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Sunraysia drag racers all fuelled up

Posted on September 16, 2011

SUNRAYSIA top fuel drag racers Darren Morgan and Phil Lamattina had promising starts to their 2011/2012 campaigns at the opening round of the Australian Top Fuel Championships in Sydney last weekend.

Reigning Australian Top Fuel champion Darren Morgan.

Morgan went into the round as defending champion after a stellar 2010/2011 season which saw him win the title with one round to spare.

Lamattina meanwhile entered the season with renewed enthusiasm with a new crew chief and some positive results in testing.

Both drivers made encouraging starts in rain-affected qualifying sessions, logging the fourth and third quickest times respectively in what was one of the closest qualifying sessions in recent years.

Lamattina shot down the quarter mile in 4.63 seconds at more than 526km/h.

Morgan meanwhile logged a 4.67 pass at almost 520km/h with what team owner and driver Darren Morgan this week described as a “conservative” set-up.

Both drivers then booked themselves berths in the semi finals – Morgan disposing of Mark Mariani in convincing fashion while Lamattina was similarly impressive against Bob Shepherd.

But the semi finals were as far as both drivers got.

Morgan lost out to Andrew Cowan after smoking his tyres while Lamattina, with a throttle problem, couldn’t get full power against American import Cory McClenathan, who went on to the win the final against Cowan.

The second round of the 2011 Fuchs Australian Nationals is in November.

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