WILD AT HEART

THE war of words between the supercharged Doorslammer guys and the turbo guys continues, and I love it. It’s great to see the passion coming from so many people on both sides of the drag racing fence.

When you’re looking at how far Doorslammer cars have come in Australia over the years and compare it with all the new technology associated with turbo cars, it throws up some major differences.

Firstly, a supercharger is spun via a crank-driven belt, which robs the engine of hundreds of horsepower, whereas turbos use the exhaust to make boost, so they are potentially hundreds of horsepower in front.

Secondly, you can currently have any size turbo you like. At the moment in Australian supercharged Doorslammer, we are limited to a specific-size blower and only allowed to spin it at 108 per cent over crank speed. So that’s a limiting factor to performances. That’s why we expect the sanctioning bodies to keep a very close eye on the modifications that can be made to superchargers.

Whereas you go to the turbo guys, and there have been some absolutely unbelievable speeds from their cars – like the Moits Racing Mustang, Col Willshire, Ben’s little four-cylinder Datsun, Rod Harvey and many others. In most classes there are no limitations on what they are allowed to do with turbo sizes. You give John Zappia a C-rotor blower, which is a bigger version of what we run, and tell him he can run any overdrive he wants at any weight, and he would also run some awesome times – as would many Doorslammer teams.

The problem is, people are trying to compare apples with oranges. About 80 per cent of the Doorslammer guys want to keep things the way they are; we don’t want to let the turbo cars in, because we have too much invested in our combinations and it would be a nightmare trying to keep parity between the two. And the turbo guys are really keen on keeping what they’ve got – unlimitedsized turbos, unlimited weight reduction and they can run anything they like from traction control to complete engine management systems.

So, if you want turbo cars to run against Doorslammers, that’s the parity problem we have in Australian drag racing at the moment. That fact tends to be completely missed by the turbo guys; they say: “What’s wrong with you, you bunch of sooks?” But you can’t race unlimited cars like the amazing black Moits Mustang against cars whose specifications have been limited.

So I wrote a presentation to the rule-makers, suggesting a way that one day we could all run against each other: Give the turbo guys a class, a set of rules, and let them build on it and race for a couple of years. They need to be patient; Doorslammer ran for four-to-five years before we were given a class by ANDRA. Let them go ahead and create a bracket as big and strong as Doorslammer, with similar performance levels. Give them freedom and let them work it out themselves. Once you give a set of rules to a group of guys you will see straight away more people will come into the bracket, because they will see an opportunity to win. That’s what happened in Doorslammer. It’s brains versus brains, not brains versus money.

The whole Moits team, including their American connections, are a good bunch of guys, a hard-working family involved in construction equipment in Sydney. They work all week and go out and play on the weekend. I put them in the same category as the Lamattina boys – real hard workers, super-successful and happy to put their after-tax money into drag racing. They’re out there doing a great job and we should all be proud of how they have represented Australia on the world stage.

For Moits to bring their black car out here and see Paul Mouhayet run a 5.50@266mph – even though it was disappointing that he put it into the wall at Sydney – was absolutely unbelievable. I’ve known Paul for a couple of years now; he’s a good guy. A bit of a trash-talker; he likes to talk himself up and talk us down, and I think that’s all part of the game.

Where are Team Bray at the moment? We’re trying to lock in sponsors for the next three years. I probably don’t have another 10 years of racing in me, although when you look at how Gary Phillips is going, who knows? He’s running 5.30s, and he is a couple of years older than me.

In the back of my mind at the moment, I would love to go race in America. Ben’s raced in America, I’ve crewed for teams over there, been to a lot of events, but I’ve never actually spun a wheel on American soil, and that’s an ambition before I retire. You never know; if we don’t get a sponsor here in Australia we might just go over to America to race. I’ve had plenty of offers over the years and it could happen. Maybe at a PDRA event in a Pro Boost car is probably where I would fit in. It would be fun.

And now for something completely different, as the Monty Python team would say. A lot of people have been coming up and asking me: “Where’s Victor Bray gone?” That’s what can happen when you lose around 60kg. I had a vertical sleeve gastrectomy; you lose about 85 per cent of your stomach and follow a nutritional plan. The result is I feel a lot fitter, healthier and eat around a third of what I used to. I’m much more comfortable in the car; you can move better and the steering wheel doesn’t rub on your stomach. That’s gotta help me race better. Ben joked that over the past few years all the steering columns in my cars must have been sagging as they were getting closer to my guts. Ah well, they must have all moved back up again, eh smart-arse?