Damien Harris might have just become one of the fastest nitro drag racers in the world – but disappointment was still etched in his voice after losing out to Larry Dixon in the semi finals of the City of Ipswich Winternationals at Willowbank Raceway.
Harris said he was glad he was able to take it to the three times NHRA champion.
“Unfortunately we had the lose, but it’s Larry Dixon and Lee Beard. We didn’t go out there and run a 4.9 against him, we ran a 4.57 and stuck it to them. The focus was so much on A to B and when Larry came past me that was what I was looking at and concentrating on the finish line. I was a little bit surprised when they started yelling out mile per hour-wise.
“To be honest, the mile per hour thing I wasn’t really conscious of. It pulled, it felt really good. Just after half track I saw Larry for the first time and he got half a car in front of me and stayed there. I leant forward in my belts as hard as I could hoping that might roll me a little quicker, but no luck.”
The team survived a first round stoush against Peter Xiberras, using a safe 4.67, but Harris explained how the team’s weekend had been tough with a lot of engine damage in qualifying.
“The first pass it was on a really good number and it would have run low sixties but it ate up two pistons,” he said.
“Then yesterday it was marching it would have been a 4.5, but it broke the reverser and went to 11000rpm, that really put us behind the eight ball. The worst part of all of it was it made the primary arms go over centre and lock out. We’ve broken a finger which has gone through everything and on top of that it has bent the pressure plate and the actual hat so they are now somewhat different. The boys worked to 5am this morning putting another hat together which was different, as a result we were able to get out there.
“It would have been nice to get that 4.5 out the other night but we recovered. I’m happy we gave Larry a race. We have had a pretty average weekend (besides that).”
Make sure to keep up to date with everything happening at the Winternationals over the weekend via our live notes.
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