BEST-LAID PLANS

Springmount Raceway up in Cairns was our next stop. This time, it was back in ‘One Bad Kiwi’ for some Aeroflow Outlaw Nitro Funny Cars racing. Springmount is always a fun track to race at, but it is very, very tricky, as the groove is really narrow and the track is generally slick, since it doesn’t get much traffic on it in the lead-up to this event. But for whatever reason, it’s always fun.

We have had a fair bit of success up here; it was where we got our first podium, and the last two times in far north Queensland, it was us and ‘Nitro Express’ leading the fields in speed and ETs. It had been well over a year since I had driven One Bad Kiwi, but I was still fairly confident that we had enough notes from the past couple of events to have a good ‘get down the racetrack’ tune-up.

Before we could worry about racing, though, we had the Aeroflow Pit Party, which is always a success. The party was an hour of non-stop hero-card signing and talking to kids and families. I don’t know what it is about Cairns, but everyone seems to have a different way of spelling the same name. As much as the writer’s cramp was setting in, it was just so cool to be able to put a smile on the kids’ faces as they got to sit in the car or have the chance to talk to the drivers — very rewarding.

For the first round, we were the first pairing up — so, basically, we were the guinea pigs on this track that had not really seen any high horsepower cars since 2019. I set the car up softer than we had last time out, as I was nervous about how narrow that groove was and what the track would hold. Well, it only took me about two seconds into the run to realise that the track was even slipperier than it had been on our last couple of races up here. The Kiwi smoked the tyres; I tried to pedal it; it still didn’t hook up — just smoked them again. At that point, I thought, Let’s not do anything silly here,

and shut the car off.

One of the advantages of being first pairing is that sometimes you get back in time to make changes to other cars. As we got back to the start line, and after watching the next pair slip and slide all over the racetrack, I jumped out of the tow car, went over to ‘The Bandit’ — driven by my good mate Josh Leahy — and changed as much as I could. As the call was being made to start the car, I was still changing timing chips. I gave Josh a wink and hoped the changes would work. Well, a low ET for the round showed that we had learnt from our mistake, and we applied this knowledge to the next car.

AT THAT POINT, I THOUGHT, LET’S NOT DO ANYTHING SILLY HERE, AND SHUT THE CAR OFF

IT’S GREAT JUST TO STAND ON THE START LINE AND REALLY APPRECIATE HOW AWESOME THESE CARS ARE. AND, BOY, ARE THEY LOUD!

The second round was basically a repeat of the first — too much power in One Bad Kiwi, and another perfect round of ‘learn from the mistakes’, once again getting The Bandit straight down the middle of the track.

It was after the second round that things got interesting. We got back to the pits and the guys started servicing the cars. ‘The Terminator’, driven by Justin Walshe, had a clutch bearing seize up, damaging the bearing and the shaft that it slides on. Not too much of a drama, we reckoned, as we had spares in the trailer. We pride ourselves on preparation and having everything we need to fix whatever issues arise on race day; well, unfortunately, the wrong clutch-bearing spares had been put in the trailer, meaning that Justin and his team would not be able to run the final.

Now, as manager of this race team, I take things like this very personally, as the bottom line is that the buck stops with me. Obviously, our systems were not operating correctly in ensuring we had everything we needed. So, as much as it sucked having to tell my guys, it was an easy decision. Out came the clutch from Kiwi, and all the parts needed were transferred over to The Terminator to allow it to run the final. This meant we would have to sit out the final round, but sometimes things have to be done for the betterment of the entire team.

The only positive was that it did allow me time to really concentrate on tuning the cars down the racetrack, and a low event ET for Bandit in the final round in some terrible conditions put a pretty big smile back on my face. It’s also great every now and then just to stand on the start line and really appreciate the crowd and how awesome these cars are. And, boy, are they loud!

For now, it’s back to the shop, with heaps of work ahead of us to get three top fuel funny cars ready for the Sydney race in the 400 Thunder Aeroflow Drag Racing Series in November.