ROLE REVERSAL

IT’S VERY HARD TO TUNE ... TOO MUCH POWER AND YOU’LL SMOKE THE TYRES

Most of the columns I write, I’m lucky enough to be able to talk about driving a race car. I think it’s obvious I love driving race cars, but what people might not know is that I actually like tuning race cars more. Now, don’t take that the wrong way; driving a race car is 99.9 per cent pure awesomeness, and I appreciate every time I get in the seat of any car, but I also love making these cars tick — making a change and seeing the results, and the challenge it presents mentally.

For our most recent race, at Palmyra Dragway in Mackay, we were only taking two cars out of the Aeroflow Raceshop. Now, logically, that would be One Bad Kiwi and King Kong, along with the two drivers both working at the shop full time, Brandon Gosbell and myself. However, for this event I decided we would not take One Bad Kiwi; instead, Josh Leahy would get another skid in The Bandit. I am very fortunate to get to test and drive so many of these cars, and I figured it would probably mean a lot to Josh to get more runs under his belt.

The other thing I really enjoy is teaching others; if someone shows they want to learn about drag racing, it makes me want to teach. One of the guys I am most proud of within the whole Aeroflow funny car show is fellow Kiwi, Gareth Rogers. When Gareth turned up to the shop he had a decent mechanical knowledge but had a lot to learn about race cars and as a person. Now, not only is he my right-hand man but he actually runs the entire funny car workshop and is responsible for all the work that comes out of here. That is a huge task. So, for this event we decided it was Gareth’s opportunity to play crew chief on not one but two nitro funny cars. Gareth is the go-to guy when any mechanical help is needed on the cars, but it was now his time to start making tune-up decisions.

To make it harder, the event was at a regional facility where the cars make too much horsepower for the track, so it’s very hard to tune the cars and get it right. Too much power and you will smoke the tyres, not enough power and it will drop cylinders and hurt the motor; it’s a very fine balance and no easy task for seasoned professionals.

So, now, I wasn’t driving and I wasn’t tuning; I

started to wonder what I was actually going to do with myself. Normally, between all my different roles, I have to drive and tune multiple cars, so I don’t even have time to stop and think. I started to wonder if I was going to enjoy the weekend. Well, let me tell you, I absolutely loved it. I got to spend heaps of time mentoring Gareth on the tuning side of things, teaching different crew members new skills, and really just soaking in how awesome what we do is.

One of the highlights was a gentleman from the crowd who came along to give me two New Zealand magazines. One had an article and a photo from when I was 11 and racing a junior dragster at Tokoroa and the second was a recent magazine with a photo of the Aeroflow top fuel funny car in it. All he said to me was, “I want you to have these; look at how things have changed.” I now have both those magazines in my drawer at work as a good reminder.

As for the cars, well, I’d better watch out because Gareth absolutely smashed it out of the park, making all the correct decisions as the night went on. These nitro cars are so finicky, and to see Gareth really embracing what he has learnt and applying it was definitely a proud moment for me. I did have to laugh halfway through the night, though, when Gareth was staring at all the notes and all he could say was, “All this thinking is giving me a headache!”

Knowing how much stick he has given me over the past few years, saying I have the easy job as I sit in the office working things out, it was good for a laugh to see it back the other way. Anyway, a record crowd and a fun night’s racing was just icing on the cake.

For us, it was straight back to the workshop to get the next two top fuel funny cars ready for testing, only four days after the Palmyra race.

Running the outlaw nitro funny cars is a huge task and lots of work, and running a top fuel funny car is about the same amount of work as running three outlaw cars. Now we are going to run three top fuel funny cars, which is an absolutely monumental task, but I’m sure we can pull it off.

For the past 12 months, the world parts-supply issues have been a constant battle as we try to make sure we have everything we need for our first event on 4–5 November at Sydney Dragway. It’s the first championship top fuel funny car race in 20-odd years, so it’s important we get out there and put on an awesome show for the crowd.