DAY 3 - MILDURA

WHILE there was no road leg on Tuesday evening, the day’s weather-related delays meant the Mildura track stayed open until 11:30pm so everyone got a run. Then, the DC entrants had to front at the track at 8am on Wednesday for Day Three’s racing, with a monster road leg looming over them in the afternoon.

The K&N DYO class kicked off the day’s action, with times split by thousandths of a second. Tony Muscara’s Whipple supercharged 2016 Mustang was 0.0026sec off his dial-in, trailing DC veteran Steve Grima, who was only 0.019sec off his nominated time. If either faltered, the carb-equipped LS1 HQ Tonner of Jason Davidson was just 0.004sec off taking the lead in the class.

Mark Busscher backed up his 6.14@109mph from Tuesday with a 6.15@108mph on Wednesday, still leading Daniel Cassar by 0.573sec. It wasn’t quite as close in Pacemaker Radial Aspirated, as Alon Vella closed in on his sixth consecutive Radial Aspirated class win; his 450ci Capri’s 5.53@124mph was 2.42sec ahead of Peter Haravitsidis in second place. The XR6 Turbo Developments Six-cylinder category was still led by George Lyras, with his 5.80@121mph besting Chris Palfreyman’s 6.21@119.

The Tuff Mounts 235 Blown battle for first and second was split by three-tenths of a second after three days’ racing, with Todd Foley’s Tvs-blown VH Commodore heading Dominic Pelle’s turbo LS Sigma, 5.65@123 playing 5.87@124. Should either fail to make it to Portland, Mark Arblaster in his turbo 5.3 LS Valiant and Daniel Barbary’s Chrysler Centura were both waiting to slide past.

Tuff Mounts 235 Aspirated was also tighter than a wire walker’s coit at the end of Day Three, with first and third split by just 0.054sec. Nathan Ghosn ended the day on top of the class with 6.21@111mph, while Aaron James’ Valiant’s 6.29@110mph was slower than Donnie Zurcas’s 6.19@112mph.

Wayne Cartledge’s Cortina let everyone at the track know it was hurt after it holed a piston

ENTRANTS HAD TO FRONT AT THE TRACK AT 8AM ON WEDNESDAY, WITH A MONSTER ROAD LEG LOOMING IN THE AFTERNOON

HARRY HAIG BECAME THE SECOND DRAG CHALLENGE COMPETITOR TO JOIN THE FOUR-SECOND CLUB, WITH A 4.90@151MPH

and smoked out the return road. Wayne was a contender for Spirit of Drag Challenge after he got back to the pits, realised he was done and then gave his transmission to Danny Bresciani, whose R33 Skyline had hurt its gearbox.

Haltech Radial Blown saw numerous low fivesecond ETS, with Kai Mcphee again topping the class with a 5.13@140mph ahead of Daniel Szabolics going 5.17@139mph. Riccardo Pontonio’s new MPW Performance-built turbo LSX VK was next-quickest at 5.24@137mph, with Daniel Drury hot on his heels clocking 5.27@128mph, MPW’S Luke Foley running 5.30@139mph, and Brandon Zito handing in a slip reading 5.31@137mph.

The first four-second pass on an eighth-mile track in DC history was a 4.97 run by Lorenzo Gullotto at Mildura in 2018, and this year Harry Haig became the second member of the Foursecond Club. His 4.90@151mph seemingly came out of the blue, and was the only four run on an eighth-mile at DC ’19. This meant that, leaving Mildura on a 600km south-bound odyssey to Portland’s South Coast Raceway eighth-mile strip, Harry was in the lead of both Outlaw Blown and Overall at Drag Challenge 2019. However, with Pops’s infamous allergy to on-road reliability, the pressure was on.

ABOVE: After a massive Day Two dealing with the effects of a dust storm, the hard-working Mildura track crew were tested again by a massive oil-down Dan Barbary just missed out on a podium spot in 235 Blown, finishing with a 37.219sec combined ET. Dan arrived at DC with his largely self-built Centura ’caged, teched and ticked for single-digit numbers. That was achieved, but the meth-burning turbo Ls-powered ride wasn’t quite as quick as the top three, something Dan will no doubt work on for next year!

John Kerr gave his much-driven Comet a birthday, and it was looking neat. He ran the car sans exhaust at the track, and man, did it sound hot! The Comet went as quick as 10.61 at Calder and finished fifth in Tuff Mounts 235 Aspirated 2 3 1 4

One of the most talked-about cars at DC ’19 would have to be Bruce Christian’s FJ Land Cruiser, powered by a nitrousequipped small-block. Bruce drove it across from South Oz for the start of the event and back again afterwards. The car is wild on the track, but nevertheless, Bruce is thinking blower for 2020! 4

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ABOVE: Our checkpoint for Day Three was the Rosebery Art Silos, featuring the work of artist Kaff-eine. The Day Three route was the most arduous of the event, at around 600km!