GAVIN EDMONDS
“If you think you’ve got a quick car and you’re
looking to enter, then put some miles on the
car, fully loaded, and in the crappiest weather
you can get,” Gav advises. “The average time
spent racing for the week can be measured in
minutes, but you’re on the road for days, on
shit roads – just count on it. So, shake it down
and then shake it down again”GAVIN Edmonds’s period-correct ’58 Ford Mainline pick-up
was the only gasser, and arguably the coolest contender,
in this year’s Street Machine Drag Challenge. The car’s
Krankenstein moniker stems from its mix of parts: a drool-
worthy Hampton 6/71 Roots-blown ’56 354ci Chrysler
Hemi, backed by GM’s TH400 with a polite 2500rpm stall,
while up the back is the go-to Ford nine-inch full-floater with
4.3:1 gears.
“On Day Five I ran a PB of 11.91 seconds [in the K&N Dial
Your Own class]; I was so excited to finish that I handed in my
slip without checking the mph,” Gav laughs (it was 111mph).
“And that was all with me tuning it, so there is more in it if I
use someone who knows what they are doing!”
Yet you’d say that Gav does actually know what he’s doing,
as he’s one half of Adelaide Motorsport Fabrication. He and
crew-mate Alex were most definitely tested with a fair share
of issues along the way, though.
“It was hot and loud with the blower spinning at 3000rpm for
hours on end,” Gav says. “In retrospect I should have changed
the diff ratio to 3.5s.
“We had the water pump die about five kays after leaving
AIR; it was an old, second-hand pump and I thought we were
out of the Challenge. I rang Outlaw Speed Shop who had only
one short-snout big-block Chev pump in stock, so my wife Nat
sorted me out and we did a roadside repair.
“Next, on the way to the Swan Hill track, the alternator
decided to stop working. I was able to do a pass on the
battery, then I got hold of an auto-elec who had an alternator
on the shelf. Within two hours we had it installed and hit
the road to Portland. That’s when the crazy storm hit and I
remembered that the wipers hadn’t been used for three years;
they fell off on the way. Thank god for Rain-X!”
Gav and Alex faced each hurdle with aplomb, never letting
it dampen their spirits. “We were stoked to be part of Drag
Challenge. It’s a great event, well organised and an awesome
challenge,” Gav says. “Big thanks to everyone who organised
it, the track staff and safety people, my spanner man Alex who
was awesome on the road, and Nat who is always a huge help
and sorted us out on many occasions.”
So, will we see Gav at DC18? “For sure! We spent the
hours on the road during DC17 planning and thinking about
what to build for ’18. We’re thinking fairly seriously about
building a hot rod – something small, fast and like they used
to race back in the 60s.”“Ifyou think you’ve got a quick car and you’re
looking to enter, then put some miles on the
car, fully loaded, and in the crappiest weather
you can get,” Gav advises. “The average time
spent racing for the week can be measured in
minutes, but you’re on the road for days, on
shit roads –just count on it. So, shake it down
and then shake it down again”GAVIN Edmonds’s period-correct ’58 Ford Mainline pick-up
was the only gasser, and arguably the coolest contender,
in this year’s Street MachineeDrag Challenge. The car’s
Krankenstein moniker stems from its mix of parts: a drool-
worthy Hampton 6/71 Roots-blown ’56 354ci Chrysler
Hemi, backed by GM’s TH400 with a polite 2500rpm stall,
while up the back is the go-to Ford nine-inch full-floater with
4.3:1 gears.
“On Day Five I ran a PB of 11.91 seconds [in the K&N Dial
Your Own class]; I was so excited to finish that I handed in my
slip without checking the mph,” Gav laughs (it was 111mph).
“And that was all with me tuning it, so there is more in it if I
use someone who knows what they are doing!”
Yet you’d say that Gav does actually know what he’s doing,
as he’s one half of Adelaide Motorsport Fabrication. He and
crew-mate Alex were most definitely tested with a fair share
of issues along the way, though.
“It was hot and loud with the blower spinning at 3000rpm for
hours on end,” Gav says. “In retrospect I should have changed
the diff ratio to 3.5s.
“We had the water pump die about five kays after leaving
AIR; it was an old, second-hand pump and I thought we were
out of the Challenge. I rang Outlaw Speed Shop who had only
one short-snout big-block Chev pump in stock, so my wife Nat
sorted me out and we did a roadside repair.
“Next, on the way to the Swan Hill track, the alternator
decided to stop working. I was able to do a pass on the
battery, then I got hold of an auto-elec who had an alternator
on the shelf. Within two hours we had it installed and hit
the road to Portland. That’s when the crazy storm hit and I
remembered that the wipers hadn’t been used for three years;
they fell off on the way. Thank god for Rain-X!”
Gav and Alex faced each hurdle with aplomb, never letting
it dampen their spirits. “We were stoked to be part of Drag
Challenge. It’s a great event, well organised and an awesome
challenge,” Gav says. “Big thanks to everyone who organised
it, the track staff and safetypeople, my spanner man Alex who
was awesome on the road, and Nat who is always a huge help
and sorted us out on many occasions.”
So, will we see Gav at DC18? “For sure! We spent the
hours on the road during DC17 planning and thinking about
what to build for ’18. We’re thinking fairly seriously about
building a hot rod – something small, fast and like they used
to race back in the 60s.”