PHIL READ WINS AUSSIE NIGHTFIRE
Mon, 2007-01-08 17:02
Reigning Australian Top Fuel Champion Phil Read made a serious points purchase
towards back-to-back crowns in the kings of the sport of Drag Racing, after
securing a strong win at the New Year's 'Night Fire' event at Queensland's
Wilowbank Raceway."It w as a challenging event with a lot of crew assisting Santo Rapisarda and Allan Dobson as well and we even leant some bits and pieces to the Lamattina team as well. However considering the outcome of the weekend, it was all worthwhile," remarked Chief Wrench Bruce Read.
Reigning Australian Top Fuel Champion Phil Read made a serious points purchase
towards back-to-back crowns in the kings of the sport of Drag Racing, after
securing a strong win at the New Year's 'Night Fire' event at Queensland's
Wilowbank Raceway."It w as a challenging event with a lot of crew assisting Santo Rapisarda and Allan Dobson as well and we even leant some bits and pieces to the Lamattina team as well. However considering the outcome of the weekend, it was all worthwhile," remarked Chief Wrench Bruce Read.
"The Track was challenging at times too with rain again being a curve ball for everyone out there with a lot of wheel spin happening during the runs so it was a process of backing down the car to get down the track."
Despite tricky conditions, the final round was quick with a capital 'q' with Phil Read cranking a 4.664 second pass at 317.57mph over Alan Dobson's 4.718 blast at 306.96mph. The final turned out to be the quickest and fastest side-by-side run in Australian Top Fuel history.
"Even in the final, our car started turning the tyres from half track. That was again after a repeated process of backing it down.backing it down. This win is tribute to our whole Auto One, Fuchs Lubricants, Snap-on Tools team. Our crew is so well oiled; we did one turn around in 48 minutes. They continue to set new high water marks in terms of how we go about our business," beamed Bruce Read!
However, the long time Chief spanner-man in the Jim Read racing consortium knows the fate can often deal a nasty hand when one dabbles with Nitro racing.
"Its our turn in the sun at the moment and we are enjoying getting a tan right now but this sport can turn you around quick and set you on our heels. Even in qualifying at Willowbank here, we dropped a valve on the step of the throttle which produced serious fire damage and parts failure. Hey it happens. If the car had at least launched then Phil would usually have felt something down track, shut off and saved damage. Component failures on the hit like that is always bad news."
In the first round of eliminations, Phil Read smoked the tyres but still claimed the win after Phil Lamattina couldn't back up his dragster c ombo.
In the second round of Night Fire battle saw a 4.84 second pass with Phil shutting the car off at 3.9 seconds into the run after getting close to the wall in a very skatey pass.
In the exciting final against Santo's car it saw ironically five Jim Read Racing personnel working on the same earth-shattering car that Scott Kalitta raced at Boxing Day in Sydney, including Rob Cavagino, however it was Santo Rapisarda calling the shots in an enticing matchup that saw son-of-a-drag-racing-gun Phil Read lay serious claim to another Australian Top Fuel Championship!
Australian Top Fuel Championship Point Standings
1 Phillip Read NSW 390
2 Terry Sainty NSW 220
3 Darren Morgan VIC 140
4 Bob Shepherd NSW 120
5 Scott Kalitta US 110
6 Steve Read QLD 100
7 Luke Shepherd NSW 80
8 Alan Dobson WA 80
9 Roy Smith QLD 80
10 Dave Grubnic US 40
11 Phil Lamattina VIC 40
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