The Fuchs Lamattina Top Fuel Racing Team were not able to tap into the true potential of the car as was seen in last year’s domination at the recent Castrol EDGE Winternationals.
Having arrived back at their Victorian base after an intense weekend of racing, the team was able to reflect on the weekend’s events.
“We know that we have a very fast race car,” explained driver Phil Lamattina.
“Sometimes though, that’s not enough, you need a bit of luck and on the weekend, we didn’t have the luck at the right times.
“We had up and down results in qualifying during the Friday and Saturday sessions. We faced issues with our tyres resulting in seventh spot in the order, making it into eliminations rounds on Sunday.”
Sunday morning proved to be a huge improvement as the track conditions changed to become almost perfect. Round one of eliminations saw the Fuchs Top Fuel Dragster take on Darren Morgan and in an impressive showdown, the Lamattina machine managed to eliminate the in-form Morgan with a superb 4.69 pass at 312mph.
The tyre trouble returned for the round two match-up with rival Phil Read. The Fuchs machine smoked the tyres at half-track, which enabled Read to pass and take the win with a 4.97 pass.
“We are so proud of our team through the 2009/2010 season” said Phil.
“Our guys have put so much time and effort into the car, their professionalism always shows on and off the track. Unfortunately, we could not take the back-to-back titles but we are winners in our own sense and look forward to competing again next season.”
The LTFR team offers its congratulations to Martin Stamatis on taking the ANDRA Pro Series Top Fuel Championship.
