‘Men don’t grow up, their toys get more expensive’
DURBAN drag racer Logan Chetty is a living testament of the adage that “men do not grow up, their toys just get more expensive”.
Having owned more than 20 vehicles, mainly Fords from the “golden era” including a Mark 1 Escort, Mark 2 Escort 1600 Sport and a Datsun GX named Axle, Chetty has earned a reputation on the track for his bespoke builds and seriously quick times.
Chetty, 44, of Glenashley, owns and runs a telecommunications business from his workshop in Durban North, a place that also houses his “toys”.
Currently in his garage is a blue Chevrolet Apache with a V8 engine and his two dragsters, a Ford Escort Mk1 and a Toyota Corolla box shape with a 2JZ turbo conversion, which he traded with Johan Bothma for his Datsun GX.
He also owns a host of other “project” cars and “daily drivers”, including a turbo swop Toyota Hilux bakkie.
But his love for cars extends more to the track, where he is now chasing a time of 9 seconds flat in his orange Escort.
Starting out in a front-wheel-drive Volkswagen Golf Mk1, like many others from his generation and the present cohort of racers, Chetty decided to make the shift to rear-wheel powered cars as they offer more potential.
“I started with a Golf 1 but did not do too well. I moved to a VR6 engine in the golf and then I tried a Caddy (VW).
“Eventually, once I jumped into an Escort, I could not go back. There is a big difference between a front-wheel-drive and rear-wheel-drive car. The launch, the acceleration. It is a big difference and once I got a hang of that, I couldn’t go back,” Chetty said.
But designing a car built in the early 1970s to go down a 400m stretch in less than 10 seconds is no easy feat, which prompted Chetty to contact a legendary car-builder from Shallcross – Yogan Naicker of Yogan’s Trix.
Yogan and his son Sugan Naicker are responsible for building some of the fastest 4-cylinder engines on the South African race scene, including the Mazda FE2 Engine, which powers Chetty’s orange Escort.
They do all this in their backyard in Shallcross.
“I was racing the Golf 1 at the Mtubatuba drags and I remember spending the entire day changing the CV joints and shafts because we broke about five sets. I came back and sat in my office and I remember looking through a Gas magazine and Kovilan’s Escort was on the cover.
“There was no number for Yogan’s Trix but it was on the sticker of the car. So I tried to decipher the numbers and got hold of Yogan and told him I wanted to build a car. First he said no and that he had retired. But after a few days he got back to me and said he would look at the car, and that’s how we started,” Chetty explained.
“It took about a year to build but every time it has been out it has achieved more. The first time out, it ran in the 11s. Second time out it was low 11s, and by the third event it was in the 10s.”
Naicker said that they first met Chetty about eight years ago, and had asked him to build a drag Escort.
“My dad met with Logan and had a look at the car. He said if he was keen to move forward, he should buy the engine and send it to our house.
“My dad did that just to see if he was really interested or not. The next day, at around 10am, the engine was delivered to our house and then my father knew Logan was serious about building the car.
Naicker said: “It took us about a year and a half to build from scratch. The third event at which he had entered the car, we ran it at a 2 bar boost and he did a 10.6-second quarter mile.
“But from there, he just progressed and got faster.”
Harry Naidoo, administrator of the KwaZulu-Natal drag racing scene and owner of Gas magazine, said he first met Chetty 15 years ago.
“He was a VW Golf guy at the time I met him but then he switched to his baby, which is the Escort he drives now. I don’t think he’ll ever part ways with it.
But entering a single-digit time on the quarter mile is an excessively costly affair, which Chetty attests to.
The parts that go into a car are not only bought, but built and fabricated to suit the specific car and its specific needs.