Table of contents for No 194 July 2021 in NZV8

Two of the biggest names in street car racing in the USA have shown that even the best have to fall sometimes. First it was 2019 Hot Rod Drag Week winner Tom Bailey, who was caught in a nasty fire while making passes at the 2021 NHRA Gatornationals. Severe tyre shake during his first pass caused damage to many components and is believed also to have damaged the injector O-ring, which leaked methanol. This caused a lean condition and the resulting backfire ignited the raw spilt methanol. Tom escaped unharmed and the Sick Seconds 2.0 Camaro is well on the road to being rebuilt. Although it did suffer significant damage to the front end and underneath, it could have been much, much worse. Something similar happened to fellow racer Jeff…

There is nothing in racing simpler or harder than driving a sprint car. They are motorsport’s best-kept secret, with power-to-weight ratios on dirt that only Formula 1 achieves on black top. The noise, smell, and clay dust linger in the air while the sound of pure Americana reverberates through the stands. Sprint cars are the wicked stepsisters of Indy cars, and the drivers are modern-day cowboys who strap themselves into these bucking broncos in search of their next adrenaline rush. Split-second decisions, blind faith, and pure instinct are what pilots these cars around dirt ovals, and if you think for a second you won’t be left speechless on race night in the stands then you are sorely mistaken. History This dusty magnificent insanity comes from a tangled, crazy family tree…

Shane Ryland’s Torana sedan shot to fame a few years back when it made leaps and bounds towards the pointy end of the Quickest Streeters list. Sadly though, the horsepower that propelled the car to a best set of 8.77 seconds at 157.69mph was a bit too much for the car’s tired chassis, and it ended up bouncing off Meremere Dragway’s unforgiving walls in 2017. The major damage sustained was a timely reminder that playing at this level is serious stuff and really requires the right gear. To that end, Shane hit up fellow Bay of Plenty resident and talented fabricator Jason Sellars from JSE Custom Fabrication to help get the car back on track, a move that has resulted in a much more advanced car than Shane ever anticipated.…

After our success at the first post-Covid race at Sydney Dragway it was time to service the cars again and get them ready for our next race, which was to be in Darwin. We had a couple of months in which to turn the cars around and make sure everything would be in tip-top shape for this event so we had a couple of weeks up our sleeves. Well, as anyone who has followed this column will know, giving ourselves plenty of time is really not our style, so three weeks after the event we decided it was time to take One Bad Kiwi and King Kong out for some more testing. Both cars had set event records and run 5.37s at 445 and 435kph respectively, so we wanted to…

It’s amazing what can manifest from humble beginnings as long as the recipe is right. We were there four years ago when six pre-’78 vehicles turned up for a few laps of the paddock course set out at Ben and Jamie Winter’s Sefton farm in North-Canterbury. This year, the fourth running of the event played host to 66 vehicles camping on-site, and the car-park show that happens by default. ONE COULD ONLY LOOK ON THE BRIGHT SIDE — AT LEAST THE EVENT WAS LIVING UP TO ITS NAME The day is all about getting together and chilling, as much as it is about the actual paddock racing that takes place. The gates swung open at 8am for a relaxed morning set-up and racing got under way mid-morning. With North Canterbury…

If you follow any form of professional motor racing, you will most likely have heard the term ‘dogengagement gearbox’, which refers to how the gears inside the gearbox are selected by the driver. When we change gears, the relative speed of the shafts inside the gearbox must be matched to allow the selector to engage the next gear. In a road car gearbox, this is done via a synchromesh system that relies on friction of a synchro ring to match the shaft speeds to allow the next gear to engage. The synchromesh gearbox is smooth, easy to drive and quiet, which makes it ideal for road cars, but in motorsport use, the shift speed is slow (forcing shifts quickly results in worn synchros), and synchromesh boxes don’t work well at…

WE WERE SURPRISED AND SHOCKED AT SOME OF THE POWER SKIDS One of the biggest events of the year for Holden, Ford, and Chrysler is Choice Events and Promotions’ Aussie Assault. Bruce McLaren Motorsport Park is the stomping ground for this event, which works well for the high-horsepower cars that come out to run the straights as fast as they can. Going back to 2018 when the first event took place (Round One), Choice made a mistake in hosting the event on the weekend of Bathurst! For the diehards of Aussie muscle cars, Bathurst is a religious day for the gods of speed, so this resulted in a smallish turnout of only 50 cars. To see this year (Round Four) having one of the event’s biggest turnouts, at 230 cars,…

Let’s face it, we are in unprecedented times; these boarder closures are something that no one has experienced before. Until the summer of ’19–’20 rolled around, the fact that we could board a plane to basically any destination we dreamed of on this earth was something most of us took for granted. Now? No trips to the SEMA Show, no project hunting in the backblocks of Arizona, no Chili Bowl, Nascar, Indy, NHRA drag racing, or even Goodwood or Le Mans. This damn pandemic really has curbed our automotive wanderlust with great success. As of May, however, there is a little glimmer of hope, with our borders open to our neighbouring Anzacs without quarantine. Australia has a lot of events going on that would surely satisfy your wants and needs…

17–22 October Five days of racing at five tracks make up the 2021 running of the Street Machine Drag Challenge. Started in 2014, the event mimics the infamous American variant, where the car you race must also get you from track to track, while also carrying everything you need, including any pit crew. Over the week, the teams will travel more than 1500km inside Victoria. As a spectator sport, it would be for very hardcore drag racing fans only, as there is not a lot of fluff for spectators; however, with just shy of 300 entrants — it sold out in hours — if you really love drag racing then the drama of an event like this would be pure cocaine, and we probably don’t need to try sell its…

If you’ve added boost to your build, there might be a thief amongst your charge pipes. This often silent thief has been robbing many since the first turbocharged car came off the production line. Perhaps you just completed a turbo conversion, or added a boost controller. This very quick diagnostic method is simple, foolproof, cheap as chips, and nine times out of ten the fix is as simple as tightening up a rogue hose clamp. If your car is leaking boost, then your turbo will be working overtime attempting to compensate for that loss of pressure. If your car has an airflow meter it will have accounted for that air coming in, causing an over-fueling issue or if it’s map-based engine management then both the injector cycle and timing will…

Last time we checked in with Whangarei’s Jon Christensen, he was busy airbagging a very clean ’57 Chev Bel Air. No sooner had he finished that build than offers came rolling in to buy it — one proving too good to turn down. Wasting no time, Jon was on to the next build. “The ’66 Caddy is quite uncommon and a very cool shape,” he says. “I like the idea of having an American slab that lays frame.” Purchased locally in factory condition, the ’66 was dropped to the team at Mikes Engines in Whangarei, which would also be handling the chassis work, while Jon airfreighted in parts at a rapid rate. An airbag kit from BC Fab was used as the basis, but, with the goal of laying the…

Coming in 2022, the next generation of the Ford F-150 Lightning is set to turn the category on its head, with its first all-electric offering. Before you scoff about it being EV, these stats should impress: 0–100km in the mid four-second range, a payload of 2000 pounds (907kg) and up to 10,000 pounds (4536kg) of available towing capacity. It’s powerful, too, with a massive 775 lb·ft. of torque and 563hp. This is delivered by dual inboard motors and with 4x4 as standard, with Normal, Sport, Off-Road, and Tow/Haul drive modes. Being eclectic, the Lightning F-150 also offers something you’d expect to see in a rear or mid-engined machine: a front trunk, or, as Ford calls it, a Frunk. This water-resistant storage locker has a 400-litre capacity, so it’s roomy enough…

Scott McLaughlin has joined the greats of New Zealand motorsport, being inducted into the MotorSport Wall of Fame during the annual MotorSport New Zealand Awards evening, held in Christchurch. The wall was started in 1994 and features such illustrious names as Bruce McLaren, Ron Roycroft, Denny Hulme, the Millen brothers, George Begg, and McLaughlin’s fellow Indy car driver Scott Dixon, to name a few. McLaughlin was one of two inductees for 2021, the three-time Supercars champion joining Tasman Motorsports’ Steve Horne on the inductee roll. Scott is currently in the USA taking on his latest challenge — being a full-time driver in an Indy car — so was unable to attend the awards ceremony. The president of MotorSport New Zealand had this to say: “New Zealand is truly blessed with…

RIDING RIGHT Digital air-suspension management gives your air-spring-equipped vehicle a consistent and reliable ride and ride height every time you turn the key. Ridetech’s RidePro E5 uses a combination of pressure and height sensors and sophisticated algorithms to maintain your desired preselected height, whether you’re driving alone or your vehicle is packed with friends. Adjusting the vehicle’s ride height is as simple as selecting one of three presets via either the app on your smartphone or the full-colour TFT LCD 3.5-inch touchscreen controller. The R5 kit comes complete with a prewired electronic control unit (ECU), air tank, valve block, dual Ridetech compressors, and airline. Available from New Zealand’s official Ridetech dealer, Kruzin Kustoms Rod & Kustom Shop, 39 Kelvin Grove Road, Palmerston North. Call 0800 4KUSTOMS / 06 357 5017…

Tony Witinitara clearly has the bug … bad! It was only a couple of years ago that we featured his tough-as-nails HZ Premier at the time when it was running a 540-cube big block and F2 ProCharger. That combo saw the car into the high eights — 8.87 to be exact — street legal, just as he said it would. Throughout the time he’s been working on the Prem, he’s also been building equally potent cars for customers through his business Premier Workshop, which has not only seen his own knowledge increase but also his connections. One of the connections is legendary American engine builder/tuner Steve Morris. So, it should come as no surprise that there has been plenty of discussion with Steve about making the Prem even quicker. That…

The 1960s were a special time for the sport of drag racing — considered by many to be the golden era, a time of wild experimentation. Thanks to homologation rules in the likes of Super Stock, cars still resembled those in the showroom, and plenty of factory cash was being splashed around in the pits. All the big manufacturers in the USA had their hands in the pockets of race teams, and the old adage of ‘win on Sunday, sell on Monday’ was alive and kicking. It’s that era of Super Stock racing, in particular, the marketing manager at Pontiac, Jim Wagner, that inspired Cantabrian Ian Paki to spend countless late nights and even longer weekends working away in the shed on a shell he would describe as an impulse…

Bradley’s car resume reads as follows: R32 Nissan Skyline, WRX STI Subaru Impreza, and “numerous Jappas” — fairly typical for a red-blooded New Zealand male in his mid 20s. While there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that, there was one glaringly obvious thing of note: all these cars were a few cylinders short for what would normally grace these pages. Deep down, Bradley says he’s always had a burning desire to remedy that and own something with eight cylinders and a lot less Land of the Rising Sun. He’s had a bit of a soft spot for HQ Holdens for some time, and it just so happened that one of his mates had one sitting in the corner of his shed for years — that was, until Bradley decided he just…

As we roll into part three of our Junior Slammer build, we’d planned to be a lot further ahead than we found ourselves. However, a severe case of the blues is hampering progress. In this case unfortunately that does not mean we have a lick of the Century Batteries Blue Hue on the car, but more battling minor setbacks in construction and supply of key parts, i.e, the body and then sourcing the steel for the chassis! However, we are still moving after being let down by two suppliers. Luckily Anderson Engineering Ltd is owned and operated by fellow drag racer Doron Anderson Vazey, and we are more than confident that he will come through for us at crunch time to keep things ticking along on one of the coolest…

3 JULY Although the racing might be on hold here, it never really stops in Australia. While the biggest event of the year, Winternationals, has just played out, the next biggest event on the calendar is Grudgekings, also at Sydney Dragway, which has just been resurfaced. The biggest classes on show would be the 16-car field of Pro Mods and the 16-car field of Pro Elites. Then there’s the extremely competitive Radial, Pro Street, and Outlaw classes. This event has the biggest pot of any in Australia, with upwards of a $4K payout, so a ton of big-hitters come out to play. The team behind the event also host a large outdoor car show and bikini comp. What we love about this format is the line-ups in the Pro Mod…

12–14 November Traditional hot rods and customs, choppers, bobbers, punk, and rock ’n’ roll. Chopped is one of those festivals that love things to be the way they were, way back when. Now over a decade old, it has grown and grown from some very humble beginnings, and is now attended by Aussies from all corners of the dust, as well as many internationals. After a few years off, it returned in 2019 with a revamped format that included a paved drag strip replacing the old mud drags. At only 80m long, it’s no full strip, but long enough for great displays of vintage power — although it’s rumoured that both styles of track will be running this time around, due to the popularity of the dirt drags. As much…

6–9 January 2022 First held in the ’87, this is more than an event; Summernats is a mecca for those petrolheads dubbed ‘bogans’ by the ill-informed. It is a dystopian society ruled by car nuts, where burnt rubber is the only facial a girl can get and the burnout pad devotees have reclassified the meaning of the singular index finger salute — and hundreds can be seen throwing it up as a sign of approval for competitors. This four-day festival is held at Epic, a 70ha showgrounds in the heart of Canberra. The event is not too dissimilar to Muscle Car Madness, but on steroids. We’re talking 2000-odd entrants. Burnout Masters is a huge drawcard, and a must with a bourbon-flavoured slushy in hand. The finals on Sunday afternoon are…

Canterbury-based Jason Paterson is currently amid the final assembly of one ridiculously clean BT1 Commodore build. Three years ago, the Commodore had a small amount of rust in the parcel tray, which Jason sent to be repaired. That soon snowballed to a complete bare-metal restoration, with Aaron from Custom Panel and Paint spearheading that work. With the engine also coming out for the freshen-up, the opportunity to clean the engine bay up saw almost all holes shaved and smoothed before a matching coat of BT1 yellow was laid down, which was also extended to the inside. The underside received a new coat of underseal, and new sound deadening supplied by Gaz from Wurth was installed throughout. Once the Commodore is closer to completion, the full black custom OEM-styled interior from…

Corey from Christchurch seems to have a knack for scouring junkyards, swap meets, and unearthing stashes of parts needed to create rats, with no end of projects rolling out of his shed. His current focus, a ’22 Dodge — well half of it — is from a Dodge coupe that had its rear cut off long before Corey acquired it from his father-in-law. Corey has since crafted new rear sheet metal to resemble that of a ’30s Ford, using old Morris Minor guards. There is still the louvred boot to complete, along with the rear window sheet metal and the roof, which will be wood slat with a removable canvas cover over the top. The chassis is crafted from the rear of a Dodge chassis flipped to face forwards, with…

By now you’ll all be well aware that Repco Muscle Garage has returned to Three’s CRC Motorsport on Sundays, but what you might not know is that we upload all the episodes to YouTube so you can stream them any time, any where. In fact, you’ll also find all previous seven seasons up there! Each episode is uploaded the Monday following its television airing. Just search the show’s name, or subscribe to The Motorhood’s YouTube channel, to have it appear in your feed. Thanks once again to our partners Repco, Mount Shop, and Smits Group, who make the filming of the show possible.…

The Clean Car Standard 2025 is currently under development from the government, and there is plenty of chatter about what this means for us as enthusiasts. We published an outline on the situation last issue, and the key takeaway from that is that it’s not an outright ban on older cars that is being sought; SH it’s just about applying a fee to those vehicles that are heavy emitters. Since then, four key enthusiast groups, representing 150,000 members — being the NZ Federation of Motoring Clubs, the Vintage Car Club of New Zealand, the New Zealand Hot Rod Association, and the LVVTA, which organised the meeting — have met and created a joint submission that was presented to the Ministry of Transport on 26 March. The submission outlines some clear…

Owning his first Torana at age 16, it should have been a given that Andrew Duncan would end up owning more than just one. Adding to the high likelihood of his passion are the facts that he was born and raised in Gore, where owning tough cars is a rite of passage, and his older brother was always building, modifying, and messing with tough cars and hot rods. As life moved on, he ended up moving away from Gore and away from the old car scene, but memories of that first 173-powered LJ have stuck with him the entire time. Finally, when he was living in a new house with a shed big enough to tinker in, he decided that the time was right. Plenty of peer pressure from workmates…

So, I’ve had my first season of circuit racing with my big-boy trousers on. Did I love it? I’m not sure yet. There’s no doubt that finally getting to race a V8 muscle car was a huge thrill. And it was embarrassing. It was bloody difficult. I won a couple of races. I crashed it. The car was super reliable. I blew the gearbox to bits. I know that hardly paints a clear picture. I guess an end of term report would say, “Tried hard; a reasonable effort; could do better next year.” The good news is that the Commodore’s still in one piece — although it wasn’t at the start of the season — and I haven’t given up or gone broke just yet, so I guess that’s a…

A car that had acquired a myth-like reputation over the years has recently emerged and shown it does indeed live up to the hype surrounding it. Tony Bennis’s Chev Nova has been in the build for much longer than he’d like to think about, but thanks to DB Racecars it’s now rapidly heading towards completion. The chassis that had previously been built for the body was removed, and the DB Racecars team have constructed an exquisite dual-rail chromoly replacement. This has been built to SFI 25.1J spec and runs a 115-inch wheelbase, which it needs to fill out the elongated body. With this chassis and a 14-71 blown alcohol-fuelled big block Chev complete with EPD heads, it will slot perfectly into Supercharged Outlaw and Top Doorslammer classes. The engine package…

ZL1. Three simple characters that evoke anything but a simple response from Chevrolet enthusiasts across the globe. Lust. Envy. Adoration. They’re all natural feelings for a machine that probably shouldn’t have existed at all. The 1969 Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 is the absolute pinnacle of classic Camaros, despite its demure looks. It represents an era of motoring that can never be repeated with its unashamedly motorsport-fuelled intentions and underpinnings, its laughably understated power figures, and its clandestine origin story. Even its very existence is indicative of a time when engineers and racers on the inside still had the ability to mix up something a little special, slip it under the nose of the big wigs, and drop it down on the showroom floor for a select few to get their hands…

Oh no! That Stokes is slamming another pic of his yellow roadster in print! Allow me to explain. As I grew up in hot rodding, collecting and reading hot rod magazines, I enjoyed two things. One was what was known as the Bud Bryan era — late ’60s to early ’70s — of Rod & Custom Magazine (RIP) and the other was the late Gray Baskerville’s (RIP) way with words with his writing in Rod & Custom and Hot Rod. Those early Rod & Custom magazines were influential to many as Bud and the late Tom Senter (RIP) wrote from the seat of their pants as they rode and drove old hot rods across the USA. Gray’s work was the same when he wrote about road trips across America with…

Typically used for adding structure to sheet metal in motorsport applications, dimple dies are not a one-trick pony. In this case, they were the perfect solution to class up the front grille of a rat rod surround. That is the process we are outlining today, although it’s a standard process for any dimple die work. Most sets come in imperial, but there are two main differences to look out for between the two sets available. Some manufacturers’ dies are designed to be pressed together inside a hydraulic press. This works well on smaller pieces, or if you have access to an industrial monster-sized press. The other option, which some manufacturers are starting to incorporate, is a hole in the dies so an M12 or M16 grade bolt can provide the…

Welcome to our first reader-supplied Concept Corner. We’re kicking it off with a bang. Young Brennan Keeys’ concept is actually not far away from becoming a reality, which only adds to the coolness. The base for the car is actually a ’54 Chev sedan — or perhaps we should say the base is a ’95 Lexus LS400; let us explain. Just over 12 months ago, Brennan’s long-term ’54 project took a drastic turn: a bit of inspiration from a ’49 with a similar treatment coincided with a rusty but low-kilometre Lexus LS400 turning up for sale locally. This saw Brennan set about cutting out the floor of his Chev and discarding it, along with the HQ chassis that the body once sat on. The Lexus was then relieved of its…

ROLL RACING, POWER SKIDS, CRUISING, A DYNO SHOOTOUT… 9–12 September While it might seem crazy to jump the ditch for a ‘drive your mates’ type of event, the sheer scale of the fixture and the craziness of the cars that attend the Australian Powercruises should make it a worthwhile trip. We’d recommend the Sydney and Brisbane runnings as the ones worth a gander, and with the Sydney one having just happened, Brisbane is the next one on the event diary. To be held at Queensland Raceway, Willowbank, it’s the original rolling car show, with roll racing, power skids, cruising, a dyno shoot-out, drifting, off-street racing, and a show ’n’ shine. A new feature is the 789 Cruise session, for cars that run seven-, eight-, or nine-second ETs, so expect some…

20-21 Nov The premier — and biggest — car show on Australian soil, Meguiar’s Motorex, plays host to 700-plus of the country’s best show and street cars, and is considered the event at which to see the unveiling of the cream of the crop for that year. The top six elite cars will be on show; they are determined from qualifying events around the country, and just to see them alone is worth the trip. However, there is no shortage of cars at that level on display and each car is given room to breathe, so you really get to see the insane workmanship. If you need inspiration, this event will have you in overload. It’s a two-day affair and you’re going to need to spend the best part of…

MARCH 2022 TBC Undoubtedly one of the world’s best classic racing festivals, the Phillip Island Classic Festival of Motor Racing always features a star-studded line-up of drivers and machinery, with a big contingent of international racers, including Kiwis. Although the exact details of the 2022 event are yet to be announced, you can be assured there will be something for everyone — including our favourites, the touring cars, which are often pedalled by those who drove them in period. The real highlight for Supercars fans, though, is the Super Sprint, which sees a full field of retired supercars, often with pro drivers behind the wheel. There are also the likes of Formula 5000s and vintage Formula 1s and prototypes. This is a three-day festival, with on-site camping available — no…