DAY FOUR – SWAN HILL DRAGWAY

DAY Four of Street Machine Drag Challenge saw us visiting the brand-new quarter-mile at Swan Hill in northern Victoria. Our original plan was to race at Portland’s South Coast Raceway, but weeks of rain had left the pits sodden. Swan Hill had its own inaugural meeting rained out a couple of weeks previously, so the Drag Challenge entrants had the honour of being the first racers to hold a meeting on the new track.

And what a great track it is. The Swan Hill Drag Racing Club doesn’t yet have much in the way of facilities, but it does have an excellent strip in a picturesque setting. And, as it turns out, excellent tucker – among the best we’d had at any drag strip in the country.

To decide who got to take the maiden voyage down the strip, we held a raffle after the drivers’ briefing. Half of the proceeds went to the SHDRC and the other half went to the Cerebral Palsy Alliance, raising $2070 all up. The winners of the auction were Mark Talbot in the Barra-powered XD Falcon and Bushy in his tough Holden Adventra.

And with that, the racing was on, and it was clear early on that the track was well-suited to the DC competitors.

The star performer of the day was Jarrod Wood in the IMGASD HQ Holden one-tonner. With 598ci and massive turbos, Jarrod can pretty much dial in as much power as he likes, but the car struggled to get it all to the ground at the first three tracks. Not so at Swan Hill, and Jarrod signalled his intentions with a couple of 8.3s, followed by an 8.21, an 8.06 and even an 8.009! He then broke the sevensecond barrier twice, with a PB of 7.81@182mph. In one hit, Jarrod not only became the first person to run a seven at Swan Hill, but he

01:

Jesse Boothroyd was a happy man at Swan Hill, cracking through into the eight-second zone for the first time in his crusty Kingswood

02:

Scotty and Rod Hadfield officiated over the raffle that decided which two racers would make the historic first pass at Swan Hill, raising $2070 for charity in the process

03:

Josh O’brien’s Holdenpowered VP Commodore ute ran in the 9.6s all week thanks to an F1R Procharger

04:

Mark Sass had a ball with his mates travelling in his LSXWAR VT Commodore. The Vortech-blown Berlina PB’D for the week on the last day at Calder, recording an 8.96@ 154mph

05:

Scotty and racer Elvio Gonzalez were stoked to be able to raise just over two grand from the raffle, which was split between the race track and the Cerebral Palsy Alliance – a charity that Elvio was raising funds for via his Drag Challenge tilt

06:

Mark Talbot gets some air in his Barra-powered XD Falcon. Mark ran his best time of the week at Swan Hill, a 10.167@128mph

BELOW:

Tim Rhone’s twinturbo Windsor-powered XP Falcon is a cracker. With 363ci, a flex fuel set-up and Gazzard Bros goodies out back, Tim powered to a new PB of 9.67@143mph at Calder. Tim certainly likes a drive – a few weeks after DC he road-tripped to the one-and-only Casterton Street Drags – an easy 600km round trip from his home in Castlemaine

JARROD CAN PRETTY MUCH WITH 598 CUBES AND MASSIVE TURBOS, LIKES DIAL IN AS MUCH HORSEPOWER AS HE

AT THE END OF DAY THREE JARROD WAS TENTH OVERALL, BUT AFTER DAY FOUR HE’D JUMPED UP TO FIFTH

was one of only three guys to have run a seven on Drag Challenge. That seven-second pass made a huge impact on his overall ranking as well. At the end of Day Three Jarrod was sitting in tenth overall, but after Day Four he’d jumped up to fifth, just behind Terry Seng.

Not everything went swimmingly for all of our Drag Challenge competitors, though. Overall leader Bubba Medlyn ran an 8.658 in his Commodore, but it also spat an MSD crank trigger wheel. Naturally, you can’t buy one of those to suit a Holden V8 at the Repco, but he got it sorted and was on his way to Calder before dark.

Harry Haig and the Shonky SS team arrived late after performing a cam swap in town. Bob and Tony from BT Performance in Swan Hill donated the use of their facilities for Robby Abbott to work his magic with the mechanicals so that Harry could make it to the track. He got a pass in then broke a rod and had to wait half the night for a replacement to be brought out.

Terry Seng and the Paramount Performance crew had some transmission woes during the day and also headed to BT Performance to swap in a new auto for HDT275. They managed a stout 8.509, the quickest time at Swan Hill. But after struggling for traction all week Terry was looking forward to laying down a full-power pass at Calder for the last day.

ABOVE:

Luke Foley’s twinturbo Ls-powered VH killing bugs on the way to the last day at Calder

01:

This year we welcomed our first rotary-powered entrant. For the first two DCS John Polkinghorne crewed on Harry Haig’s HQ, but his year John recycled his old RX-2 rally car into a street-and-strip weapon. John got the car registered on the morning of the event and went on to complete the event with son Lee riding shotgun, running low 12s

02:

Andrew Natoli was back down from Sydney for another crack at Drag Challenge in his VK. Running mostly in the 11.7 zone, Andrew finished just outside the DYO Top 10

03:

Adam Rogash and the MPW crew at the Day Four checkpoint at Lake Boga, home of the flying boats. During WWII Lake Boga was the secret service and repair base for Australia’s Catalina flying boats

04:

Drag Challenge veteran Brendan Cherry had his HQ Monaro singing to the tune of mid-eights. However, a broken anti-roll bar saw Cherry pull an AGROHQSTYLE launch, resulting in a buggered diff, but he got it fixed and made it to Calder

05:

South Aussie Brett Mathew’s HT Premier fitted nitrous for this year’s event and stepped up to Haltech Radial Blown, despite the fact he was only running a 235 tyre. Brett set his best time for the event on the last day at Calder with a 9.22@144mph

06:

Swan Hill is Jarrod Wood’s home track, and after some advice from his transmission builder in the US, he was stoked to run the very first seven-second pass on the new quartermile track