The hottest six in the parade, Jason Ghiller’s turbocharged Barra-
powered XD sleeper, ran a tidy 8.973 and then proceeded to
punch well above its weight all week. And speaking of streetability,
Luke Foley’s ever-reliable VH Commo drove up from Geelong
without missing a beat and promptly knocked out an 8.652.
A handful of seven-second cars that had battled to get into
the mid-eights hung back until the 4:00pm cut-off hoping for the
weather to cool. Unfortunately, it didn’t much.
Among the stragglers was Adam Rogash in the ALLSHOW VK,
who was disgusted with his [email protected], which turned out
to be the fastest mile-per-hour pass of any finisher all week. Bubba
Medlyn was quickly discovering that it’s hard to win it when you’re
winging it. He couldn’t get his trick new twin-88 turbo set-up to
come on boost at the startline and was disappointed to be off the
pace with a best effort of 8.84. Harry Haig’s 8.437 was enough
to nab fifth spot, but that was of little consolation as he spent the
night working on the transmission, which had started smoking
soon after leaving Adelaide.
Cooling systems were tested on the drive east to Mildura, and
those without air con had every window unwound as they made
their way roughly 370 kays through the balmy night.DAY ONE: TOP FIVE OUTRIGHT1 MARK DREW, Holden LH Torana 8.262
2 QUENTIN FEAST, Holden LH Torana 8.283
3 JARROD WOOD, Holden HQ one-tonner 8.292
4 ADAM ROGASH, Holden VK Commodore 8.409
5 HARRY HAIG, Holden HQ 8.43701: Gavin Edmonds of Adelaide
Motorsport Fabrication
campaigned the biggest head-
turner of Drag Challenge – a blown
354ci Hemi-powered Mainline
dubbed Krankenstein. The old girl
sees plenty of street miles – it’s
Gav’s one and only car!
02: The first pass of the first day
should be something of a test ’n’
tune exercise for most participants:
Get yourself comfortable under
the harness, make sure there’s no
horrible issues with the engine,
gearbox or diff during the run and
see how the car behaves up top.
Yeah, well, for poor Cory Read, oil
surge in his GM LS-transplanted
XF Falcon killed the engine the first
time it left the line. Bummer
03: Clive Polidano popped his
Drag Challenge cherry with his
sweet blown HZ. Running mid-11s
all week, he and his mates had a
trouble-free event, although they
made friends at every petrol station
due to the small-block’s thirst04: Harry Haig’s Shonky SS HQ
fronted up with a new twin-turbo
540ci big-block set-up and a 7.73
PB. Hot weather held him back
to an 8.4 on Day One, but things
turned sour just 30km from AIR
as the HQ’s transmission spat
the dummy05: The searing temps didn’t do
the Turbo Taxi any favours on Drag
Challenge, but it sure looked cool
in its new livery. The best Scotty
got out of it in Adelaide was a
12.35@112mph. At Swan Hill the
times dropped to 12.12@114mph,
but that was still 30 degrees
Celsius, whereas the Taxi’s
previous best of 12.009 was run at
just 3 degrees air temp05COOLING SYSTEMS WERE TESTED ON THE DRIVE TO MILDURA;
THOSE WITHOUT AIR CON HAD EVERY WINDOW UNWOUND
The hottest six in the parade, Jason Ghiller’s turbocharged Barra-
powered XD sleeper, ran a tidy 8.973 and then proceeded to
punch well above its weight all week. And speaking of streetability,
Luke Foley’s ever-reliable VH Commo drove up from Geelong
without missing a beat andpromptly knocked out an 8.652.
A handful of seven-second cars that had battled to get into
the mid-eights hung back until the 4:00pm cut-off hoping for the
weather to cool. Unfortunately, it didn’t much.
Among the stragglers was Adam Rogash in the ALLSHOW VK,
who was disgusted with his [email protected], which turned out
to be the fastest mile-per-hour pass of any finisher all week. Bubba
Medlyn was quickly discovering that it’s hard to win it when you’re
winging it. He couldn’t get his trick new twin-88 turbo set-up to
come on boost at the startline and was disappointed to be off the
pace with a best effort of 8.84. Harry Haig’s 8.437 was enough
to nab fifth spot, but that was of little consolation as he spent the
night working on the transmission, which had started smoking
soon after leaving Adelaide.
Cooling systems were tested on the drive east to Mildura, and
those without air con had every window unwound as they made
their way roughly 370 kays through the balmy night.DAY ONE: TOP FIVE OUTRIGHT1 MARK DREW, Holden LH Torana8.26 2
2 QUENTIN FEAST, Holden LH Torana8.28 3
3 JARROD WOOD, Holden HQ one-tonner 8 .2 92
4 ADAM ROGASH, Holden VK Commodore8.4 09
5 HARRY HAIG,Holden HQQ 8 .4 3701 : Gavin Edmonds of Adelaide
Motorsport Fabrication
campaigned the biggest head-
turner of Drag Challenge – a blown
354ci Hemi-powered Mainline
dubbed Krankenstein. The old girl
sees plenty of street miles – it’s
Gav’s one and only car!
02 : The first pass of the first day
should be something of a test ’n’
tune exercise for most participants:
Get yourself comfortable under
the harness, make sure there’s no
horrible issues with the engine,
gearbox or diff during the run and
see how the car behaves up top.
Yeah, well, for poor Cory Read, oil
surge in his GM LS-transplanted
XF Falcon killed the engine the first
time it left the line. Bummer
03 :Clive Polidano popped his
Drag Challenge cherry with his
sweet blown HZ. Running mid-11s
all week, he and his mates had a
trouble-free event, although they
made friends at every petrol station
due to the small-block’s thirst0 4:Harry Haig’s Shonky SS HQ
fronted up with a new twin-turbo
540ci big-block set-up and a 7.73
PB. Hot weather held him back
to an 8.4 on Day One, but things
turned sour just 30km from AIR
as the HQ’s transmission spat
the dummy05:The searing temps didn’t do
the Turbo Taxi any favours on Drag
Challenge, but it sure looked cool
in its new livery. The best Scotty
got out of it in Adelaide was a
12.35@112mph. At Swan Hill the
times dropped to 12.12@114mph,
but that was still 30 degrees
Celsius, whereas the Taxi’s
previous best of 12.009 was run at
just 3 degrees air temp05COOLING SYSTEMS WERE TESTED ON THE DRIVE TO MILDURAAAA;;;;;;;;
THOSE WITHOUT AIR CON HAD EVERY WINDOW UNWOUND