There aren’t too many similarities between the sport of drag racing and baseball, but one thing they do share is the element of potential. With over 2,400 games played each and every season, the odds that some shock and awe or historic occurrence will take place at some time and some place is in the fans’ favor. Be it the perfect game, the no-hitter, or the bird hit by Randy Johnson’s fastball. And the same rings true for drag racing. With untold numbers of cars going down a race track somewhere in the world at any given moment, odds are that some unbelievable event or occurrence is bound to take place. They may not be anywhere remotely as historic or publicized as a perfect game, but they just might be a once-in-a-lifetime event.

The semifinal matchup between Allan Dobson and Phil Lamattina in Top Fuel at the ANDRA Fuchs Winternationals in June at the Willowbank Raceway in Australia was just one of those once-in-a-lifetime moments.

Lamattina, with lane choice thanks to his 4.76-second ouster of Darren Morgan in the opening round of eliminations, chose the right lane, placing Dobson and the Rapisarda Racing team in the left.

As rare as it is for a fuel car to grenade an engine in the front half of the track, both Dobson and Lamattina lit ’em up simultaneously about 250-feet off the starting line, and with nothing left under the loud pedal, the race — if you want to call it that — was on.

Now, aside from the unusual dueling explosions so early into the run, what really brings this event to life is the outcome.

Both Dobson and Lamattina, by this point, are completely out of power and simply coasting to the finish line alongside one another, and momentum is the only thing they have to decide the race. As they crossed the stripe, the win light came on in Dobson’s lane. Not only had he won the race on a holeshot, but the coasting battle — just 70 mph at the stripe — was decided by an extremely slim .001-second margin.

Off the starting line, Dobson had gained an .067 to .081 advantage — or .014-seconds — on Lamattina, and that was just enough for his 10.604 at 70.17 mph to edge out Lamattina’s quicker 10.591 at 66.71 mph.

It wasn’t a magical 27-up, 27-down perfect game by a big leaguer, but much in the same way, no one in attendance at the Fuchs Winternationals is likely to ever forget that semifinal race in June of 2012.