Drag racing competition goes ahead

Luke Marsden of North Booval.

David Nielsen

SOME welcome sunshine allowed the drag racing to finally go ahead at Willowbank Raceway yesterday.

Already postponed from the June long-weekend due to wet weather, the 2011 Winternationals appeared to be doomed when more miserable drizzle settled in on Saturday.

Despite their tireless efforts to prepare the track, race officials were forced to call off Saturday's competition after the rain just refused to let up.

With a sunny start to Sunday, racing was able to resume at 8am, with the Rocket All Stars Series kicking off an earlier than normal resumption to a packed day's racing.

ANDRA Pro Series categories started at noon, but there was another delay when a shower passed through about 5pm.

Officials remained optimistic and were hoping to finish off the finals last night.

One of the big winners to come out of a stop-start weekend was Brisbane racer Aaron Tremayne.

Despite not making it through his Pro Stock semi-final, Tremayne became the first driver in Australian history to win four straight ANDRA Pro Series Pro Stock titles.

The Pro Stock category is the strongest category in Australia and the only Pro Series competition to run to a full 16-car field at every round.

“It's a great feeling and a great achievement for all of my team,” Tremayne said.

“We're really happy that we could wrap up our fourth straight title – especially here on home soil.

“It hasn't been an easy year by any stretch, with rainouts just about all over the country.

"Even though we won the title, from our own perspective it hasn't been a great year.”

Before the rain came, loyal drag racing followers saw the current world number three, American Cory McClenathan, take on newly crowned Australian champion Darren Morgan in a monster round one match-up.

Despite having flown a total of more than 30,000 kilometres to race at both editions of the Winternationals, McClenathan was knocked out by the Aussie in a spectacular side-by-side race.