Our Nitro Champs started six months before at the Nationals in November while the car was on its quickest pass ever. We had the misfortune of one chute falling out at half-track and since then we have been working hard to make sure everything was spot on for this event.

Our newly appointed Crew Chief, Michael Domagala, had brought some go-fast parts to improve the clutch and fuel system for this event so we were really keen to get the car out on the track. We have been doing a lot of pre-race activity promoting the sport (F1 Melbourne and NRL Fire Up Displays) so the boys were champing at the bit to actually go out and race again.

The mindset was just right in the pits and everything seemed to flow well from set up right through to the racing. We secured our first ever Naming Rights Partner for this event, Lefand Group, a Building and Facility Management Company. They also had 20-30 guests coming as well so the pressure was on too.

The first and only Top Fuel test session was run about noon. All the new go-fast parts were fitted and checked and we had a planned 330-foot shut off pass. Everything went to plan during the pass, the car left the line OK but about 200 feet out she sat me back in the seat and really started pulling hard. It’s times like that when it is hard for a driver to get off the gas at quarter track as I knew I was in for a ride, but I did and thought I would save my excitement for the first round.

The car came back clean and the team did their usual turn around in preparation for the first round of the new Stadium Style Race Format (or that’s at least what I like to call it). All Top Fuel cars were to run all three laps, fantastic for the fans and the teams loved it too; it was a great show.

We had some down time prior to round one and we used that time to have a few speeches and thank our new partner for the weekend, Phil Iacovou, owner of Lefand Group, and present him with a framed team shirt and let his 30 odd guests know a little more on who we are and what drag racing is about.

So, 3:30 pm came around quickly and we were rolling out to the staging lanes. While suiting up I could hear the National Anthem being sung by my nephew, Jake Marurari; he did an a cappella version and was absolutely fantastic. We were in the right lane up against Darren Morgan but as always we were basically running our own race. I drilled the tree and the car left like it was on a mission, it sat me back in the seat with how hard she was pulling a couple of times but the blower belt came off at about 1,000 feet.