01: Proving that the AU
FFalcon is capable of
incredible things, Simon
Iseppi stuffed his full of
twin-turbo LS power and
proceeded to gobsmack
everyone by romping
into the 300 Club with a
best run of 314.07km/h.
Under the plain-Jane skin
there’s a fair bit going
on, with an intercooler
mounted behind the
dash and the intake
manifold flipped around
so the throttlebody is at
the rear02: Scott Ausustten’s ’75
F100 was probably
the least aerodynamic
vehicle out there, but
thanks to 800hp of
turbocharged Barra
goodness he managed
to push it to a best of
232 .12km/h. In fact, the
engine makes so much
torque that it managed to
twist the pinion clean out
of the diff on Saturday
after just three runs,
ccausing the tailshaft to
ssmash through the floor..MMatt from Dark Horse
MMotorsports worked
his arse off to get the
truck ready for Sunday.
Thankfully everything
hung together out back
and they managed to get
another nine passes in03: If there’s a Rambler
at an event, you can
bet I’ll find it. Shayne
Couch rocked up in his
’70 Hornet with blown,
methanol SBC power
and ran 245.21km/h.
Who knowshohow fast it
could have ggoone with a
Rambler mototor!04: Justin Zrinski
brought along his ’48
Chev pick-up. With a
BBC, MSD Atomic EFI
and a nitrous bottle in
the back, he was mainly
there for a bit of fun over
the 40 0m and the Cash
Days flashlight drags.
Normally he’s piloting
stupidly powerful
Subarus that feature
atathe top end of the
leleaderboard01
TWIN-TURBO LS AU
Simon Iseppi
314.07km/hand see how fast a 60s or 70s brick can
actually go.
While the preferred weapon of choice still
appears to an R30-something Skyline, it was
turbocharged LS power that dominated the
leaderboard at this year’s event, with six
of the 11 cars topping 300km/h using the
boosted V8 combo. The best on the day was
Eddy Tassone in his VZ GTO, an absolute
weapon of a machine that really is more at
home on the quarter-mile. His 334.93km/h
run was almost 10km/h faster than last
year’s winner.
Peter Gray’s R33 Skyline is still a force to be
reckoned with, finishing second but almost
10km/h slower than Tassone. Interestingly,
his speed would have also earned him
second place last year – by just 0.03km/h.
Jose Jardim came oh-so-close to cracking
the 200mph barrier with his Supra – he likes
old-school stuff too – clocking 321.20km/h,
just 0.4mph off the mark. After an excursion
into the dirt on his first run, he did well
to gather up the car and himself to finish
third overall.
It was also fantastic to see regular
Racewars competitors Adam Monck and
Royce Hall join the 300 Club after many
years of trying. Adam has to be commended
for taking a car that was designed to
go sideways around a race track and
manhandling it to behave itself in a straight
line at over 300km/h. Royce’s achievement
is that he’s taken his regular road car, a four-
door 1989 Skyline, and developed it from
over 260km/h at the inaugural Racewars
event to a machine capable of over 300km/h
using an H-pattern gearbox.
But spare a thought for Jacob Copeman-
Mitchell, whose FG XR6 reeled off a mightily
impressive 299.30km/h, just missing out on
300 Club membership. Keep in mind there
was a 30km/h headwind on the day, so the
car is clearly capable of cracking that magic
number. The FG had a 930hp tune courtesy
of Monsta Torque; maybe they’ll turn up the
wick even more next year to make sure the
job gets done.
Racewars 2018 was another very
successful event, and is becoming a
highlight on the calendar for top-speed
racers – not just locally but nationwide. As
I write this, we’re barely two weeks out of
the event and people are already talking
about improvements and upgrades for next
year. Will we see the Aussie record tumble
in 2019? I hope so, especially if we can get
that wind to die down a touch! s