STAGE WRITE
IWAS really impressed with ANDRA’S Summit Racing Queensland Championship series, held over three rounds at Ironbark Raceway, Benaraby Raceway and Palmyra Dragway between April and October. Competitors race over the eighth-mile in Chicago Shootout format, accumulating points at each track. At the final round at Palmyra, they get double points for a win, encouraging participation in all three rounds. The driver with the highest points aggregate in each class takes out the state title for their class and wins a Christmas tree trophy.
At the final round at Palmyra, the pits were full of cars, bikes, transporters and tents, plus a good crowd on the spectator mound.
Eighth-mile racing is super quick and the handicap over the eighth-mile is generally much less than the quarter-mile, so the handicap difference on the tree is much closer. Cars were leaving on their back wheels with only a car length or two to chase down over 660ft. With some competitors cutting .001sec lights and running right on their dial-in, you had to be on your game to win an ANDRA Christmas tree.
The blown Outlaw cars were most likely the crowd favourites, but I love quick street cars, and sleepers in particular. One of my favourite cars at the Palmyra meeting was the eventual Sportsman class champion, Earl Mccallum’s wicked wheelstanding HK Premier, powered by a John Brian-built small-block Chevy. Earl is a retired plant operator who now lives in Rockhampton, and was one of the original Palmyra Club racers at the very first meeting in 1968.
Earl’s vinyl-roof Premier came from Adelaide and only had 60,000 miles on the clock when he bought it. It still has the original HK interior complete with a tan bench seat, door trims, back seat, carpet and stereo. The only giveaways that the car runs in the 10s are the six-point steel rollcage with removable side intrusion bars, racing harness, shifter and tacho. All the electronics are hidden in the glovebox, with the exception of the transbrake button, which is fitted where the choke was on the dash.
The street-driven Premier weighs in at 3700lb with Earl on board, and has run a best of 10.20@129mph straight out the headers over the quarter, and 10.32 through the custommade, across-the-back three-inch original-style stainless muffler. Earl says he is getting too old to get under the car to drop the pipes, and uses electric header cut-outs at the track. The heavy old Prem is another radial car hooking up a tenth better than it theoretically should run by mph.
An amusing part of the HK’S history is that it was raced on slicks, and Garry Hunt suggested to Earl that he try radials. Mickey Thompson 275/60/15 Radial Pros on Convo Pro rims were fitted, and the car immediately dropped from 1.48 to 1.39 in the 60ft, and its best 60ft time since then is 1.36.
The rear end of Earl’s wheelstanding HK is embarrassingly simple. Stock HK leaf springs are used, with homemade half-link traction bars that work in a similar way to Caltracs. The $400 shocks are three-way adjustable Competition Engineering units front and back, with the fronts set on 90:10 and the back at 50:50. A shortened LH Torana rack-and-pinion was fitted to clear the small-block Chevy oil pan, and a heavy-duty rear sway-bar was added to the homemade sheetmetal nine-inch. The alloy Strange centre is fitted with 4.56:1 gears and 35-spline Hi Tuff axles. For street use, 275/60/15 Dot-approved ET Streets are used.
The 20-year-old transmission, which has been in several of Earl’s race cars, is a Phil
Cruikshank-built C4. Geoff Dellow facilitated the transmission transplant and custom-made the unique Chevy-to-ford auto bellhousing. The converter is a 5500rpm-stall Dominator.
To soft-launch the car, a 3000rpm chip is fitted to the MSD 7AL crank-trigger ignition. If the twostep was set any higher the car would scrape the back bumper!
The John Brian-built 434ci SBC is good for 707hp at 6600rpm and 612ft-lb at 5700rpm. The bottom end is comprised of a 4.155in-bore Dart block with a Manley four-inch crank, Manley rods and JE forged pistons set up for 12.5:1 compression.
The Precision Motorsports 23in Chinese 220cc heads are fitted with Ferrea 2.080in intakes and 1.60in exhausts. John says the Chinese heads need a bit of machine work out of the box to fix up things like the intake port face, but they flow pretty well with a couple of hours’ porting. Yella Terra 1.6:1 roller rockers follow the 0.700in-lift, .900in-base-circle solid-roller cam. John checks the lash every six months on the six-year-old small-block, and the Isky RAD valve springs are maintaining their spring rate even with street use.
The pipes are modified Pacemakers, while the 1050 Dominator carb sits on a 2970 Edelbrock Super Victor manifold. The sump is a seven-litre Milodon Hq-style oil pan, and on the street the HK cruises on 98 pump unleaded, but is raced with QM25.
The budget-built street/strip combo was put together for around $20K.
Very much looking forward to the inaugural Rockynats, which hits Rockhampton 26-28 June 2020. Garry Hunt and Earl Mccallum have a bet on who can wheelstand their streeters the highest at the event. It’s going to go off!
EARL MCCALLUM’S WICKED WHEELSTANDING HK PREMIER HAS RUN A BEST OF 10.20@129MPH STRAIGHT OUT THE HEADERS OVER THE QUARTER