PEOPLE LIKE US
> WANGARATTA, VICTORIA
We’ll be coming back – I think we’ll spray it and try to break something!
WE SPOTTED Josh Dowell in his AU Falcon track car at the AFF Nats, with his dad Troy and a bunch of mates also racing, so we thought we’d have a chat to see what makes him tick.
Tell us about yourself, Josh.
I’m an apprentice mechanic from Wang, just up the road from Winton. I come from a car family; my sisters and I race motorkhanas out at Carboor with the North Eastern Car Club. We drive a dead-stock Hyundai Excel and we flog the crap out of it – just limiter-bash it all day!
How’d you get into racing?
One of my mates told me there was a scholarship
out at Winton [a tutoring program open to 15 to 17-year-olds who want to compete at the state or national level] and I started circuit-racing out there in a Datsun Bluebird. I did a 2:20 and decided I needed to go faster, so I bought the AU for 500 bucks. I got it as a wreck from a guy who was also into circuit-racing, so he also supplied me with parts. My first race in it I ran a 1:52, and now I’m down to 1:40.07!
What sort of mods have you done to it?
Pretty much everything is second-hand. It’s the stock 260,000km bottom end with a Cncported head and a cam that’s way too big. It’s got a ’cage, fuel cell, Pedders lowered suspension and a Haltech Elite 750 ECU. The brakes are just slotted rotors and Bendix SRT pads, and the track tyres are Dunlop R2s. We changed the diff gears to 3.9s with a mini-spool and picked up two seconds a lap. It’s all been built on an apprentice budget, but if I had more it’d have a Windsor in it by now!
Did you have fun today?
Yeah, heaps. It was my first time on a drag strip and I ran 13.4@105mph. We’ll be coming back – I think we’ll spray it and try to break something!
What does the future hold for you?
I want to run a 1:39 at Winton, then I’ll rebuild the engine with more comp and try for 300hp at the wheels. I’ve also got an EH wagon I’m building as a daily for when I get my licence in five months. I’ve got a CRS front end for it and I’ll rebuild the 179. I want to take it to the Bright Rod Run and travel Australia in it.