Australia’s premier Top Fuel drag racing team makes some big noise during ANDRA’s season calendar finale….

Rapisarda Autosport International  stars, Wayne Newby and Damien Harris, produced a once in a generation experience for the crowd at Adelaide International Raceway with a trio of spectacular side-by-side passes last week during the ANDRA series’ season-ending Grand Finals.

Damien Harris won the Top Fuel match race series 2-1 over his Rapisarda Autosport International team mate Wayne Newby during the ANDRA series calendar ending Grand Finals. 

What’s .01 of a second? That’s the difference when Wayne Newby took the honours over team mate Damien Harris after three rounds of match racing.

Newby took the win in the first match up by .01 sec. Harris bounced back to even the score winning round two, also by .01 sec.

The finale was a thriller as both cars locked together of the start line marched down the track with a full candle pass that lit up the night sky.  Newby winning  yet again by .01 second. 

The crowd on the hill was momentarily speechless before erupting into long and sustained applause.  

“We came to put on a show and that’s what happened,” according to Newby. “We didn’t need to make any changes to the car because we were running the shorter 660 feet distance instead of our usual 1000 feet”.

“We run extremely similar tune -ups in both cars,” said Santino Rapisarda. “The baseline is identical across both cars and from then it’s all about small changes and finessing the tune -up.”

“I think the fans loved seeing Top Fuel again,” said team owner Santo Rapisarda. “I’m very proud of my boys, Santino and Santo and all the crew who worked so hard under the hot and dusty conditions. There were some tired boys and girls at the end of the two days and they deserve a big pat on the back.”

Wayne Newby

Post and photos by John Doig