Another year has passed and as we all recover from the Christmas turkey, what better time to review 12 months of great drag racing from Western Australia.

The popular straight line sport has been on the up and up with the resources boom helping provide a lot of racers with the extra dollars they need to be able to step up their operations.

The year started with arguably WA's best drag racer, Allan Dobson, making his debut in New South Wales team owner Santo Rapisarda's 4.5sec. Top Fuel car in Queensland. Dobson made it to runner up and impressed many seasoned racers with his skills.

Locally the jet cars were the first on to the Motorplex strip for the year. Always wild, these are pure horsepower with their long engines and afterburners surrounded by a very light chassis. Gary Miocevich was the winner on the night against Chuck Haynes, who had the faster car which he showed with a 490kmh top speed.

Later in the month fans of the sport learnt we would soon have another West Aussie racing in the elite Top Fuel category with Martin Stamatis announcing a plan to join Jim Read Racing.

The same category had some car number problems and had to delay their championship round in February, meaning the famous Nitro Funny Cars were called on as a replacement. Ricky Monserrat became the star of the night after recording a very quick 5.42sec. time in his Tectaloy Ford Falcon to defeat his team mate Ashley Bailey's 5.58sec.

Two weeks later in Sydney WA's own Jay Upton and Shane Wynd took event wins in Top Bike and Super Sedan respectively at the prestigious Summernationals Upton in particular was running hard with 6.3sec. times on his motorcycle, while in the Top Fuel cars Allan Dobson managed to top qualify with a 4.60sec. run but went out in the semi finals.

Soon it was time for WA's own most prestigious event, the Westernationals. It was a Stevens double here, but a couple of different ones with Queensland's Brett Stevens winning Top Doorslammer and WA's Kim Stevens taking out Top Bike. The event also saw 11 national records reset, including the 16 year standing BB/Modified Bike record by Michael Macri.

Also in March was the Australian Top Fuel Championship round. Phil Read reset the track record with a 4.58sec. time while Phil Lamattina and Allan Dobson joined with him to put on big show from the nitro burners.

It was soon time for the final event of the 2006/2007 season with the jet cars returning. It was also the final round for WA racers to score points in the state series. Jason McDermott took a come from behind championship win in Super Street, just defeating Alby Bakranich, while Trevor Morrison won his Top Comp championship and then announced a shock retirement.

While things were done locally it was then time for some interstate action. At the Nitro Champs in February and May it was total WA domination when Allan Dobson and Mark Drew won Top Fuel and Top Bike respectively.

At the following month's Winternationals at Willowbank Raceway, the grand final for the national series, several WA racers took out championships in their categories including Jay Upton in Top Bike, Shane Wynd in Super Sedan, Adam Ewing in Modified Bike and Wayne Batson in Super Street.

Ewing also won his category at the event, going through six rounds of racing for the title. John Zappia was also an event winner with a dramatic final round 5.99sec. really impressing the Queensland crowd.

That was it for a few months racing wise, though the politics were brewing with rival suggestions to change the sport of drag racing to make it more commercial, eventually resulting in the DRAG Limited TV deal that can now be seen on Channel Nine and SBS.

In September the national series started fresh with Allan Dobson and John Zappia taking wins in Top Fuel and Top Doorslammer at the East Coast Nationals in Sydney. Dobson overcame engines exploding on almost every run while Zappia was again the quickest Doorslammer there with a 5.96sec. pass to defeat Victor Bray in the final.

At the Nationals just two weeks later in Queensland, Ian Ashelford came up trumps in Top Bike with a 6.66sec. pass to defeat Troy McClean. John Zappia had a runner up finish. Victorian Phil Lamattina made the headlines with a massive crash when his Top Fuel dragster's chassis split at almost 500kmh. He came out of the incident unscathed.

The season then began at Kwinana in November. John Napier won the Top Comp category, defeating Adam Croker whose new dragster ran a 5.67sec. time to set a new world record for its type of supercharger.

Just two weeks later was the national championship rounds of Top Alcohol and Pro Stock Bike. Brett Stevens won Top Alcohol with his Funny Car, just defeating local Mark Sheehan in the final, while Stevens's team mate Peter Cochrane took a narrow victory in Pro Stock Bike to defeat Victorian Callum Godeassi.

In an intense month for drag racing fans the Goldenstate Challenge was held shortly after this again with John Zappia winning Top Doorslammer from Sydney's Steve Stanic and Troy McLean taking Top Bike over Ian Ashelford.

The season continued with Nitro Funny Cars at the last event of the year. In front of a massive crowd they turned on a great show with Ricky Steffens the driver of a new look Nitro Freak winning the night with a best of 5.57sec. while Ashley Bailey ran a new PB of 5.37sec.

2008 - here we come!