The drag racing community came together like never before to sell out Sydney Dragway for an emotion filled Top Fuel Slam – in memory of Sam Fenech – for round four of the Burson Auto Parts Australian Top Fuel Championship.
With Lamattina Top Fuel Racing looking forward to continuing last year’s success at Sydney Dragway – with Shane Olive ultimately taking his maiden Top Fuel win at last season’s Nitro Champs – the two LTFR crews worked tirelessly in oppressive heat all event, but a potential all-LTFR final evaded the team in the end.
In Q1, Phil Lamattina’s pass with the FUCHS Lubricant’s Top Fuel Dragster looked nice and clean, but it wasn’t reflected in the 3.98 ET, while the Burson Auto Parts machine broke a blower belt after half-track, with Shane Olive clocking 4.11 ET.
With crew chiefs Luke Marsden and Dean Rossiter looking to step up the tune-ups in the more favourable conditions of Q2, a timing system malfunction forced both Lamattina and Olive – who were paired together – to be shut down on the line. Rain then intervened before the qualifying run could be attempted again, cancelling the rest of the night’s qualifying, and robbing LTFR of valuable run data.
Despite the horrendous heat that faced the team for round one of racing the next day, it was a perfect start to racing, setting up a potential A-Final for both LTFR drivers. Facing Damien Harris and Wayne Newby, both Lamattina and Olive respectively out drove their Rapisarda Autosport International opponents in tyre-smoking battles to claim first round wins.
In round two, the tables were turned on LTFR’s fortune, Lamattina was in a cracker side by side race against RAI’s Wayne Newby that brought the crowd to their feet, but it just wasn’t to be with the FUCHS Lubricants dragster pipped at the stripe with a 3.82 to 3.96.
Following this was a hard loss for Olive when the clutch dragged the Burson Auto Parts dragster through the stage beams, bringing on an instant red light. It was a race Olive would have definitely won – and seen him through to another A-Final in Sydney – when opponent Peter Xiberras backfired a blower and Olive crossed the line well in front with a predicted 3.85 ET.
As results panned out, both LTFR cars were due to face each other in the C-Final. Unfortunately, bad luck continued with an electrical gremlin in the FUCHS Lubricants dragster – that still hasn’t been diagnosed – prevented the 11000hp nitro engine from coming to life in the warm-up, and despite the team’s best efforts to rectify the issue, Lamattina would miss the round.
“We had an issue, that we couldn’t fix in time, and there was no point to try and hold up the show,” said Lamattina.
“Better luck next time for us, but we will regroup and find out what was going on.”
Olive went out on track for the C-Final not how he would have liked for a solo, but put on a show for the crowd, collecting the win points, and closing out the event with two round victories for the Burson Auto Parts car.
“It was an exhausting day, exhausting weekend for us,” said Olive. “I am upset we didn’t have both cars out there, it would have been really good to have the FUCHS car next to us.
“It has just been a tough weekend for us, but all in all it was an awesome crowd and a good weekend on that front, and we will get after it in Perth.”
The championship focus now shifts back to Perth for the Westernationals on March 4-5, Lamattina was the event runner-up back when the series last raced there in November, and both drivers will be eager to produce LTFR success again.
