Piranha Racing - Supercharged Outlaws

Ken Lowe has a saying - "Good luck is where preparation and opportunity meet", sometimes it does not always work that way. As we were coming equal second, three way tie with fellow team Capricorn racer - Russell Mackay and Bronte Henning from Darwin in the first season of the Rocket All Stars Australian Drag Racing Series we decided to invest the money and time in competing in the winters warm up the week before the Winter Nationals.

Most of you realize we are based in Rockhampton and it is a lot of time, a lot of money and it is a lot of commitment for the people that take time off work and travel down and back with us whenever we go to Perth, Sydney, Townsville or Mackay and everyone has to put a big effort in, a lot of kilometers and I am always appreciative of the time off work without pay that people do take to come with us and helping to be associated.

Special thanks to Lionel Durre - Engine Improvements and when you consider that prior to the Winter Nats leading the Rocket All Stars Australian Drag Racing Series was Lindsay Catalano in the wog chariot from Western Australia and Bronte from Darwin and Russell and Nathan from Rockhampton, it is a pretty good effort to have two supercharged outlaws coming out of Rockhampton where the majority of the engine work is carried out by Lionel Durre. We could not estimate the hours that he puts in that he does not get paid for (mind you he does get paid a lot for the hours that he does in the shop), but he does come up home at nights and on weekends and that help is always invaluable.

As we continue to learn our craft we rely on him less but there are many times when we rely on him ultimately. Now that we have indoctrinated my neighbour Alan Croft into drag racing in mod bike, Alan's help is certainly appreciated. We work together as a team, Alan has the Lathe and we have the welders and we will soon have a milling machine as we continue to modify the Lexus Hot Rod, Real Deal Motor Sports Insurance Plan car.

THE PLAN - Well the plan was to go down to the Winters warm up complete with a new set of heads and new cams, do the warm up, leave everything there and drive home in the Toyota Tarago kindly supplied by associate sponsor Ian Weigh Motors. This was the first big test of the new tag trailer and on board we had a borrowed golf cart from Lachlan Tree (who could not come to the warm up but came down to help out for the Winternats and he often comes around on the weekends to help out when he has the time and he generally always comes around when he hears the motor start, complete with a six pack of crown lagers which is always appreciated), the Lexus Hot Rod and Wayne Hargreaves Supercharged Outlaws blown Commodore plus Alan Crofts mod bike, a tonne of gear and a heap of men and the truck and trailer performed magnificently. Well at least until the Monday after the Winternationals when the winch broke and kindly deposited Wayne Hargreaves blown Commodore back onto the Willowbank bitumen, luckily rolling down the ramps. With that solved we invested in a new 8600 lb winch and hopefully that problem will not happen again.

We had installed and engine RPM sensor for the data logger but unfortunately the bracket which holds it was to close to the blower belt when the engine was running and two blower belts later we realized the problem. The next start up it broke and exhaust cam, highly unusual even though we have broken one before that was when installing it and this engine had been started and run a couple of times. Can I say that Martin at Crow Cams was just magnificent and we had one in Rockhampton on Tuesday morning and a spare set by the end of the week ready to go back to the Winternationals to install, run and compete. I can not thank Crow Cams enough as their service has been incredible.

Well the preparation is done but we did not have any luck because by Saturday night we had a broken cam, Wayne had torched some head gaskets and we had not even got to the Winters warm up. We started well with Alan Croft doing a whole heap of runs on the mod bike and headed home with Wayne's ute fully loaded and the Toyota Tarago which leads to an interesting situation. We got the head count wrong and after we sent Wayne off we realized that we still had 8 already in the Tarago and Zac needed to get home so with a quick trip up to the hot pits to find Wayne talking Chev's with the Crossroads crew. We got home to Rockhampton at about 1.30 on Monday morning, off to work on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday (the show holiday) then off to Maryborough again Wednesday night, into Willowbank early Thursday to put new gaskets and heads back on Wayne's car and new cam installed in the Lexus Hot Rod Real Deal Motor Sports Insurance car.

Willowbank officials did all that they could to run what ever classes that they could but the loss of the entire Saturday hurt us but it hurt a lot of people more so that was bad luck for us and worse luck for a lot of other people who did not even get to run or only had the one qualifier. If we thought that was bad enough, the first round 0.399 red light and a lousy one thousandth of a second too early against Steve Swinscoe was absolutely gut wrenching. Our last trip to Willowbank was glory going down the return road after winning the Tin Tops and it is a lot different feeling going down the return road knowing you are two rounds off the first ADR Andra Rocket All Stars championship. If we felt bad, our good mate from Western Australia - Lindsay Catalano cut an atrocious light (had tea and scones) and he was out and he only had to go one round but fellow team Capricorn racer Russell Mackay good luck came in the first round when his opponent red lighted and that moved him up to 160 points, Lindsay stayed on 150 and we stayed on 140 and unfortunately Bronte Henning who could not turn up for the meeting stayed on 140.

You would never guess that Charlie Micali who came to the meet with the blown Ford on 60 points would go all the way through, won the penthouse, the out house, the new car, the free home loan, the marbles, two Christmas trees and all the cash. Congratulations Charlie and to my knowledge he had never won a meeting before and he wins the ADR's and the Winternationals and he must have surely been a happy man.

Russell unfortunately went out in the second round with some slight problems with the lenco but we will all be back trying again and most of us will be in Sydney. Some fun times at the Winternationals were certainly the Toyota chickens - we went down with a whole cartoon and came home with hardly any and gave some away to young children and junior dragster drivers who came up and asked for them, some young kids in the crowd and the Catalano crew including Barnsey did a chook round up on most nights and when you woke up in the morning there would be Toyota chooks shoved in the exhaust pipes, under the wheels, committed suicide by cable tie death - all in all good fun.

See you at the drags.

PETER PEIRANO

It's been a while since I was last at the track & the car looks great, my young fella will appreciate the photo on his wall, chat soon.

Regards,

Craig Thiedecke

Sales Representative

DC Motors Mercedes-Benz / Chrysler Jeep / Subaru

The car looked great!!!

Well done on getting as far as you did and you will kill in 2006/07!!!!

Hope you had a good trip back and have recovered from the weekend.

Shel

Peter,