Following the rain out at the Summer Nationals the Darren Morgan Racing (DMR) Shannon’s Top Fuel Dragster and the entire Team headed off on a hectic promotional tour which included events in two States that don’t currently posses a regular competition ¼ mile Drag Strip. The first of the two motor shows that the team visited was the Motorvate Melbourne Car Show while the second was a week later in South Australia when they headlined the Port Augusta Motor Show.

The Motorvate Melbourne car show, which was held to raise awareness for the need for a new drag strip in Melbourne, attracted 16400 people along with over 600 drag and high performance cars. But despite the high number of cars in attendance the Shannon’s DMR Top Fuel car was most definitely the star of the show. Throughout the day DMR fired up the car twice and during one of the engine starts Darren ‘blipped’ the throttle seven times, with the Melbourne crowd loving the nitro fire ups.

With the Top Fuel car sitting alongside the Shannon’s Insurance tent the team’s new corporate partner also attracted a lot of attention with a large number of quotes completed on the day. A new initiative was also trialled at the Motorvate Melbourne Car Show with each of the Shannon’s Insurance quotes that were filled out throughout the day going into a lucky draw with the winner being allowed to sit in the dragster when it fired up. The lucky winner on this occasion was Simon Sanchez. Following this amazing experience Simon was speechless but he still managed to thank Darren Morgan, the entire DMR team and of course Shannon’s Insurance for making a dream come true.

Shortly after returning to their home base of Mildura the car and crew were once again on the road, this time the transporter headed west to South Australia to attend the annual Port Augusta Motor Show. This was the second successive year that DMR had ventured across the border to Port Augusta and once again the team really enjoyed the hospitality and the atmosphere of this tremendous event.

As it had the week prior the event proved to be highly lucrative for DMR’s new corporate partner Shannon’s Insurance, who once again had representatives on hand providing insurance quotes for car owners along with a return of the highly popular “Shannon’s Lucky Quote Draw” with the winner receiving that once in a life time opportunity to sit in the car during a fire up.

As they had the previous week they once again started up the 7,000 plus horsepower Brad Anderson built aluminium V8, which everyone in attendance simply loving the sound and smells of the nitro Top Fueler. In addition to the fans flocking to view the immaculate Shannon’s race car the DMR merchandise proved to be just as successful which a large number of Fusion Aliens being sold along with the Mike Cowan designed shirts.

The next race meeting for the Darren Morgan Racing Top Fuel Racing Team will be the ENZED Australian Top Fuel Championships [April 17-18] at the Willowbank Raceway in Queensland and according to Car Chief Ben Patterson “We are really looking forward to it!”

DMR Media Release
By: Phil Michell Motorsport Media (SA) – Philip.michell@bigpond.com