Piranha Racing - Supercharged Outlaws

Well after the trials and tribulations of the last race report at WSID - A C Delco East Coast Nationals you would think that we would have a bit of good luck on our northern safari. Unfortunately it turned into one of those weekends from hell. You know you have to really love the sport of drag racing because there is certainly a lot of hills in the road to success. Well we hit another big one last week end.

I drove to Tooloombah Creek, Zac got some practice in from there to Illbilbie and then Zac and Bruce headed off to drop off current Australian Pro Stock Bike Champion Michael Gilbertsons car, trailer & bike as Bruce had driven Gilbo's commodore and trailer complete with the race bike back from the Sydney meeting. The plan was to drop the trailer off at Dave Halls place in Sarina and hand over the car at the race track Friday afternoon but the best laid plans of mice and man went astray when 4 klms north of Illbilbie Nathan said to me "the race car trailer has gone". I said "It can't be, we would have felt it if it had jumped on the chains", as we have had a number of incidences over the years and you certainly do feel it when they jump onto the chains as they start to gouge the road out and hang on the safety chains. In this instance neither Nathan or myself felt a thing.

When we turned around and headed back (we only had to go less than a 500 metres), the feeling of emptiness in our guts was horrific, not knowing what we would find. I jumped on the UHF and got onto some truckies and when he said it was upright I think I started to breath again. It is still pretty daunting when we turned up and saw it 50 yards off the side of the road, mowed down a stack of paper bark trees around 2" to 5" in diameter when it pulled up with a big 14" paper bark on one side and another one on the other.

We were unlucky but we were lucky. The trailer could have collided head on with oncoming traffic, it could have went over a cliff, it could have rolled over, it could have hit a big tree, as it was it has gone through the air about 1.5 meters off the ground, landed in the paper barks, kept going until it ran out of steam, snapped the tie down straps, shot the race car forward and tried to punch the tool boxes out through the front. Beautiful Hans (the paint doctor from Maryborough) art work on the front nose cowling destroyed. The race car damage was minimal with the radiator and nose cone damaged. The tool boxes were a right off and so is the trailer.

We can only thank Mackay Heavy towing. As there had been a four car pile up in Mackay they did not have a big truck to send out so they sent out Clinton. The only way we would retrieve the race car and trailer from the scrub was to back the tilt tray up along the path of destruction, drop the tail gate down, skid the race car up into the back of the tilt tray, use chains to pull the trailer out until we could get the tilt tray around the front and poke the second car carrying ramp underneath, then Bruce and Zac chained it all down, then we could get to the drags arriving too late Friday night to do anything we stripped the car down and checked everything over with the help of Ken Lowe and some officials at the track on Saturday we made temporary repairs to the radiator and missed the first round of qualifying.

We eventually made it out for the second qualifying session and were very happy to run a 8.28 at 160mph. This qualified us for the Shootout and whilst not exactly the type of performance we were chasing we were still pleased after what we had gone through to get there. We checked everthing over again and fronted for the third session only to have the connection for the transbrake switch come loose and Nathan had no reverse gear and had no option but to drive it through after the burnout. Then on our last qualifier the car shook the tyres on the launch, recovered well and was travelling good until the parachute came out about 200 feet before the finish line and slowing the car to an 8.47 at 128mph.

After an eventfull qualifying with all sorts of little niggles we checked the car again and set it up for the 1st round of eliminations. We were up against Andrew Pinkstone driving Ken Lowes Drag Racing School dragster, he had dialled in at 7.80 and we had dropped our dial in down to an 8.23 as the first round was at night and the conditions had cooled off after a warm afternoon. Well both drivers left with identical 0.469 reaction times and Nathan was ahead the whole way to the finish. Only problem was that the car was going well, too well in fact and even after getting off the throttle at 7.72 seconds into the run, pulling the parachute and using the brakes he broke out running a to quick 8.19 at only 131mph compared to Andrew Pinkstones safe 7.85 on his 7.80 dial in.

Well after finally getting the car to run like it should we just had to come back and do another run to see what it could have run and to gather more information. This run to did not go to plan and the engine got really hot and sprayed some water out the back which caused some tyre spin with Nathan then pdalling the car before driving it through for an 8.83.

After all of this we packed the gear up and got down to the usual after meeting party before rising at 7.45am Sunday morning when the tilt tray from Rockhampton (supplied by Dan's Quik Tow) & doing us a real big favor on his day off, tilt tray driver Michael Allen arrived to load up the trailer and head off.

See you at the drags.

Peter A. Peirano




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FEEDBACK...

Pete

You gotta be pissed not to notice that lump of trailer not sitting behind you......don't you?? Whoever said sailing was like standing under a cold shower tearing up $50 notes obviously hadn't heard about drag racing. Sounds like standing in the fires of hell tearing up $100 notes. Notwithstanding all of that it still makes for good story telling.

Regards to you and Heather

Phillip Neilson

You are one unlucky though very lucky bastard!!

Persistence and annoyance will get you far!!

Ken and Jules

I love the Caution Horse Sign. I think I will change mine on my float those signs always annoyed me as it it pretty obvious that you are carrying horses in a horse float. Judi

We are so sorry to see you upside down, glad no one was hurt It would really give you the sh------ts Ian

Hi Peter
I read your email with my jaw on the floor. I have always said that half the battle with racing is getting the damm car and team to the track!

Hope you luck improves soon...... Mark.

Hellowwwwwwwwww Peter. Shit luck, but it sounds like you got the beast running pretty good in the end. Lucky it wasn't down here cos' the tyres have a lot of trouble warming up! Great to hear the news as always. Look after yourself and say hello to the team up there, cheers Dale et al..

I'm renaming you from, "Cool Hand Pete" to "Black Cat Pete" - mate, you and your team are definately the unluckiest guys I know. Keep the chin up - remember "what goes around - comes around" . Your overdue for a change of luck - fingers crossed for the "Nationals"...............Bevin".400" Buckby

After reading page 18 in issue 689 of dragster , i think you guys need to find that black cat and kick the living shit out of it!!!!
Vic.

Peter. good stuff
I know how you feel, I had a 3 ton kerb machine on a trailer break the complete goose neck from the rear of the 9 ton mitsubishi and the first I new of it, is when it tried to overtake us on a crest of a hill on the way out to Emerald, Shit ! did that tandom and machine blaze a trail through the scrub, totally destroyed the tandom breaking two wheels off and twisted the draw bar and frame beyond repair, the machine was spared. The tandom we left behind and I beleive is still sitting 200m in that farmers paddock
Dial up!!!! What ever happened to best man wins
Once again good stuff

Russell

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