Certainly no one tries harder than Phil Lamattina and with blue chip sponsors like Fuchs Oil and Elders Insurance he has the equipment to go as hard as anyone else. Despite this, over the course of Nationals qualifying we saw some enormous explosions that decimated at least one engine and saw down time in cleaning them up. Race day was a little kinder when an easy first round win over Mark Shepherd was followed by a red light by semi final opponent, Martin Stamatis. In the final however a good leave was followed by dropping cylinders that allowed opponent, Darren Morgan to just pip him in the final one hundred feet.

After attending the opening Top Fuel round in Adelaide Steve Read made the ANDRA Nationals his next stop on the tour. At the end of qualifying “Pommie Steve” was sitting at the top of the qualifying sheets thanks to a 4.693 at only 289 mph as he lifted a little early. Read had gone into the race after previously winning the 2008 & 2009 Nationals events and was hoping for a third Xmas tree to add to the trophy cabinet, however in the semi finals the following day his car lost traction and got out of shape about 300 feet out and had to watch Morgan streak away to a 4.90 win.