Piranha Racing - Supercharged Outlaws

We headed off Thursday night (an hour behind Russell Mackay - they were at Mt Larcom when we left Rockhampton) and it was a pleasant trip until about 11.00 p.m. - 20 klms north of Apple Tree Creek, when Zac, who was driving, saw sparks were coming from the trailer, yet again more trailer drama's. Now one would be excused for thinking that we do not do maintenance but we do. We had waiting in Rockhampton, two new square larger axles but we had run out of time to fit them so we repacked the bearings, unfortunately one of the bearings collapsed and there was enough heat generated that the wheel and brake hub have come off so we pulled over (thankfully there was a property entrance nice and handy). A couple in a Holden Rodeo pulling a rather large boat pulled up behind us to tell us that the wheel was on fire when it came off the trailer and that it was back along the road about half a kilometre.

Zac and I retrieved the errant wheel whilst, with the help of fellow Rockhampton drag racers, Gavin List and Ivan Ward and our crew of Nathan, Zac and Bruce, we removed the remaining wheel, turned the shackles over and proceeded to limp to Maryborough with one axle for the remaining 2 1/2 hours arriving there at about 3.00 a.m.

One thing about drag racers, they will find a way to get a meeting. I rang my dear wife Heather at 1.30 a.m. and with the help of my stepson Andrew and his wife Sonya, they took the two axles over to Tip Top Bakery where one of our great mates and great client - John Brydon, organised one of his bread semi's that run a shuttle from Brisbane to Townsville, would bring the axle to Maryborough. They arrived at Maryborough at 9.30 a.m. and we had had a couple of hours sleep and we were most thankful to the relief driver for Brydons Transport - Will Klupfel, who not only bought the axles all the way to a rented workshop that he uses but he also let us use the workshop to remove the axles and with the best brother-in-law in the world - Neil Bruggerman who lives at Maryborough (our half way house on the way to and from Willowbank, as we quite often leave after work), we get the new axles fitted.

Well we did not leave Maryborough until 1.00 p.m. where the satellite navigation told us that from the gateway it would be 4.22 when we get to Willowbank and it was spot on to the minute although Nathan nearly did clean up a nice red Ferrari coming off the gateway after just avoiding a heap of cars and changing lanes to avoid modifying the boot of a commodore prior to going up the gateway bridge. Somehow I do not know how you live in Brisbane with all that horrible traffic.

Anyhow, back to the story. First round for the Outlaws was at 5.00 p.m. and we were at the gate at 4.22. miraculously we made it with only about 5 - 6 runs, we were still down at the scrutineering shed getting our arm bands as they were running down the strip With 60 seconds to strap in and get ready, the last chance we had to go before they were going to run Top Alcohol, we were still letting the air out of the slicks. They say that good things come to those who wait and we ran an excellent 8.20 at 159.46 MPH - a little bit too sharp on the lights at .391 but a great run and a qualifier first up, something that does not always happen with running the smallest engine in outlaws.

The heavens opened up later that night and no more action for us. The next day at 12.39 p.m. we qualified beside Bevan Buckby, this time super consistent, good reaction - .432 against Bevan's .452 - 8.147 at 159.92 MPH. Good strong burn out.

Our last qualifier on Saturday, another super consistent run at 8.18 at 160.31, pretty good reaction at .513. In the first race in competition we were up against our good friend Tim Caswell, Tim elected to run in the left hand lane, being the faster car and he was running a new lencodrive and also had to put a new crank in the engine on the Friday before the meeting. Nathan had the car to win the meeting and was driving the same way with a killer .412 reaction time against Tim who has gone to sleep, had a smoke and read the paper at .742. You would have though we would have won that one by a country mile but unfortunately at about 330 foot it shook the parachute out (something that it has not done for 6 months, since Dirty Dave from Mackay advised us to cable tie the cable to the chute pack) and the whole chute pack must have shook and flicked out, it was so disheartening to stand there on the line and watch the laundry just tumble out. Even then we just lost and still run an 8.98 with the shute out virtually the entire way and the MPH down to 112 where Tim run a nice 7.9 at 141 MPH (down on his best) for a win.

As usual we have a lot of people to thank. Thanks to Lionel Durrie for all the engine work and coming up to home on the Wednesday night (as he always does) to fire it up and check the timing. Thanks to Nathan and Zac for their long hours in the shed and to Bruce Watt and a special thanks to Heather for giving us the budget to do what we just love to do.

As I said in the interview at the start line - "there is not many places I would rather be than at Willowbank and why would you".

See you at Willowbank 4th February and hopefully we will have the PSI on the Lexus Piranha Hotrod. The plan being to run that meeting to try and sort it out and then up to Palmyra for the RD Williams season opener on the 18th February before leaving the following weekend - 24th February for the long drive to Perth where we will be competing at the Westernationals at Kwinana Motorplex on the 4th and 5th March. It is a long way to go but we have always wanted to run in Perth and meet our good friends the Donis Brothers & Lindsay, Wendy and Shane Catalano

Regards

PETER PEIRANO

Video of the action. Click here to download - 7mb



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Feedback

Thanks for the news Peter. As always, you seem to find an adventure.
Mad as ever.
Cheers,
Paul

Pete

Thanks for the update on your trip Gee you certainly had some drams getting there

Pictures are great

Meg Jasperson

Great reading and pics as always. those trailer woes were wheelie bad but ended up having little bearing on the trip. what about the networking that delivered those axles and enabled you to fit them in the en route. special.

Regards to family, Zac in particular. nice shot of him bringing the car up to the line (at least that's my guess). have a great year and i will see you around. you might catch a rare glimpse of me aboard precious new addition to family, harley V Rod. plates read NORF, maybe dragging brom at the lights in his brand spanker IS250. jet black with plates.... you guessed it..BROM

Hi! Pete, sounds like you had all sorts of havoc. Your machine looks great. I have been repainting our plane over the past few weeks. I’ll have to come up to Rocky for a spin so you can feel some real performance!!!!

Love to Heather

Cheers

Paul & Leica Marek

Hi Peter,

I try to please, on the note of your "On the Run " race report, I mentioned on Sat, its very well presented, gives a bit more credit to the sport when people read what's involved from the competitors stand point, especially the lower classes.

Cheers
Andrew

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