RUSSELL PARKER
> SUNSHINE COAST, QLD
MOST kids in the late 70s read fairytale books, whereas my preferred brand of childhood fantasy and excitement was found in my dad Russell Parker’s personal drag-racing photo albums, chronicling his quarter-mile exploits in 1960s and 70s South Australia. Trying to choose just a few photos for this yarn was not easy, so we’ll continue the journey next issue. For now, we’ll take a look at Dad’s adventures at Brooksfield, South Australia’s first drag strip (which he helped get up and running), a bunch of his FED rails, a couple of cool streeters, and a demolition derby car!
01: BETWEEN Dad’s exploits and those of Pinky Tuscadero from Happy Days, you can bet that I was smitten with the art of the demolition derby. The hands-on-hips, helmet-wearing fashionista in the top photo is yours truly, looking very proud of Dad’s efforts to completely destroy a mid60s Ford Fairlane. The cute li’l blondie beside me is my brother, Scott Parker. “It was my mate Gary Datson’s old Compact Fairlane that we put in a demo derby just because the car was there really,” Dad explains. “It had Compact running gear, probably a 260ci in it. The demo derby was run at the end of the season at Rowley Park Speedway. We straightened the Compact out a bit and had a second run, then that was the end of that – I scrapped the car.”
02: DAD is full of funny yarns from when he was a lad, including this ripper that features his red Model A Ford roadster: “Peter Hines had claimed to have run 100mph at the dirt Brooksfield track, so I strapped an old alarm clock to my dash and painted ‘100mph’ on it and raced down the track. I then just kept racing into the saltbush, returning a fair while later to claim that I too had run 100mph!”
03: 1966 saw Dad’s first foray into the new sport of drag racing at the freshly opened Brooksfield nine-chain (about 180m) track, which was narrow and rough, with minimal bitumen. Dad, then just 18, had hand-built a Hambster from RHS steel and spare parts, including a sidevalve Ford from one of my poppa’s old trucks. “It also had a sidevalve car gearbox – I only used second and top gear – and behind was a full-width standard diff of the era, with an Austin 7 front end,” Dad says. “I had mounted the Holden steering box the wrong way; I was young and I didn’t know any better! It really was a weird-looking car.”
04: BY 1967 the cumbersome Hambster had
been sidelined in favour of an ex-clive Ward FED. Dubbed Rebel, the car proved to be a hard-hitter from the outset, running an 8.61second eighth-mile, which upset a few D/D class regulars. “I had bought the rail as a roller with a Cusso diff, then added the Cusso 239ci sidevalve with homemade zoomies and early Ford gearbox, once again only using second and top gears,” Dad says. “As no one could get slicks back then, we just used ordinary wornout car tyres. The rear rims are standard Ford that I’d widened, and the fronts are 19-inch spoke rims off a buggy, on a Ford Prefect stub axle.” Rebel was also used as a drag racing promotional tool at the hugely popular Rowley Park Speedway (where my poppa, Murray Parker, successfully raced).
05: A COOL shot that neatly sums up racing at the time – a home-built FED rail push-started by the daily, with the driver as the mechanic. It may’ve been the heyday, but the guys and gals were dealing with windy open paddocks with dirt pits and return roads, minimal budgets, and relatively little speed equipment on hand. To win, you needed to be rich or very handy; Dad was the latter. Here the now-white Rebel sports a new 332ci Ford OHV FE Fairlane motor with four-barrel carb, which sure made waves. The then-current B/D (economy) class leaders were running 186ci sixes at the time, so the biggercubed OHV V8 was soon taking victories with 12.38-second quarters – not bad for a 21-yearold in 1969!
06: MY ever-supportive mum, Bernice Parker, posing beside the newly overhead-valved rail as they towed it to Calder for a meet. Back in those days a winning car meant that you actually made some money, and Mum often said that drag racing helped put food on the table. She was part of the crew too, being the main ’chute packer. Of course, you still had to actually tow the car safely to and from the track: “I put a 221ci in my XM, instead of the 144ci; it went a hell of a lot better towing then,” Dad smiles.
07: BY 1975 Adelaide International Raceway had finally opened and Dad stepped up the game with ‘Parker the Carter’, an ex-fred Hams frame with a 272ci Cusso donk, which laid down 11.2s. In this shot you can see Dad’s beloved red XT GT, which he used as both push and tow car. “The GT was a repossession that I bought for only $3000,” he says. “But after a few years those sorts of cars were getting stolen at an incredible rate, and I was so worried about losing it that I sold it and bought a red Rambler Hornet.” Honestly, I’ve never seen a photo of said Rambler!