KIWIS CAN FLY

THE CMR Bonneville team has been taking records back to New Zullund since 2011, when Reg Cook etched his factory Sr20de-powered Nissan NX’S racing numbers into the Production class books.

This year’s Speed Week saw them return to the salt after the two-year hiatus with a Honda KA20 donk in the front of the little Nissan they call Cookie. With a smart mix of modifications and some “blue sky thinking” – according to Reg’s daughter Louise – Cookie was able to contend for records in five different categories with quick parts/aero swaps.

They kicked off the week by taking the G/fuel Comp Coupe record at 190.6mph – making Cookie the world’s fastest two-litre naturally aspirated car – and didn’t waste any time swapping out the nosecone and aero package for a lighter version to qualify for a new record in G/fuel Altered Coupe that same afternoon.

They took that record home the next morning at 189.1mph, then stripped the N2O kit for Reg to contend for G/gas Coupe in the afternoon. But Cookie’s clutch had had enough and blew out on the next pass, leaving the hatch up on jack stands and the team looking towards their second entrant – the two-litre diesel-powered Wairua 1 streamliner.

Wairua means ‘spirit’ in Maori, and the Volkswagen diesel four-pot certainly brought out the spirit of the team, who thrashed away tirelessly to prepare the car – which had never turned a tyre under its own power – for racing. With the first fire-up on the Wednesday, ‘Kiwi Steve’ Davies took the ’liner down the track for a shakedown run, and all systems were good to go to challenge for the G/diesel Streamliner record the next day.

Unfortunately, while idling in the staging lanes, the air-shift transmission knocked itself into gear, jamming up the ’box and ending any hopes of another gong.

Wairua stayed in Utah to take another shot at the 147.9mph record at September’s USFRA World Of Speed event at Bonneville.