The Carrot Kings Top Fuel dragster went to runner up honours at Santo’s Summer Thunder on Saturday, with driver Phil Lamattina starting to see the results from his team’s tuning strategy.
Lamattina overcame supercharger issues in Friday night testing to score two wins on race day, with a 3.97 victory against Peter Xiberras in round one following by a tight 3.88 to 3.91 win, also against Xiberras, in round two.
That was enough to put Lamattina into the final against Wayne Newby, where a 3.82 from the Rapisarda Autosport International team edged out a valiant 3.90 from Lamattina.
Phil Lamattina was happy to celebrate a successful return to the seat of the family Top Fuel car, and now sits third in the 400 Thunder Top Fuel Championship standings.
“We had some issues in the clutch settings area as we push into finding more performance from the car and I have had to be patient – which is not easy!” Lamattina said.
The team will now head to the Perth Motorplex for the first Top Fuel racing event at the venue in two years at the Westernationals on February 29 and March 1.
“We are starting to find the sweet spot and I am sure we can go both quicker and faster when we get to the (Perth) Motorplex. We learned a lot in Sydney and we managed to still make the final!
“Hats off to our long serving crew guys who went above and beyond to get this car to where it is. We have some goals in mind this season in terms of performance and we will be trying to get closer in WA.”
Check out the video of the final round below.
