KILLING TIME
NEVER MIND PHONING HOME — ETS HAVE BEEN DROPPING LIKE FLIES THIS YEAR, AND THE PHENOMENON PEAKED AT THE 2016 IHRA NATIONALS, WITH AN ALMOST CONSTANT STREAM OF NEWLY RUN PBS
ACTION APLENTY FROM THE IHRA DRAG NATIONALS
The way the recent drag racing season has been going, you’d be forgiven for expecting the PBs of just about every local drag racer to drop by a second-zone — if you were at the 2016 IHRA Nationals at Meremere Dragway, held over the weekend of March 12–13, you’d have seen little to change your mind. This was seen to by the likes of Michael Franklin’s ‘540GTO’ finally cracking into the seven-second zone and happily running there all weekend long — despite the team having struggled all season to get there. Likewise, Steve Milliken finally managed to ease the wild GSS Performance–sponsored Topolino altered into the sevens — a 7.91s at 161.15mph is a convincing indication of the insane machine’s performance potential. But the weekend’s really big news was to do with the quickest and fastest pass of the event, as Anthony Marsh piloted the Mount Shop / Marsh Motorsport A/Fuel dragster to an insane 5.37s quarter-mile at 272.45mph — almost expected, given the Marsh team’s relentless pursuit of speed, but no less of a phenomenal achievement nevertheless. The performance was enough to see the team take home the Top Alcohol win. Given the sheer number of impressive vehicles and time-slips on offer over the weekend, and the fact that we posted an event report online (visit themotorhood.com), we won’t drag the coverage out in words — instead, take a look at our handpicked highlight reel from the weekend: the good, the not so good, and the just plain crazy. Call the sport of drag racing what you want, but boring it most certainly is not!
01: New Zealand’s quickest and fastest lady unfortunately ended her weekend on a bit of a low note, but at least she took an award for it — after jumping from her still-moving car after it caught fire, she injured her calf muscle, earning the Hard Luck award of the weekend
02: It was great to see Mike Bari’s jaw-dropping ’71 Chevelle — NZV8 Issue No. 123’s cover car — hitting the track in anger. With a 598ci big block topped with both plate and port nitrous injection, it was never going to be a slouch, and the trap speeds in the 148mph zone give a good indication of the big car’s power. Mike finished the weekend with a PB of 9.26s at 148.92mph, run with only one of the two available stages of nitrous having been used. We’re waiting for the inevitable eight-second runs, once Mike’s happy enough with the Chevelle’s set-up to turn on the nitrous port injection
03: Got cubes? It doesn’t matter how many you have under the hood, it’s unlikely you’ll have more than Barry Plumpton. His Monte Carlo doorslammer runs an enormous 823ci mountain motor, screwed together by the one and only Dave Moyle. With massive cubes and the mother of all induction systems, comprising a pair of tunnel-rammed Holley electronic-fuel-injection (EFI) throttle bodies and a monster nitrous system, Barry’s got the Monte Carlo sitting comfortably in the six-second zone, recently running an impressive 6.56s at 208mph
04: The Mahon brothers got their silky-smooth Camaro even further into the sevens, with Heath Mahon running a best of 7.85s at 181.54mph among a string of seven-second passes. The Camaro is not a particularly light car and is running a naturally aspirated single-carb engine — a 613ci monster built by Steve Schmidt in the US — and the Mahons are proving that you don’t need multiple carbs, or poweradders, to go fast. Both Jarrod and Heath reckon there’s still some more left in the car, so you can expect to see a whole lot more of the Mahons
05: Paul ‘PJ’ Johnston valiantly tried to get on top of things during this meeting, and made a fair go of it as well, reaching the elimination-round finals against Tim Hawke’s V8-powered Corolla. Concerned that his final-drive ratio wasn’t quite right, as he’d been hitting the limiter before the end of the strip, he borrowed some diff gears from Reece Fish to see what difference they’d make. Using the IHRA Nationals as a test-bed for the new final-drive ratio, PJ found that the ratio was a little low for his liking. To date, he has run a PB of 7.30s at 193.46mph — with a fastest quarter-mile of 202mph — and he is confident that the C10’s procharged big block is capable of running sixes at over 200mph. Once PJ has sorted the Lenco’s clutch settings and sourced some new diff gears, we’re expecting the elusive sixsecond club will be getting a new member
06: Kevin McGregor drove the Heat Treatments Pontiac GTO to a new PB of 7.36s at 178.30mph on the Saturday, resetting his own A/TS record in the process. Even with brother Reece’s famous Heat Treatments Nissan Skyline R32 GT-R currently off the grid, the Heat Treatments association with speed is being kept alive and well
07: Simon Fowke’s ’57 Chev–bodied funny car is always an impressive contender to watch, as well as one of the best-presented funny cars out there. At the IHRA Nationals, Simon managed to bury the ’57 even deeper into the sixes, running a rapid 6.71s at 211.59mph
08: They don’t call it laughing gas for nothing …
09: Jodey Irving didn’t have as good a weekend as some of the other racers. With a 7.11s PB under his belt, he’s no amateur, but sometimes — as they say — shit happens. Following a hard launch, the Camaro veered to the right, slamming into the wall, thus stopping Jodey’s weekend prematurely. There is always a bright side, though, and Jodey managed to walk away from the impact unscathed. Will they rebuild the car and continue to campaign it as the quickest back-half chassis car in the country, or will they take the opportunity to change it up?
10: The newly built crazy Topolino altered co-owned by Murray Buckingham and Glen Collett is a seriously ruthless machine. Powered by a TFX engine topped with ex–Mark Vincent Hemi heads, a 14-71 high-helix supercharger, and a 44-amp magneto, backed by a Hughes Powerglide and a Strange diff, it’s not short on grunt. The ‘problem’ — if you can call it that — is making all that power run straight; in a tiny car that was originally named after Mickey Mouse, that’s easier said than done. While there’s admittedly no original Topolino in this machine, it’s still a wee little thing with a gigantic power plant, and the quarter-miles sure reflected that. Even so, Glen managed to run the bucking, bunny-hopping beast to a seriously quick 7.37s at 181.37mph, and the engine’s good for a whole lot more, if the rest of the package will let it!
11: The twin-turbo Clevo-powered XY built and driven by Jason Sellars is more than just a looker. Over the course of just three drag meetings — all of which were plagued by transmission problems — Jason and the team have been creeping closer to unlocking the XY’s true potential. They finally cracked it on Saturday morning, running an almost perfect pass to net a 7.52s at 185.08mph. With a recent dyno tune netting over 1600hp at the rear wheels on the factory-cast two-bolt Cleveland block, it was the C4 transmission that cried enough on the very next run, putting an end to the team’s weekend. Look out for the ute next season, with an all-new transmission — lower ETs are almost guaranteed
12: Trevor Smith and Rod Benjes might have taken the whole Top Doorslammer thing a little too literally. A door was blown off Trev’s Statesman on Saturday, and, the following day, Benjes’ Beretta decided to slam a door — and the whole right-hand side — into the wall. It was balls-out racing from these two throughout the weekend, and both were rewarded for their efforts with new PBs — a 6.47s at 220.91mph for Benjes, and a 6.49s at 219.65mph for Smith, with Smith taking home the win 13: Reece Fish brought the big guns out to play, though the four-second and 300mph zones are still evading him. It would have been awesome to see him do it, with all the work he’s put into trying to get there, and we have no doubt he’ll have that foursecond 300mph quarter-mile soon enough 14: It seems as though Josh Trybula is beginning to get on top of the consistency of his ‘Meth Addict’ turbocharged ’64 Impala. After the Impala lost the crank angle sensor during a run on Saturday morning, everything came right for a consistently strong performance over the weekend. Josh’s current PB is an 8.46s at 157.59mph, although he managed to hit 168mph on Saturday, showing the Impala’s sevensecond potential once his 60-foot times are sorted 15: The quarter-mile is embedded in Shane Lodge’s DNA, and he pushed his Top Alcohol dragster to a new PB of 5.48s at 253.80mph. Meanwhile, Chris ‘CJ’ Johnston also scored a new PB, with a 5.53s at 259.36. Things are neck and neck between these two, and it will be interesting to see how they go at the upcoming Masterton Motorplex Top Alcohol Challenge, especially with the Marsh Motorsport A/Fuel dragster thrown into the mix 16: Athol Williams is most definitely not playing Tiddlywinks on his Top Fuel drag bike, achieving an amazing new (NZ) PB of 6.25s at 237.3mph and almost running out of C. 66 C. 10 M. 60 M. 10 stopping space in the process — Y. his60 runsY. 10 are K. 45 K. 10 never anything short of breathtaking