From Summernats 20 and 21 Top 60 Elite to
Street Machine Drag Challenge contender- definitely not the usual life of a classic
Sandman pano!
SHANE DALE
ENTERING a large, orange brick into Street Machine
Drag Challenge may not be the best idea – there’s no
aerodynamics. But this 1977 HZ Sandman pano is the fastest
car South Australian Shane Dale and his wife Carly own, and
has done the eighth-mile dozens of times, so they thought: ‘Why
the heck not?’
“I built the Sandman – yes, it’s genuine; no, it’s not stock –
as a show car, then a street-legal street ’n’ strip car,” Shane
explains. “Thing is, we hadn’t really driven long-distance in it until
Drag Challenge.”
Under the steel reverse-cowl hood is a ZZ502ci big-block
Chev backed by a TH400 and 3000 Dominator stall, with a
nodular nine-inch packed with 3.55s. “It’s all fairly old-school;
only the fuel pump and thermos are electric,” Shane says. “No
data logger, nothing fancy or that’s helpful whatsoever!”
Shane’s main goal was simply to complete the event.
“If we could get it to each track then I’d do my best in K&N Dial
Your Own, but the highway drive was always on my mind,” he
says. “We had ignition issues the entire time, so we knew each
drive would be slow and there’d be roadside stops. Knowing
this, I only did one run at Swan Hill, recording my worst time of
12.437 seconds, 0.133 off my PB and dial-in of 12.304.
“Even throwing away Swan Hill, I came 13th in the class,
which I’m pretty happy about. I know that I was definitely the
fastest orange panel van out there,” he laughs. Shane works for
himself at Deluxe Metal Shaping Co., so had to prep the pano
late at night and didn’t have a lot of money to throw at it. “We
did basic things, like using massive 28.75-inch tyres – that
we already owned – to get the revs down on the highway,” he
explains. “We sat on 2100rpm at 90km/h most of the way, but
it was only 2600rpm at 110km/h. Even so, we still had 10 fuel
stops using $770 of PULP.
“As for the weather, the 502ci ran cool, but the heat fried the
coil and boiled the fuel and maybe the trans. We don’t know
really; the pano only has the original GTS gauges keeping an
eye on things.”
That’s something that had Shane and Carly worried as they
rolled into Adelaide on Thursday. “We were cruising in peak-
hour traffic when suddenly I only had first gear,” Shane says, “I
definitely thought we were out of DC, but once I got underneath
I found it was only a vacuum hose that’d split and fallen off.”
With the event done and dusted, now it’s time to fix the broken
bits and dream about the future. “I’d love to compete again
and try for a DYO placing,” Shane says. “I reckon I can get
close to 11s just doing a few basic things, like a shifter. I’m still
running a stock shifter, which is not something you really want
to manually shift with. I’ll see what I can do about cooling the
fuel system, and maybe swap out my vac-sec carb to a Holley
HP 850DP. Also, something fancy like gauges that show the
actual temperature would be good!”FroFroFromSm Sm Summummummernernernatsatsats 202020 ananand2d 2d 2d 22 1T1 T 1 1T1 TTopopop op 606060 60 6 ElEliElilte te eto to o
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Sandman panoo!ENTERING a large, orange brick into Street Machine
Drag Challenge may not be the best idea – there’s no
aerodynamics. But this 1977 HZ Sandman pano is the fastest
car South Australian Shane Dale and his wife Carly own, and
has done the eighth-mile dozens of times, so they thought: ‘Why
the heck not?’
“I built the Sandman – yes, it’s genuine; no, it’s not stock –
as a show car, then a street-legal street ’n’ strip car,” Shane
explains. “Thing is, we hadn’t really driven long-distance in it until
Drag Challenge.”
Under the steel reverse-cowl hood is a ZZ502ci big-block
Chev backed by a TH400 and 3000 Dominator stall, with a
nodular nine-inch packed with 3.55s. “It’s all fairly old-school;
only the fuel pump and thermos are electric,” Shane says. “No
data logger, nothing fancy or that’s helpful whatsoever!”
Shane’s main goal was simply to complete the event.
“If we could get it to each track then I’d do my best in K&N Dial
Your Own, but the highway drive was always on my mind,” he
says. “We had ignition issues the entire time, so we knew each
drive would be slow and there’d be roadside stops. Knowing
this, I only did one run at Swan Hill, recording my worst time of
1 2.437 seconds, 0.133 off my PB and dial-in of 12.304.
“Even throwing away Swan Hill, I came 13th in the class,
which I’m pretty happy about. I know that I was definitely the
fastest orange panel van out there,” he laughs. Shane works for
himself at Deluxe Metal Shaping Co., so had to prep the pano
late at night and didn’t have a lot of money to throw at it. “We
did basic things, like using massive 28.75-inch tyres – that
we already owned – to get the revs down on the highway,” he
explains. “We sat on 2100rpm at 90km/h most of the way, but
it was only 2600rpm at 110km/h. Even so, we still had 10 fuel
stops using $770 of PULP.
“As for the weather, the 502ci ran cool, but the heat fried the
coil and boiled the fuel and maybe the trans. We don’t know
really; the pano only has the original GTS gauges keeping an
eye on things.”
That’s something that had Shane and Carly worried as they
rolled into Adelaide on Thursday. “We were cruising in peak-
hour traffic when suddenly I only had first gear,” Shane says, “I
definitely thought we were out of DC, but once I got underneath
I found it was only a vacuum hose that’d split and fallen off.”
With the event done and dusted, now it’s time to fix the broken
bits and dream about the future. “I’d love to compete again
and try for a DYO placing,” Shane says. “I reckon I can get
close to 11s just doing a few basic things, like a shifter. I’m still
running a stock shifter, which is not something you really want
to manually shift with. I’ll see what I can do about cooling the
fuel system, and maybe swap out my vac-sec carb to a Holley
HP 850DP. Also, something fancy like gauges that show the
actual temperature would be good!”