Lamattina dominates in Perth
Victorian Phil Lamattina in action in Perth (credit - www.motorplex.com.au)
Lamattina qualified at the top of the seven car field with a 4.708s pass with a top speed of 509 kmh (316mph), which earned him a first round solo.
With a free pass to the semi-final, the rest of the first round would see the second qualified Martin Statmatis face Bob Shepherd, Alan Dobson to take on Phil Read and Darren Morgan to take on Mark Mariani.
Saturday’s racing saw Lamattina, following his solo first round, take on and defeat fellow Victorian Morgan in the semi finals to set up a final round meeting with Read, who had defeated Dobson in the first round before beating team-mate Stamatis in the semi final.
The Victorian would go on to defeat Read wtih the ET of the meeting when he ran a 4.682s at 501kmh (311mph) over Read’s slowing 4.852s at 419kmh (260mph) after his engine let go at around 1000 foot.
In other racing, Top Bike competitor Chris Matheson had the crowd enthralled in the ‘Fuel Bike’ category, with the Queenslander running a exceptional 6.14s ride on his nitro-burning motorcycle, while Top Competitions Jeff Clarke recorded the quickest pass in a BB car in Australian Drag Racing history when he went 6.00s – just shy of a historic ‘five second’ time.
Also drawing gasps from the Perth crowd Saturday was a 8.00pm incident in the K-Trans Top Comp bracket, which saw South Australian Pat Carbone lose control of his AA/AP, careering across into the lane of his fellow competitor Murray O’Connor, seeing the cars collide.
Both racers escaped unscathed, although the pair now face hours of repair work in their respective workshops.
The next event for the Perth Motorplex is the ANDRA Pro Series Drag Racing Top Alcohol and Pro Stock Motorcycle championships on Friday 29th and Saturday 30th of January, while drag racing fans on the Eastern side of the country can catch the Nitro Funny Cars at Willowbank Raceway on January 16, with round two of the International New Year Series featuring the USA vs AUS Nitro Funny Car Challenge set to hit the track.
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