LUNCH WITH…

Fast Kiwi Garth Hogan — part two

Garth grew up in a “Ford house”. He was, and very much still is, a self-described “Ford guy” but realized early on that in drag racing he needed to go to the opposition. “The Ford stuff was all custom made so you were doing the development work [yourself ], whereas Chev parts were all off the shelf. It didn’t feel comfortable, but it was practical,” he says.

Garth describes himself as a hot rodder at heart, saying, “I love them as an art form because each car makes a huge statement about its owner — especially the beautifully engineered ones.”

However, the need to race had became all-consuming once Garth had got an initial taste. When it came to searching out sponsorship support, he encountered something of a brick wall: “It was always disappointing talking to potential sponsors about drag racing. There is a prevailing negative attitude from traditional motor sport people and mainstream media seemingly wanting to perpetuate a perception of deadbeats.” Despite being welleducated, personable, and intelligent, Garth found it difficult to overcome his feeling that drag racers were “the poor cousins of motor racing”.

NUMBERS GAME

Perhaps more than any other form of motor sport, drag racing is a numbers game. Power output; cubic inches; torque; elapsed time (ET); and, of course, speed — both in terms of the end of the quarter-mile and the driver’s reactions. While a mathematics degree isn’t critical, a working knowledge of chemistry and physics comes in handy. “ETS are determined by power, not by top speed; the important thing is putting that power on the road,” says Garth. “If you burn more nitro [methane], you can’t help but make more power. Towards the end we were getting up to 5000–5500hp [3729–4101kw] at 8200rpm on a blend of 95 per cent nitro and five per cent alcohol. That meant pumping 45 US gallons per minute.”

SOMETHING OF A FIXATION

If the US is the home of drag racing, then speed’s capital city is Los Angeles (LA). It was only natural that Garth and others would visit as frequently as practical to buy parts, attend race meetings, and make connections. “The US guys were doing it so much more often. We were lucky to be doing 10 or 12 runs a year. They were doing hundreds,” he says. Among the numerous connections Garth made was drag racing legend Joe Pisano: “He became a great friend and a real mentor for me. We were blowing up stuff because we didn’t know what we were doing, but Joe was known for his engines’ reliability and really became a huge part of what we achieved.” And what was being achieved was all in the numbers: ETS down and speeds up.

The unofficial race to hit 200mph (322kph) in New Zealand was heating up. Garth recalls, “Early in 1977 Mike Gearing had come close and Pete Lodge wasn’t far off.” Garth’s funny car, which had an elongated Ford Capri body, was also in the discussion for that breakthrough speed. Being the first Kiwi to run 200 became something of a fixation and, at Thunder Park in Hastings in March 1978, Garth went 203.16mph (326.94kph) running an ET of 7.137s — numbers that are etched in his memory, though there is a bittersweet element to the achievement. “Mike [Gearing] had come so close on a number of occasions. He was, and still is, a good friend. Part of me thought I’d ripped the rug out from under his feet.”

ONLY A MATTER OF TIME

Garth had decided that despite his breakthrough, it was time to part with the relatively short wheelbase–and–front

“It was always disappointing talking to potential sponsors about drag racing. There is a prevailing negative attitude … wanting to perpetuate a perception of deadbeats”

engine configuration. The funny car was “a handful, but right from when I first got into it, I loved the thing”, he says.

By the late 1970s, Garth’s business was growing rapidly and during a racing break he developed it further with an outlet in the South Island. Via his licence to import VHT paint, he essentially owned the automotive spray-can market here.

I recall a rumour that he imported a sprint car and he confirms it: “I did bring in two sprint cars, in fact, but for others to race. I had a bit of fun booting one around but deep down, I knew it was only a matter of time before I had a nitro-burning supercharged Hemi around me again.”

His return was in another funny car in December 1981 at Meremere. It showed immediate potential. It was regularly in the sixes and running over 200mph and on a cold Hastings day in February 1982, Garth set a new national ET at 6.673s. However, despite the successes in the front-engined closed-body funny cars, Garth knew a full-blown nitro-burning dragster would always be faster, and he took that path in 1983. “It was unveiled at Meremere in December 1984,” he says. “Plum and silver, a huge rear wing, and a ‘Keith Black’ in the tail.” American Keith Black was an iconic builder of the ultimate alloy versions of the 426 cubic-inch (7.0-litre) big block Chrysler Hemispherical–based drag racing engines.

Listening to Garth talking about the set-up quickly highlights the intricate detail required to be successful in this form of motor racing. People outside the drag racing world might wonder how much skill it takes to drive in a straight line. Imagine the violence of a supercharged nitro-burning monster that has so much power: going in a straight line is almost the opposite of what it wants to do. Even putting aside the speeds being achieved, and the ramifications of other things going wrong, there is the everpresent threat of fire.

I well recall the first time I experienced a pair of dragsters at the staging lights. The noise, despite my years of attending motor races, is still something that resonates with a ‘snap-crackle-pop’. It’s not everyone’s cup of tea, and it certainly wasn’t for Garth’s father Ron, but no one can deny how smart the very best are. Garth gives an example: “In the first top fuel car, we started out with 82 per cent nitro with a conservative 62 degrees of advance and 37 per cent overdrive on the blower. I was within 1/1000th of a second off my record straight off.”

It is the application of ratios like these that means the most successful drag racers are more like university boffins than the image of the knuckle-dragging troglodyte conjured by many outside the sport.

NEW SPEED RECORD

It wasn’t long into 1985 before records started to fall Garth’s way. Low sixes were now the norm, plus a new speed record at just over 225mph (362kph). These successes even got a mention in mainstream media, as did the build-up to a trans-tasman series in early 1987, racing Australian champion Rod Bradshaw.

“He was very affable away from the track, but a very formidable competitor on it,” Garth admits. “It was two-all when we ran the final at Meremere at the end of March.”

Garth delighted the huge crowd by winning the final, and despite a new resident ET of 6.084s he was beaten for the series because of an agreement that, in the event of a draw, the quickest time during the tests would be declared the champion. “I phoned Joe [Pisano] in LA to start the search for a new car and also contacted Bradshaw to arrange another series. Even though he’d won, like me he wasn’t happy because the margin had been so narrow.” Once a new car had been located, Garth made the trip to LA to pick it up, along with a host of the latest go-fast bits. While there, he was reminded of a sign in the workshop of Mike Gearing, his great friend and competitor back in Auckland: “Speed costs money! How fast do you want to go?”

Once again, Champion Dragway at Meremere was the venue for the launch of a new Hogan dragster, and once again he’d flown Pisano over so that the genius could oversee the first run. “That was in November 1987, a month after the stockmarket crash,” Garth remembers.

Having ‘Papa Joe’ around was invaluable, as the team was able to tap into his massive reservoir of knowledge and experience: “He told me to throw away the equipment we were using to measure atmospheric density. I asked him: ‘How else can you tune the engine?’ His response was, ‘The engine will let you know’, because he had this uncanny ability to hear things like if a blower was working properly.”

“I had a bit of fun booting one around but deep down, I knew it was only a matter of time before I had a nitroburning supercharged Hemi around me again”

Not surprisingly, Garth’s aim now was to get into the fives. “Outside of North America, only Jim Read in Australia, a Swede, and an Englishman had gone sub six.” It was a major achievement, then, when Garth’s new car went 5.9s, which also meant a new New Zealand record top speed at 238.09mph (383.16kph). “Everyone in the team was delighted and it was extra special to have Joe Pisano there,” he says.

Garth was in elite company and this all added extra spice to the impending series with Bradshaw: “He’d upgraded his car since our last clashes but still hadn’t gone sub six.” In the first round of the rematch, again in front of huge crowds, it was not just a win to New Zealand — the 5.767-second ET was a new Australasian record. “We were still learning how to run such a powerful machine,” he recalls, “and despite the new record, we knew Bradshaw would fight back.”

Garth won race two despite ‘only’ a 6.03-second ET and then took race three with a time a fraction slower again. “On one hand it was immensely satisfying,” he says, “but on the other, it would have been so much more satisfying to have been regularly in the fives. Bradshaw now knew we had the faster car so, in order to salvage some pride for the next runs, he loaded up the nitro percentage.”

Early into 1988 they were at it again: “We ran over 240mph [386kph] for the first time and a new ET record at 5.761.” By then it was four-nil but Garth wasn’t done yet, going 5.681s to become the fastest outside of the States. Although, he says, “That statement was widely used but really irrelevant to me; there was no record for being fastest outside of America.”

THE FIRST KIWI

Other records followed with fastest times and highest top speeds in the South Island, but I wonder if he ever considered racing in the home of drag racing.

“I had a business to run and in 1987 [my wife] Andrea had a baby girl, Lucinda, so I couldn’t just drop things and head to the States,” he tells me. “Besides, drag racing was a hobby — one I was pretty seriously committed to — but there were more important things to do at home.”

If Garth was going to run anywhere in the US, it wasn’t on a dragstrip but rather at a place that had had a powerful impact on him: “I’d been reading about the Bonneville Salt Flats in Utah since I was a kid. I first visited in 1979 and it left an indelible memory. Not only was this a place where really high speeds were possible, there was a fantastic camaraderie. These people were seriously committed petrolheads and I just loved being around it all.”

As the 1980s closed out, ‘Team Hogan’ had run out of drag racing competition in New Zealand and was invited to Australia to face the country’s top gun, Jim Read.

“We were at Willowbank, west of Brisbane,” Garth remembers. “I’d only been there once, and then as a spectator, but we had plenty of Kiwi support in the grandstands.”

The first two races were incredibly close, with both men well into the fives, but it was the Australian who prevailed both times. “We ran under lights and because the action was all side-by-side, it made a great spectacle — but we had to win the last one,” says Garth.

Not only did the Kiwi win, but he also set his fastest time ever of 5.679s, which also gave him a new record speed of 249.30mph. This made Garth the first Kiwi to run over 400kph.

In the first round of the rematch … it was not just a win to New Zealand — the 5.767-second ET was a new Australasian record

RISK AVERSE

By this time, the crowds in Australia were demanding more Read vs Hogan as the series continued to Sydney. There were highs and lows, but back at Willowbank the trip ended with his best numbers yet: 5.50s at 262mph (422kph).

As we sip our coffee, Garth stuns me with: “I’m an extraordinarily riskaverse person. Now that might sound weird but it’s how I’ve always been, in business, racing, and flying. So this approach led to a rigorous maintenance programme on the car so as to mitigate the ‘what if?’ factor.”

It hasn’t all been a trouble-free walk in the park, though: “We were back at Willowbank in 1992 and again Jim Read was the main opposition. He was as cocky as ever and with good reason because he had done a 5.47-second quarter. We were struggling to tune the car — there seemed to be either too much clutch or not enough power. At the 1000-foot mark, the car shook. The vibration was so violent that the wing strut broke so instead of being a wing to keep the car on the ground, it became a rudder and then the car snapped to the right.” Garth pauses for a moment. “It actually happened really quickly. The car briefly changed lanes as I went for the parachutes. For a while, the car is ahead of you but by then I had 18 years of experience so I was driving more by instinct than by making conscious decisions.”

The car crossed the finish line on its left wheels only and despite all the drama, still recorded a 5.52-second ET at 262mph (422kph). “An ambulance arrived and Andrea was a shambles. They checked me out — I was ‘cage rattled’ but otherwise OK,” he says.

Back in New Zealand, the car was readied for what turned out to be Garth’s final run: “I was just short of Read’s 5.47, and while I’d beaten his top speed, it was the ET that won races. Andrea arrived at the end of that run, handed me Lucinda and I made my final journey with my daughter on my knees. The TV cameras were there and I told them that ‘I could tell you we’re coming back, but we’re not’. It was time.”

TYPICALLY PRAGMATIC

There were new challenges for Garth to tackle, in business and with ‘the toys’

— the latter taking the form of his long involvement with Warbirds, a return to Bonneville with his own car (a Ford – at last!), and his growing collection of vintage and classic Fords.

We talk about flying and Garth is typically pragmatic: “I’m not interested in going for a drive just for the sake of it, there has to be a reason. It was the same with flying.” A share in a Tiger Moth was followed by a Yak-52 and the opportunity to be involved in a formation flying team with a P-40. “Three dimensions, as opposed to two, makes a huge difference,” he says. “A lot of guys crash drag cars but if you crash a Warbird, there’ll be only one outcome — hence the need to be risk-averse.”

Time is up and we’ve only scraped the surface. The good news is that Garth’s book, Go Fast Or Go Home, is due out in mid 2020. It’ll have something for everyone!