Nitro Champs Semi not enough for Lamattina

The LTFR Top Fuel dragster had a mixed weekend at the Sydney Nitro Champs but a semi final appearance and more data, sees the team confident about their chances as the ANDRA Series heads to it's biggest event of the season, the Fuchs Winternationals.

After changing some of the clutch systems in the dragster during the week, qualifying was about finding the ideal tune-up resulting in a fifth place on the qualification list.

"It wasn't the best qualifying performance but we are pretty happy with what we have learned over the weekend, it's all about getting the car settled down, we are making more power than ever before but that brings some challenges," explained team driver Phil Lamattina.

Round one saw the Fuchs-powered dragster make the semis after getting past long-time rival Phil Read with a 4.97-second pass defeating Read's 5.43-second run.

"After round one, we put in a similar tune-up for round two but we just got outrun, as simple as that.

"It's hard to know what call to make and we probably could have been more aggressive to be honest, but it is better to make sure you get down the track, so that's what we did.

"The hard part is that we know that we can win race meetings and that's what we plan to do. Anything less than a ANDRA Gold Christmas Tree is not good enough," concluded the Wemen-based racer.

The Lamattina pit was buzzing all weekend with Elders Insurance staff throughout the weekend, a sponsor of the team for the first year.

Angelo Lamattina commented "It was a great weekend on the corporate side of things and that will get even bigger at the Winternationals and hopefully we can give them the result that Fuchs and Elders Insurance deserve."

The next round for all ANDRA categories including the Aeroflow Sportsman Drag Racing Championship is the Fuchs Winternationals at Willowbank Raceway, June 7-10.