car off, then we could have done the run. Instead we were left idling probably for 40 seconds, we used just on 60 litres of fuel sitting there, these things are ready to grenade, you just can’t do it. So I came out, I probably shouldn’t have been swearing and cursing in front of the crowd, but your blood gets pumping in these things being full of emotion.”
RESULTS:
FUNNY CAR GALLERY:
SPORTSMAN RESULTS: The event was also a round of the NDRC Aeroflow National Sportsman Series. Taking out the event-winning NDRC Christmas Tree trophies in their respective brackets were Josh Fletcher over Troy Hutton (Super Street), Lillian Hagan over James Lowday (Junior Drag Bike), Zayne Condello over Carlos Harvey (Junior Dragster), Wayne Heit over Matthew Barron (Super Sedan), Sean Ricketts over Phil White (Modified Bike), Lucas Holz over Liezel Gouws (Modified), Neil Maxwell over Craig Chapman (Top Sportsman), Walter Hosta over Aaveen Autar (Performance Bike), Bill Fletcher over Peter Leahy (Supercharged Outlaws) and Warren Allen over Nicholas Galea (SuperComp).
SPORTSMAN GALLERY:
