No team orders in NDRC Top Fuel decider
The tight Top Fuel title chase will be decided at the National Drag Racing Championships finale at Willowbank next weekend and leading the way are teammates Damien Harris and Wayne Newby.
Harris currently leads the way with 626 points ahead of his Rapisarda Autosport International team-mate and former champ, Wayne Newby, on 587 points.
Also in contention are Phil Lamattina on on 521 points ahead of Peter Xiberras (473) while Phil Read rounds out the top five (429).
The Rapisarda Autosport drivers will be the favourites but only one of them can be crowned the inaugural Top Fuel NDRC champion.
Despite the expected intensity of the finale, Newby’s crew chief Santino Rapisarda made it clear there will be no preference in terms of which Rapisarda Top Fuel driver emerges on top.
“There are certainly no team orders, it is pure heads up racing between our drivers,” he said.
“We saw that at the last round at Sydney where our third car took critical points away from us in the second round of racing.
“We will be happy with whatever the outcome.
“It is very evenly matched between us, and you also can’t rule out any other teams being in the mix as well – it is quite impressive to see the while field doing so well.”
Harris’ crew chief, Santo Rapisarda Jnr, doubled down on the point.
“There have never been team orders, and that is certainly still the case heading into the title decider,” Rapisarda Jnr, said.
“From our side we are just happy to still be in contention at this point, especially considering out Perth weekend.
“To get two titles in a row for Damien would definitely be nice, but really we are just so happy to be in the position to be fighting for it, as we really weren’t expecting to be in this position after Perth and given we are still in the back-up car after Perth.
“At the end of the day, what will be, will be. That is the beauty of drag racing. We will just do what we can and at the end of the day as long as the trophy comes back to RAI HQ then that’s mission accomplished.”
Rapisarda continued, stating how flucturating the Top Fuel campaign has been.
“It has been very up and down all season – it started well but we have definitely handed away a lot of points through forced and unforced errors,” he said.
“But at the same time we have made a lot of developments with the car which we are very happy about.
“While I am the crew chief for Wayne and Jnr is crew chief for Damien, we do work on both cars, and my brother and I take a lot of pride in that.
“We have always joked it would be good to have a title 1-2, as we always seem to do more like 1-5 with a great season for one and a shocker one for the other, so to go the 1-2 would be really nice.
“But whatever happens, happens – sometimes the luck bites you and sometimes it blesses you.
“You have to make the right runs at the right time, and sometimes it doesn’t happen that way.”
The NDRC title chase will conclude at Willowbank Raceway across 6 to 9 June for the Gulf Western Oil Winternationals.
Image: Cackling Pipes Photography
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