This weekend will be packed full of fan events ahead of the Australian Nationals at Sydney Dragway, which is shaping up to be one of the best events ever at the NSW venue.

Queensland's Chris Matheson will be aiming for an impressive fourth championship in a row come this season with his Nitro Voodoo Top Bike team, which kicks off next weekend at Sydney Dragway.

The Fuchs LTFR Top Fuel dragster opened the 2012/13 ANDRA championship season in style with a runner-up trophy and a new track record at Adelaide International Raceway on Saturday.

After topping the qualifying sheets with a 4.33-second pass, Lamattina made his way to the final to face off against last season’s champion, Darren Morgan.

Reigning national Top Fuel champion Darren Morgan began his series defence in the best way possible on Saturday night, taking out the opening round of the ANDRA Drag Racing Series at Adelaide International Raceway.

ANDRA will be providing live updates via Twitter through Saturday's opening championship rounds of Top Fuel and Pro Stock at Adelaide International Raceway.

Adelaide will come alive to the sound of 8,000 horsepower nitro burning engines this Saturday as reigning Top Fuel champion Darren Morgan rolls into town for the first round of the ANDRA Drag Racing Series.

Back in April 2012, Darren took out the inaugural Pro Series 1000 event at Adelaide International Raceway and is looking to repeat the feat this weekend, when the team goes head-to-head with Top Fuel pilots Phil Lamattina, Luke Shepherd and Steve Read.

After successfully gaining her ANDRA competition license and becoming the first female to race in the heavily contested Pro Stock category, Kirsten Tucker is set to embark on her first season behind the wheel of the Milwaukee M18 FUEL Monaro.

In an unveiling at Adelaide's Rundle Mall today, Kirsten said she is ready to open her points account at the event.

With the opening round of the ANDRA season just days away, visitors to Adelaide's Rundle Mall will be able to get an early taste of the action on Thursday with a display featuring Kirsten Tucker's Pro Stock Holden Monaro and Rino D'Alfonso's Holden Commodore Top Doorslammer.

There will be ANDRA giveaways from mid morning to mid afternoon including posters, stickers and copies of Fastlane magazine and both Kirsten and her brother Shane will be there on the day to sign autographs.

In a first for Lamattina Top Fuel Racing, the team will be running two Top Fuel cars at the season’s first event in Adelaide.

It has taken a huge effort from Aaron Hambridge and all of the LTFR crew to put together a second car and have it ready for round one of the 2013 ANDRA Top Fuel Championship in a matter of weeks.

Porters Racing team owners Paul and Scott Porter have just returned from the USA, where they took possession of the first 2013 GT500 Shelby Pro Stock Mustang to be built by Jerry Haas Race Cars in Missouri.

The Porters, engine builder John Barbagallo and Chris McMillan spent three days at ZMax Dragway at Charlotte in North Carolina meeting up with Haas, who introduced the Porters team to a number of NHRA Pro Stock racers.

Maurice Allen says with a busy off season completed he is keen to launch his championship assault in Pro Stock Motorcycle.

Allen debuted a new Milwaukee Tools Suzuki in the last round of the season and expects some solid performances to come from the state-of-the-art motorcycle when the championship begins at the Australian Nationals on November 2-4.

Santo Rapisarda has again shown massive commitment to Australian drag racing with a plan for his Top Fuel team to compete in Australia on the free weekend between the last two NHRA event of the season in the USA.

With the 2012 Australian Nationals just around the corner, the Titan Cranes team will go in as favourites, having won the event last year with Cory McClenathan driving and also winning the season-ending Fuchs Winternationals in June with Allan Dobson at the wheel.