Lamattina Top Fuel Racing owner-driver Phil Lamattina has become the first two-time winner of the season after defeating Peter Xiberras in round five of the Burson Auto Parts Australian Top Fuel Championship at Heathcote Park Raceway [HPR], May 21-22.

Twenty-four hours earlier, teammate Shane Olive scored his first-ever TF win in only his fourth outing after outpedalling Peter Xiberras in the final of Round four.

Luckless Xiberras has finished runner-up four times from his last five starts.

Round four was carried over from the Sydney Dragway meeting two weeks ago when the A, B and C finals were canceled due to delays and cold weather.

All three finals were then rescheduled to the HPR meeting and contested as part of the final round of qualifying.

“It’s been a long two weeks wait since Sydney,” said Olive. “I’ve had a lot of time to think what the final would be like. It was a bit of an anti-climax because we both smoked the tires and got into a pedalfest. I’ve never had to pedal a car. So, it was a case of let’s get this car to the finish line. Then just before the finish, the throttle cable broke, but I was able to hang on to beat Peter.”

Rapisarda Autosport International star Damien Harris claimed the B win when Phil Lamattina blew the tires off on the hit and Wayne Newby accounted for Phil Read in the C final. However, Newby’s win came at a high cost when a fuel line came loose. The ensuing fireball meant the crew ‘pulled an ‘all-nighter’ to replace all the electrical wiring. The team left the track at 5 a.m. 

The return of Top Fuel to HPR, after an absence of 30 years, created a myriad of challenges for crew chiefs chasing a winning game plan. “Back in the 1990s, we were probably running 5.80s at about 250 mph,” according to Bruce Read, the only current crew chief to have raced at HPR. “Today we have a lot of technology to collect and analyze data. As tricky as the track appears, you need to make a call on how you go about getting the car down the track. If you miss the mark, the car will shake or whatever. Visually the track didn't look much. I think that’s because we are used to running on perfect tracks. Whether it’s good or bad, the conditions are the same for everybody.”

The second day of the meeting was also round five of the championship. Olive, the top qualifier courtesy of his win a day earlier, faced off against six seeded Read. In the major upset of the weekend, Read claimed the victory when Olive began to shake around the 100-foot mark. 

Xiberras took the honors against Newby while Lamattina outpaced Harris, who suffered major engine damage.

The second round pitted teammates Lamattina and Olive against one another. No team orders in the camp, with the team boss leading all the way to book a spot in the A final. Xiberras made the A final after a holeshot win over Harris. Read’s hopes evaporated in bizarre circumstances when he was rolling into stage and Newby was given the green light. 

The Xiberras versus Lamattina finale was an entertaining on-off pedalfest that eventually saw Lamattina take the win. "This is a great result for the team," according to Lamattina. "We had a couple of minor issues before the final. But I cleared my mind and did my job. That final was fun. You never quite know how it will turn out when you get into a pedalfest. The win certainly makes for an interesting final round in Darwin next month.”  

According to Xiberras crew chief Tim Adams, ”We were conservative with our tune-up and should have been more aggressive." 

Newby took out the B final when his rival Read went into early tire shake. Harris drove around Olive in the C final and also established a new track record of 4.00 sec.

The first Top Fuel event in 30 years at HPR played to a packed house. According to series co-promoter Andy Lopez, the event was an unqualified success and testament to the attraction and popularity of Top Fuel not only in the major capital cities but also race starved rural Australia. 

 "This type of event is the template for the future,” said Andy Lopez. “We’ve had a burnout competition, show and shine for the car enthusiasts and great Top Fuel racing. The public really responds when you combine top-quality but very different motorsport models. The punters came out to Heathcote Park as they did at the Mildura round in country Victoria and Perth in Western Australia because they are starved of Top Fuel racing. The racing is hard, tough and we had yet another round winner in Shane Olive. The crowd numbers have been exceptional over the weekend with around 5000 - 6000 each day and they have loved the show.”

The final round of the ATFC will be held at Hidden Valley Raceway, Darwin in the Northern Territory, June 17-18.