POSTCARDS FROM AUSTRALIA 2006

It was hard to believe that over a year had passed since my first visit to New Zealand and Australia. It was in May of 2005, to be exact, that I joined American doorslammer pioneer Camp Stanley and New Zealand’s Top Doorslammer champion Dave Green on a trip to Western Sydney International Dragway for the Nitro Champs event. We had a great time, and long before we boarded a plane for home I knew I wanted to experience the sights and sounds of drag racing “down under” again.

Fortunately, in addition to being a veteran of supercharged door car racing, Camp is also a seasoned long-distance air traveler. He makes the trip to New Zealand and/or Australia three to four times a year. On many of these trips he joins Dave’s crew at New Zealand Drag Racing Association (NZDRA) events and serves as tuner for their blown Corvette. Thanks to his expertise it was a relatively simple matter to make arrangements for the 2006 version of our journey to the Southern Hemisphere. This time around we were heading to the biggest race on the Australian National Drag Racing Association (ANDRA) calendar, the Castrol Edge Winternationals at Queensland’s venerable Willowbank Raceway.

A view of the America’s Cup Village from the top of the Sky Tower in Auckland.

This 2006 Corvette is being converted to right-hand drive for the New Zealand market. It will sell for nearly $100,000 U.S. once the work is completed.

Between my work for Torco's Competition Plus and my new duties with 1320 TV I have an extremely tight schedule this season, but I was determined to make the trip in spite of the small window of opportunity. Leaving Grand Bend, Ontario, after the IHRA event, Roger Richards and Steve LeTempt dropped me off at the airport in Detroit before they continued home to South Carolina. From there I flew to Los Angeles, where, as I had done the year before, I stayed with friend and Competition Plus co-founder Mike Aiello at his place in Santa Monica. The next morning we picked Camp up from the airport, and after a day of hanging out and relaxing, we headed back to the airport for our Air New Zealand flight.

I have to say at this point that the service that Air New Zealand provides is outstanding, with conscientious flight attendants, good food, and all the New Zealand wine you care to sample. After a comfortable 12-hour overnight flight, we landed just as the sun was coming up over Auckland. We planned to sit around at the airport for a couple of hours before Camp’s friends Tony and Linda Johnson came to pick us up. It seems that Tony is not a morning person, so we weren’t expecting to see him at sunrise. We were pleasantly surprised, then, to see Linda waiting for us when we arrived. Tony was still home sleeping, as expected, so Linda made the trip on her own, just so her American friends didn’t have to wait. Her effort was greatly appreciated!

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Terry Bowden is considered one of the best chassis builders in New Zealand. His shop is cluttered, busy and very old-school.

Since we weren’t scheduled to meet up with Dave until the next day for our flight to Brisbane, Linda offered to show us around Auckland and let us play tourist for the day. It was a great opportunity to see this bustling city and we took her up on her suggestion. Our first stop, however, was not to a tourist attraction, but to a Chevrolet dealership that specializes in converting American-made vehicles to right-hand drive per New Zealand law. I learned that Ford, Dodge and Chevrolet pick-up trucks and SUVs are in great demand in both New Zealand and Australia, and consumers will pay huge premiums to have the vehicles imported and converted.

This is Team Bray’s pit area at the Winternationals. Known as “Castrol City,” it was a beehive of activity all weekend long.

Tony owns two such trucks, both Chevy crew cabs, and we were there to check on the progress of one that was being converted. It was amazing to see used Chevy trucks for sale on the lot for nearly $50,000 New Zealand dollars. Now their dollar is worth around sixty cents U.S., but that’s still a lot of money. The average conversion of a new vehicle runs around $30,000 NZD over and above the base cost of the vehicle. There were a couple of new Z06 Corvettes being converted when we were there, and these will carry a price tag in excess of $150,000 NZD when completed!

Victor Bray heats the hides before making his qualifying attempt on Friday night. His 6.095, 239.23 was the best pass of the night, and held up for the No. 1 spot when Saturday’s two sessions were rained out.

From there we went to the Sky Tower, the tallest structure in the Southern Hemisphere, and Camp and I took the long ride to the top while Linda relaxed in the coffee shop below. Later, we took a walk around the America’s Cup Village, a symbol of the great sailing heritage the Kiwis enjoy.

A little later we met Tony and took a ride to Terry’s Chassis Shoppe, one of the coolest old-school chassis shops in the country, where owner Terry Bowden turns out everything from modern-day race cars to classic hot rods. He’s an out of the ordinary character, and I enjoyed meeting him and spending some time poking around in his cluttered but productive facility.

Finally, we went to Tony and Linda’s home, which is located in a beautiful rural area outside Auckland, and had a traditional New Zealand meal of leg of lamb and all the trimmings. Later, some friends and fellow drag racers joined us, and we had a great night of conversation over several more glasses of New Zealand’s finest, both red and white!

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All 22-year-old Ben Bray had to do to wrap up his first Top Alcohol title was do a burnout on Friday night, and he’s shown here doing just that. It was his third championship in two classes in just four years as a professional racer. He set a new Top Alcohol elapsed time record of 5.52 in the process.

We awoke to a torrential downpour, and with Linda at the wheel of Chevy truck No. 1 we made our way through the heavy rain back to the airport. All the while I was hoping it was not a portent of things to come. After all, who wants to fly 25,000 miles round trip just to sit and watch it rain? Once at the airport, we met Dave, who had flown in from his home in Wellington, and the three of us boarded another plane for the nearly five-hour flight to Brisbane. We landed, got our rental car, and with Dave at the wheel, headed for our hotel. After several unplanned side trips and calls for directions, we arrived at our home-away-from home for the weekend, the Mt. Ommaney Plaza Hotel. It turned out to be a very comfortable place with an excellent restaurant.

Ben (left) and Victor Bray.

Early the next morning we headed for the track, the famed Willowbank Raceway in Ipswich, about 25 miles from Mt. Ommaney. Once again we made a few wrong turns before finding the right course, but we eventually got straightened out and arrived none the worse for wear. Camp, as he is so good at doing, smooth-talked the ladies at the gate, and we were soon rolling through the VIP entrance with a hard-to-get pit access sticker affixed to the windshield of our Holden Commodore. At this point it’s only fitting to thank Sue Syrmis and the staff at Willowbank for their consideration and kind treatment. They certainly helped make our weekend the memorable event it was.

Ben Bray’s revolutionary new Holden Monaro, built by Murray Anderson, replaced his aging ’57 Chevy this season. The car has shown a lot of potential, and hopes run high in the Bray camp for a successful campaign in 2007.

We made our way slowly along a maze of busy pit roads, stopping occasionally to make way for the steady stream of vehicles that were constantly either heading to the staging lanes or returning from the top end of the quarter-mile. We eventually pulled up in front of “Castrol City,” the massive tented pit area occupied by Team Bray, where we were greeted by the man himself, six-time Australian Top Doorslammer champion Victor Bray. Inside the pit area we were welcomed by Victor’s wife Marie, son and teammate Ben, and daughter Kelly McClennan. Kelly’s husband Dean drives an Alcohol Funny Car, and their son Joshua was entered in Junior Dragster. We also met some other old friends – among them crew members “Chock” and “Sully.”

Another key member of the team is web guru Richard Smith, who took great pains to facilitate our visit to the race and provide me with a place to work during the event. His help was invaluable – we even put him to work in front of the camera, and he did a great job. As an added bonus, we got to meet his beautiful wife Pauline.

Since Friday’s only qualifying session wasn’t scheduled to take place until early evening, Camp and I set out to start filming a series of “Postcards From Camp Stanley” videos for 1320 TV. Camp has a natural gift for gab and knows just about everyone in Australian drag racing, so things went smoothly. We interviewed a number of high-profile folks, including drivers Peter Kapiris, Maurice Fabietti, and Ray Bernard, Top Fuel legend Jim Read and master chassis builder Murray Anderson.

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Camp Stanley interviewing Victor Bray for 1320 TV.

During the course of the weekend we used up a lot of tape, much of it doing clips and interviews with our gracious hosts Victor and Ben Bray. In fact, we concentrated our efforts on covering Team Bray all weekend long, as there was plenty of drama to go around. The fact that they gave me a team shirt to wear when we went to the starting line had nothing to do with it, but it was a nice touch and greatly appreciated.

Going into the last race of the season, Team Bray found itself in an unusual position – for the first time in six seasons there wasn’t a Bray contending for the Top Doorslammer title. Admittedly it was a year of change for the team, with Ben’s ’57 Chevy having been replaced at mid-season by a new Holden Monaro, and that car, along with Victor’s own trademark ’57, being fitted with a new lock-up clutch system.

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Brett Stevens took Funny Car and Top Bike wins at the Winternationals.

After dominating the Winternationals competition for the past six seasons, however, the father and son team were determined to finish the season on a high note. Victor had missed making the field at the previous two events, only the second and third time in his long career that he had failed to qualify at a national event. Ben was also bitten by the DNQ bug the last time out, so they had a lot to prove. On the bright side, all Ben had to do was do a burnout on Friday night to wrap up his first Top Alcohol championship, but both he and his dad wanted to serve notice to the Top Doorslammer competition that they weren’t going anywhere. There was a ton of tradition and family pride at stake.

Ben took to the track first on Friday night, and his pass of 6.307, 233.88 was good enough for the sixth spot in the eight-car field. It was nearly all for naught, however, as Ben was at first disqualified for bypassing the scales after his run. A long meeting with ANDRA officials later resulted in a reversal of the decision, which turned out to be a very fortuitous thing as the weekend unfolded.

Victor was in the next pair of cars to the line, and the partisan crowd at Willowbank roared their approval as he unleashed a tremendous 6.095, 239.23 blast, the only 6-0 of the session, to claim the top spot.
With two more sessions on tap for the next day, a number of “name” drivers, including Australia’s first two five-second Top Doorslammer competitors, John Zappia and Aaron Lynch, were anxious for a second and third shot at the field. Unfortunately, it wasn’t to be. Persistent rain showers on Saturday stymied the best attempts by race organizers to dry the track and get at least one more qualifier in the books. With clear weather in the offing for race day, the fields were declared set and those who made the show focused their attention on Sunday while the unlucky ones headed for home, offered their services to fellow competitors or prepared to watch the action from the sidelines.

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Steve Stanic parlayed consistency and solid performance into a Top Doorslammmer title this season.

As forecast, the rain tapered off overnight, and a few hours of drying and prep work had the racing surface at Willowbank up to its usual high standard. By early afternoon the cars were rolling to the line for the first round of Top Doorslammer eliminations. Ben outlasted the always tough Gary Phillips in the first stanza as both drivers struggled to fight off tire shake and loose race cars. Phillips crossed the center line and was disqualified, allowing Benny to move on.

It was the Monaro’s first round win, but it was also its last on this weekend as Ben lost a close race to Maurice Fabietti in the second round. It wasn’t a bad weekend for the 22-year-old sensation, however, as he had wrapped up the Top Alcohol title the night before.

"I thought we were going to have a good meeting after we won the first round," Ben said. "The first round is always the nervous round, and we felt a lot easier after that. We're not really sure what happened in the second round; the car shook and I pedaled it, but it never really got going again and I had to sit there and watch Maurice drive away.
"It's going be a slow road to get the Monaro as consistent as dad's Chev, which is a really tried and true package; we're still learning the new chassis and the lock-up clutch and how to set it up so it's drivable. But we'll be there next season."

That left Victor to carry the Top Doorslammer flag for Team Bray, and the wily veteran was more than up to the task. In the first round he took out long-time rival Brett Stevens with another 6.095 pass, this one more than enough to defeat Steven’s new Ford Falcon, which clicked off the timers in 6.233-seconds.

"After seeing a 6.09 come up during qualifying it was great to lay down another one and know that we had a combination that we could count on," Victor said. "The run was so smooth I could tell it was fast and the car really behaved itself, which it hasn't been doing lately. But I never underestimate Brett; he might have been in a new car but he's always dangerous."

Victor Bray, Brian Wood and Ben Bray celebrate Team Bray’s success at the conclusion of the 2006 Castrol Edge Winternationals.

The win set up a semifinal match against Robin Judd, who took out Steve Stanic in the first round. Once again, Victor's legendary '57 Chevy left hard and ran straight down the 1320 to record a career-best elapsed time of 6.030-seconds at 241.55 mph. Victor was on a mission and he was heading to his first final round since the 2005 Winternationals. His opponent would be Maurice Fabietti.

"We had a goal to win the Winters again and it was nice to actually make a final at the most important race of the year,” Victor said. “We've spent a year trying to get these lock-up clutches firing and now it looks like we have."
The final was run in near perfect conditions. It was a chilly night, with the barometric pressure almost at sea level, although the low ambient temperature meant the track had lost much of the heat burned into it during the day.

In a fitting end to an outstanding weekend, Victor completed his perfect 6-0 sweep with a run of 6.059, 237.72 to take out Fabietti, who posted a mark of 6.221, 228.43 in an excellent race. "Maurice is a long time campaigner and he has been running really well, so we weren't taking him lightly," Victor said, "but the track had cooled off quite a bit, which isn't conducive to fast times, so we decided to be conservative with the tune-up, even though there was a temptation to go for a five-second pass.”

The Pro Stock championship was up for grabs at Willowbank, and veteran Dave Rogan held off the challenge of young Shane Tucker to pick up the gold on the last pass of the season. In the process Rogan established a new class elapsed time record of 7.21.

The huge Winternationals crowd was ecstatic that their hometown hero had done it again, and the champ says he can't wait for the 2006/2007 season to start. "It's good for the family and the team and my friends and sponsors and we think we've got something strong to start the next season with," Victor said.

For his part, Ben wrapped up the Top Alcohol title in his Mack Trucks/Castrol Firebird Funny Car and set a new class E.T. record of 5.52 seconds. It was only Ben's first full year of Top Alcohol competition after finishing second in the 2004/2005 season, despite only joining the category half way through that season.

With the title in the bag, Ben’s team decided to take a shot at a 5.40-second pass in their final-round match-up with Brett Stevens. The air conditions were excellent, but the track surface was cold, and Ben blew the tires off soon after leaving the line. The win was the second of the weekend for Stevens, who also grabbed the big trophy in Top Bike competition.

"It means a lot to the team to finish the season on a high and to steal what would have been Gary Phillips’ thirteenth championship, because he is without a doubt Mr. Top Alcohol," Ben said. "Gary and his team were the first to congratulate me, which shows what a class act he is, considering he's won the last 11 titles.

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"The Funny Car has been an amazing machine since the day we rolled it out of the container. We used it as a bench for 12 months before we found time to put it together. It would have been good to win the final but we got greedy chasing a 5.40 pass, which would have been the world's first 5.40 in an Alcohol Funny Car. As it is, it was the third quickest pass ever, so we're rapt."
Overall, it was a record-breaking weekend a Willowbank, with 20 track and nine national marks reset.

One of the highlights of the event was the crowing of a new Top Doorslammer champion, as Steve Stanic held on to his points lead and claimed the title that just four racers have held – Victor Bray, Ben Bray, Brett Stevens, and Peter Kapiris are the others.

In a season highlighted by the first five-second passes in the class, those registered by John Zappia and Aaron Lynch, and the absence of a Bray in the championship struggle, Stanic, driving Lucky Belleri’s Camaro, was the most consistent driver all year long, and it paid off with a Gold Christmas tree.

In other action, the Top Fuel race came down to the wire, with defending champion Darren Morgan and second-generation star Phil Read tied for the points lead coming into the final race. Read qualified on top, so had a slight advantage over Morgan after the one and only qualifying session. Morgan had to do everything right from that point on in order to have a shot at the title.
On Sunday, Bob Shepherd put Morgan out of his misery, taking the win light in their first-round tilt when Morgan’s car lost fire at the 330-foot mark and coasted through. With the championship in hand, Read capped his big win by winning one of the ugliest Top Fuel finals ever seen, a classic pedal-fest.

Top Fuel competition was a real adventure at the Winternationals, with defending champ Darren Morgan and Phil Read taking it right down to the wire. Read dethroned Morgan when the latter lost in the first round of eliminations.

Not that he really cared how pretty it was – a win is a win, after all.

There was another title up for grabs at Willowbank, and that was the Pro Stock championship. In a thrilling final, veteran Dave Rogan held off the challenge of young Shane Tucker to pick up the gold on the last pass of the season. In the process Rogan established a new class elapsed time record of 7.21.

So that was it – as quickly as it had begun the big race was over. It was exactly as advertised despite the rain, and a true celebration of the sport of drag racing. The fans and racers “down under” are dedicated, determined and fun-loving, and not necessarily in that order. They treated us all very well, and made us feel welcome at all times. We’re already talking about our next trip, and if all goes well we’ll be heading to Quit Motorplex in Perth on Australia’s west coast next season. Let’s see, that should add about six more hours of flying to the schedule, each way, of course. Oh well, I waited most of my life to make my first trip to the bottom of the world, and now that I have two trips under my belt I don’t plan to quit now.

I want to thank Camp Stanley, David Green, Tony and Linda Johnson, the folks at Willowbank Raceway, and most of all Victor, Ben and Marie Bray, and everyone at Team Bray, especially Richard Smith. It was a great trip, and I’m looking forward to seeing them all again soon.

That may be sooner rather then later, by the way, as Victor was heard making some not-so-secret comments regarding a return visit to North America this year. If you’ll remember, Ben impressed a lot of people with his strong Pro Modified showing at the U.S. Nationals last September, and Victor has suggested that “the old boy might bring a car over and do some driving himself.” Now that would be interesting!

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POSTCARDS FROM AUSTRALIA 2006