WILD AT HEART

IT’S not even January, and already there is a lot going on in the world of Pro Slammer racing. To understand what’s happening, you need to go back to when Doorslammer, or Wild Bunch as it was known, came into existence in 1996. No two cars were the same; there were weekend fun cars, through to gassers and American muscle cars. What they had in common was that they were an armful to drive, a bugger to tune and really relied on driver talent to keep them on the track, off the walls and pointed in a straight line. We all ran the same supercharger, cars weighed a minimum 2700lb and ran the same amount of overdrive – in this case, a maximum of 108 per cent.

What we had was a great mix. The John Zappias of the world were running a 570ci motor and two-speed. Others had a 470ci and four-speed, and in some instances a 514ci with a three-speed. It really was a drivers’ category, where winning depended on tuning and driving talent. The class took off, car counts boomed, and the fans loved the racing. Much of the success can be attributed to the fact there was no need for parity across the category.

Time passed, and with stable rules, Doorslammer grew into one of Australia’s biggest and most popular categories.

There were very few rule changes up until a year or so ago, when they allowed auto-shift into the category. There were a lot of racers who opposed the idea. They believed changing gears manually was essential to maintaining the integrity of Pro Slammer as a drivers’ class. I supported the decision to go autoshift, because when we started using lock-up converters, you needed more gears, and the bigger the drop in revs between gears, the more chance of engine damage. In contrast, a clutch car uses centrifugal weight to load the clutch; when the engine rpm drops on shifts, the clutch load is lessened and slips, which reduces the load on the engine’s bottom end.

The auto-shift option is here to stay. It’s too late to put the genie back in the bottle and go back in time, so let’s move on.

The latest issue facing Pro Slammer is the introduction of highly sophisticated Engine Control Units. This is how they work: instead of having a magneto and a plug lead running from the magneto to the sparkplug, you have a coil and a plug lead to each cylinder. That means you can control not just how much power can be made, but also how quickly the power is produced. That gives the tuner much more control over how the car goes down the track. It’s not traction control – that’s illegal. As someone said, you don’t need to cheat with an ECU; it’ll do it for you.

I reckon drag racing needs to call a moratorium on the use of technology that delivers little benefit but can cost an arm and a leg. Do we need to be spending more and more on items that don’t add value to the category and make the cost of going racing more expensive? I don’t think so.

When you look at Formula One, Aussie Supercars, NASCAR and the NHRA, the focus in 2020 is keeping a lid on costs. Otherwise it can become a race to spend the most money, and that’s only going to drive people out of the sport. On the Australian drag-racing landscape, the signs are there. In 2017, the first round of the season at Sydney Dragway attracted 15 Pro Slammers. In 2018, 14 turned up, and this year there were only nine entries.

The ongoing battle royale between ANDRA and IHRA Australia for sanctioning rights to tracks around the country is really starting to heat up. I could’t help but notice that there was a group of guys from The Bend Motorsport Park at the opening round of the 400 Thunder

THE 2019 NHRA CHAMPIONSHIP WENT DOWN TO THE WIRE, AND IT WAS GOOD TO SEE STEVE TORRENCE AND ROBERT HIGHT TAKE THE TITLES IN TOP FUEL AND FUNNY CAR RESPECTIVELY

meeting at Sydney Dragway. The Bend is about 105km south-east of Adelaide, and they have plans to build a quarter-mile track capable of hosting racing up to Top Fuel. Not sure when construction will start or how it will pan out, but the stakes are high. ANDRA, which has been consulted over the design of the new strip, needs a venue in South Australia to replace Adelaide International Raceway. The 400 Thunder series desperately needs to become more than just a two-track Sydney Dragway/willowbank Raceway series for the Pro classes.

The 2019 NHRA Mello Yello Championship in the USA went down to the wire, and it was good to see the two front-runners all season, Steve Torrence and Robert Hight, take the titles in Top Fuel and Funny Car respectively.

The decision the NHRA made in 2007 to cull the field to the top 10 in the points for the last six rounds of the season, and then award extra bonus points for the final round, really worked in building excitement and drama right up to the very last run of the year. A lot of people prefer the traditional all-rounds-areequal format, but I reckon what the NHRA has put in place works.

There is talk they are going to have a look at making some changes to the eligibility criteria for the top 10 shootout. Making the top 10 is critical in keeping your sponsors happy, because you are in the spotlight for the remainder of the season – miss out and you’re basically just a number making up the field.

There’s also another issue. Take someone like Steve Torrence’s father, Billy. He races 10 of the 18 events in the regular season, makes the cut-off, does well with a couple of wins, and just misses out on winning the championship, finishing fourth. Good luck to him, because that’s the way this system works.

It was a great effort by ‘Aussie’ Dave Grubnic, who tunes Brittany Force’s fuel car and helped her finish third in the championship. ‘Grubby’ is a relative rookie to the caper and is up against guys who’ve been in the game for decades. And well done to Richie Crampton who ended the season in ninth place, and Shane Tucker 13th in Pro Stock. Good to see Aussies flying the flag.

Hard to believe, but here we are about to head into 2020. If you read the column each month, thank you for your support. Be safe and have a great Christmas and New Year. See you in 2020.