ANDRA Nationals in Australia
Like its American counterpart, the ANDRA Nationals had always been the most prestigious and largest drag race on the Australian calendar. Well, it was. Since moving to its present location at Brisbane’s Willowbank Raceway it has been dogged with problems. This was mainly due to the weather and in one way or another nearly every Nationals held there was been affected by rain.
When it was first held in November there it was both too hot and too prone to large storm cells that come after the afternoon heat. If you think of a humid climate similar to that on America’s East Coast and humidity like Memphis then you’ll have an idea of what both the track and racers were up against.
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Willowbank is a non-profit organisation and boasts some of the best management outside America however no matter how hard they try they seem to be snookered by both the weather and other outside influences. With the race not working in November it was moved to the more temperate month of September however the weather has still impacted on the event.
The other problem was that it was now moved to within two weeks of the season opening ACDelco race at Western Sydney International and after a break of some three months many racers were not prepared to run two events back to back and the entry lists have dropped from the 500 to 600 area to the low 300s.
Despite the race car count being down, the spectators still came over the past few years however, this year while the rain only stopped play on Saturday evening the spectators were well down on expectations. September in Australia means one thing - ball sports finals with football, rugby and Australian Rules games getting down to the nitty gritty. A rethink now might be on the cards especially with the race being so close to the AC Delco season opener.
It was no surprise to see Phil Read (near lane) in the final after qualifying second with a 4.616 just behind surprising team-mate Martin Stamatis’ 4.599. Round one saw a win over AC Delco winner, Allan Dobson in a close exploding 5.05 to 5.16. Round two saw an easy 4.712/288.05 win when opponent, Darren Morgan smoked the bags but the engine was damaged and had to be changed. In the final he faced a surprising Amanda Shepherd. The youngest driver in the class was contesting only her second race and while she didn’t even break into the fours she was consistent. She was paired with top qualifier Stamatis in the first frame in a see-sawing race and despite taking a lead off Stamatis fought back and had passed her by the 60 foot mark, however his mount started to fade and she caught him at the 1000 foot mark extending this to a tidy win – a 5.18/275.90 over a second best 5.68. A second round bye saw her stage and then shut off the red car. On the money run though Read step up a notch when despite an even leave his 4.625/318.02 more than covered a back peddling 5.28/269 lose.
