Willowbank Raceway’s Castrol EDGE Winternationals (June 10-13) will play host to Top Alcohol champion Wayne Newby’s best shot in recent years of claiming his third ANDRA Pro Series championship.
Since claiming his latest illustrious title in 2006/2007, Newby has always been in the hunt and is currently leading the points as the 2010/2011 season heads to Willowbank Raceway for the largest drag racing event held outside of the US, to be staged on the Queen’s Birthday long weekend (June 10-13).
With nearest championship rival Aaron Hambridge retiring from the season earlier this year to become Crew Chief for Top Fuel outfit Lamattina Top Fuel Racing, Newby’s only challenger heading to Queensland is local Steve Reed.
However with a 114 point margin to Reed and the Sydney-sider making it to seven consecutive finals this season, Newby is quietly confident that Willowbank Raceway will play host to his third championship triumph in June.
“We love racing at Willowbank, and the Winternationals is always such a spectacular event – naturally it’s a great feeling to be going to the event with a good lead in the championship points, but of course we are in it to win it and would love to bring that gold Christmas tree home,” said Newby.
“The crew have worked really hard this season and we’ve tried a few different set ups to get the car right and to try and eliminate the tyre shake problems which seem to plague us. We have managed to make the last seven finals so I feel we have at least achieved some consistency.
“The Nitro Champs was a big event for us as we had our major sponsor JBS tools, releasing their new ‘Masters Tools Series’ at the event so we wanted to put in a big effort.
“The car ran a 5.64 second pass at 250mph straight off the trailer so we were stoked with that – it was enough to qualify at number one which was great as we weren’t sure what the weather was going to do.
“We made it to our seventh consecutive final though with the weather playing nice on Finals day, and hopefully we can carry through to the Winternats for an eighth consecutive final and hopefully a championship and Winternationals win!”
Newby and the rest of the Top Alcohol racers will be joined on track at the season-ending Castrol EDGE Winternationals by the rest of the ANDRA Pro Series ranks – including the 7000 horsepower Top Fuelers, Top Doorslammer, Top Bike, Pro Stock and Pro Stock Motorcycle, alongside the racers of the Rocket All Stars Racing Series sportsman categories, with in excess of 500 racers set to hit the Willowbank Raceway quarter-mile across Friday June 10 to Monday June 13.
