WRITER’S CRAMP

As I said in my last column, I love the Perth Motorplex — everything from the track, to the layout, the massive big screen, the screen facing the pits to keep you up with the on-track action, right down to the fact that, every time that you drive at the facility, it is so clean and the grass is really green. The last time we raced the funny cars in Perth, we moved the event from our traditional January date to December so that we could get a better weather window for the show to come to New Zealand. Well, we all know that didn’t go as planned — it rained in New Zealand, if you didn’t hear. I was fairly optimistic that, with some good weather, and, back on our traditional date, we could get another really big crowd in the house. Well, we reached the equalhighest ticket presales on Thursday, almost doubled it on Friday, and absolutely surpassed it on Saturday morning. For some reason, traditional drag racing fans don’t seem to be too good at pre-purchasing tickets, so it was encouraging to think that we may have plenty of new fans coming to the event. The event was to start with the Aeroflow pit party, which was due to run from 4.30pm to 5.30pm. As we were adding the final touches at 4pm, the crowd was just flocking in, and, before we knew it, the event had started 20 minutes early, as there were just so many people in the pits wanting to get in on the action. It was crazy! The lines were over 10 deep for the entire hour just to get an autograph. Emma Begley and Chelsea Leahy, our two female drivers, often had lines double that length, full of young girls aspiring to be like them. It was honestly just nuts, with hundreds of kids sitting in the cars. Half the drivers had writer’s cramp by the end of it, because they had signed so many autographs. To orchestrate something as unique as a pit party takes a lot of logistics and work, but it was worth every minute to see the smiles on so many kids’ and parents’ faces. Once a pit party finishes, for me it becomes really busy, really quickly. I get my suit and boots on, while my wife, Monique, takes all the rest of my gear to the tow car, and, while this is happening, the boys are getting the race car hooked up ready to tow out to the staging lanes. I then have to go over to the trailer and check the weather (checking for air quality), and then make a final tune-up call on both ‘One Bad Kiwi’ and ‘The Bandit’ based on this and track conditions. While I’m doing this, my awesome crew tow the car around to the staging lanes and basically have everything ready for me so that I can make any final adjustments needed and then jump in the car. It’s at this point that I really have to try to switch off from serious manager-and-race-cartuner mode and just think about my job of driving this race car. I must admit, this did take a bit of getting used to, but I think I am getting better at it. The first round is always a bit tricky, especially in Perth. With hot days and then the setting sun bringing cooler conditions, it is very easy to overstep the mark but also very easy to get yourself in trouble by being too conservative — and, for this tricky round, we were up against Justin Walshe in ‘The Terminator’. After seeing The Bandit go 5.61 seconds in the pairing in front of us, I was fairly confident that the Kiwi would go down in a similar number. Well, when the win light popped on 5.62 seconds later at 261mph (420kph), it proved that we had nailed that tune-up window for these conditions. It was an equal best ET and fastest speed we had ever run — which was very exciting for the first pass of the day. It wasn’t until we were driving back that I got a chance to appreciate the crowd — the Perth Motorplex was absolutely packed! I had goosebumps at the thought that what we had achieved as a series was to fill this facility again. For round two, it was a race of the red Trans Am against Matt Abel from Darwin in ‘Nitro Thunder’. Matt had been as quick as 5.6 seconds at previous events, so we knew that we had to step it up. With a few tweaks, the plan was to try to run a mid 5.5 seconds, but, realistically, I would have been stoked if it went 5.599 seconds. Well, the low ET of the round at 5.56 seconds had the team jumping up and down on the start line, so I guess the plan had worked. So, for the second event in a row, we had gone into the final round with the low ET and maximum points. We had been in this position before and not been able to get down the racetrack in the last run, so I was very nervous heading into the final round. For that last round, we had Shane Olive in the ‘Red Devil’. This was going to be a tough race — Shane has the fastest car in the series and is the most experienced driver in the series. Well, it turned out to be the race of the night. Check out some of these numbers! At quarter-track, it was 2.497 seconds versus his 2.501 seconds. At half-track, I was 3.703 seconds versus his 3.710 seconds, both at an identical 204mph (328kph). At the 1000-foot mark, he was now 4.734 seconds compared with my 4.743 seconds. He then streaked away to win with 5.588 seconds to my 5.623 seconds. Now, that is why we race! Yeah, we came out on the losing side, but what a race! Even with the loss, this gave us enough points to bring home the third-place trophy. Although it wasn’t a gold, I was still stoked with the result and how well both cars performed. And now, I can’t wait for the next one!