DAY TWO – HEATHCOTE PARK

RACERS HAD AS USUAL, THE VETERAN VICTORIAN STREET AT HEATHCOTE SOMETHING OF A HOME-TRACK ADVANTAGE

HEATHCOTE Park Raceway is just over 100km up the road from Calder Park, but we weren’t going to make it that easy for our Drag Challenge competitors. We sent them on a detour to Nagambie to get a shot of their cars with the statue of Black Caviar before heading to the track. That made it more of a 200km trip, taking in some fairly average roads. With limited accommodation in Heathcote, most racers opted to bunk down in nearby Bendigo, though a handful camped at the track.

The weather was warm and as usual, the veteran Victorian street racers in attendance had something of a home-track advantage on the sometimes unpredictable Heathcote surface. The competition in all classes was red hot and the attrition rate was higher than we experienced last year.

One bloke doing it tough was last year’s winner of Outlaw Aspirated, Mark Clifford from Far North Queensland. Mark’s 1969 Mustang fastback is one of the coolest cars in the field, packing a monster 1180hp Jon Kaase Shotgun-style mill. Mark came out on top in his class on Day One, with a best of 9.354sec; less than a tenth ahead of Steve Micallef’s HQ one-tonner. Starter motor issues in the Mustang cause the boys all kinds of problem but they made it to Heathcote, and were still out in front of Mothers Outlaw Aspirated at the end of the second day. Unfortunately brake issues would take the red Muzzy out of the picture during the drive to Mildura.

Earl’s Radial Aspirated had another Ford and another returning

01:

We had 100 racers plus all their crew on the road with us for Drag Challenge, injecting a nice economic stimulus package into the towns we passed through. How many racers will we have next year?

02:

Two Chrysler Centuras and one Galant turned up for DC this year, but none of them were Mopar-powered. This one is Clevo-powered and belongs to Anthony Gatt. It ran low 11s all week and finished 14th in Tuff Mounts DYO

03:

Mark Clifford’s fearsome Mustang led the Mothers Outlaw Aspirated ranks at the end of Day Two, but the car didn’t make it to Mildura

04:

Matt Jones’s patinaencrusted HK ute was back for another lash at the Drag Challenge DYO ranks. Matt keeps things old-school with a 383ci small-block Chev combo

05:

Drag Challenge has yet to really take off with the latemodel tuner set, so it was cool to have Brad Davis along in his blown C63 Mercedes. Running with the big dogs in Turbosmart Outlaw Blown, Brad pulled a best of 10.28@135mph at Calder, but couldn’t front at Swan Hill on Day Four

06:

Matt Lampard’s LUMPER HZ Holden was part of the MPW Performance crew and ripped off a best of 9.823@141mph

BELOW:

Daryl Elliott’s 427ci Sbc-powered TORRIE sounds awesome, pulls great wheelies and came oh-so-close to cracking a nine-second pass. Daryl ran 40-odd passes over the week and backed up to run the APSA finals at Calder, where he took out the True Street title

THOSE THAT HAD TO STOP FOUND THEMSELVES BEING DINNER FOR SOME SERIOUSLY AGGRESSIVE MOSQUITOES

champ in the lead, this time Alon Vella in his Capri, sitting on a two-day total of 18.645sec ahead of Nathan Ghosn’s Capri with 19.69.

Adam Rogash retained first place in Haltech Radial Blown with a 16.934, ahead of Mark Drew’s 17.060, while Bubba Medlyn dominated Turbosmart Outlaw Blown and left Heathcote in the outright lead, thanks to a 16.534sec cumulative time.

Tuff Mounts DYO was tight at the top, with Simon Mcpherson’s VK, Benny Phillips’s HK wagon and last year’s winner Alysha Teale separated by mere thousandths of a second. And some of the country’s best footbrake racers were tucked in close behind them, including John Kerr, Grant Pegler and Carl Taylor.

With a hefty 446km trek to Mildura in front of them, many racers ran a number and hit the road as soon as they could, with a mandatory stop in front of a disused pub in Sea Lake. Those who left late found there was precious little tucker to be found after nightfall, and those that had to stop to tend to their cars found themselves being dinner for some seriously aggressive mosquitoes. We do call it Drag Challenge!

ABOVE:

Daniel Barbary rests his Ls1-powered Centura up the road from the Sea Lake checkpoint. The car blew a tyre and ripped up the front guard and door two weeks before DC. Daniel replaced the damaged guard but left the door looking a little shabby, and managed to finish fourth overall in DYO

01:

Greg and Lewis Mason were back for their third Drag Challenge and placed just outside the Top 10 in the ultra-competitive Tuff Mounts DYO class

02:

It is great to see fullsize Aussie muscle cars having a shot at DC. Steven Nightingale’s XA ran in DYO and reeled off an 11.18@121mph at Swan Hill

03:

After Damien Reeves hurt his blown XT Fairmont, he grabbed his brother’s Fairlane to run the rest of the week, just for fun

04:

Todd Foley tops up his Magnuson-blown Ls-powered VH at the Sea Lake checkpoint

05:

John Micallef got damn close to a nine-second pass on the first day at Calder Park in his tough LH Torana. Unfortunately he had some issues with his coil at Heathcote Raceway and could only manage a 28sec pass. That put a massive dent in his cumulative time and put him at the bottom of the class

06:

The MPW crew travelled in a massive convoy and they made a serious dent in Bendigo’s supply of E85. This year we mandated that competitors could only carry an extra 200 litres of fuel. We’re hoping more racers look at switching to flex-fuel set-ups in the future, which will mean they won’t have to carry so much fuel