Phil Read claimed victory on Sunday night at Willowbank Raceway in Queensland, defeating fellow Jim Read Racing team mate Martin Stamatis in the final of the ENZED Australian Top Fuel Championships to make it a one-two finish for the Sydney based team.

The win puts Read right back in the hunt for his fourth Australian Top Fuel title, with just 40 points separating him from Stamatis the current leader.

Phil Read blasts from the startline against team mate Stamatis in the final.                (Pic. Blacktrack.com.au)

A large crowd was on hand during Saturday qualifying, where Phil struggled a little in the tricky conditions.  In the first of three sessions, Phil was forced to shut down early with a fuel system malfunction that caused the car to go into violent tyre shake at the quarter track timers.  With the problem rectified, the second session saw Phil set excellent times in the first part of the run before the Auto One Dragster broke traction with too much horsepower for the conditions and an another early abort was necessary.  The third and final session saw all drivers struggle in the cool conditions with no respectable times recorded.  With the team working well into Saturday night, a few set up problems were found and rectified ready for race day Sunday.

In the opening round of eliminations on Sunday, Phil was too strong for the Santos Cranes outfit of Mark Mariani.  Both Cars had traction problems with the Auto One Dragster taking the win in a on-again off-again peddle contest.

Round two saw Phil up against the Lamattina Team from Mildura.  On the green light, Phil was away first with an .037 second advantage hole shot and powered away to win comfortable with a great time of 4.77 seconds at over 300mph.  The run was not without incident as a fuel line split at half track spraying nitro methane all over the windscreen and the driver compartment causing the windscreen to shatter.  The result was extremely limited vision with Phil explaining afterwards that he drove looking sideways at the wall from half track mark, to get his bearings and didn’t shut off until he knew he was well past the finish line.

The Final was an all Jim Read Racing affair with Phil going head to head with team mate Martin Stamatis, who had been running well all weekend.  Martin go the advantage off the start line but by half track Phil had powered into the lead, winning with a time of 4.77 seconds to claim victory for his major sponsors; Auto One, Valvoline, MTU Detroit, McDonalds, Snap on and Wynn’s.

The win was the first for the team since receiving backing from corporate sponsor McDonalds and wrapped up a great weekend for Jim Read Racing.

Phil Read and Jim Read racing would like to thank the following for a great Victory
Auto One, Valvoline, MTU Detroit, McDonalds, Wynn’s, Snap-on Tools, Bullet Eye wear, Hurlcon Pool Equipment, Odyssey Batteries and Goodson USA.