Canadian Jim Grant's diary of his 1999-2000 drag racing tour Down Under reads like a Gothic horror story, but he'd do it again in a heartbeat

Canadian Jim Grant toured Australia in the conventional format in 1998-99 and liked what he saw, so decided to return home, finish off his Dodge Dart blown doorslammer and return for some racing fun. It was a tough decision, and a tougher tour.

November 19:  Land in Sydney and start to help my partner Grant Hogwood prepare the 45 foot tractor trailer rig he has purchased. This will be for his own dragster, but he has bought it early so it was available to us. This saved the $11,000 Canadian, each way, I was quoted to ship my trailer. Subtract the price of shipping the car ($4000) and we save $7000 each way.

November 22:  The car arrives in Melbourne, but because of improper labelling is left sitting on the pier. My customs broker secures the car in a lock-up garage and arranges customs clearance, then has it trucked to Calder Park Raceway where the first event will take place on December 11.

December 2:  Les Arcand from Ultimate Auto in Chilliwack, BC (Canada) lands to handle the initial tune up and turn the car over to Grant.

December 3-11:  The car is not actually complete (Les brought pieces on the plane) and we begin the finishing process and readying for the 11th. All this with a rented car in a strange city in a far away land and driving on the other (I won't say wrong) side of the road. With map book in hand and the never ending help of Calder's drag racing director, Steve Allen, we try to find parts, welders and all the things you spend years sourcing in your home town.

December 11:  Top Fuel event at Calder rained out! This would prove to be an omen of the luck that would follow us for this trip. We get in a couple of passes and qualify for AA/AP class in Competition Eliminator. This is a feat in itself because we have no idea where to start with either the fuel, the new blower, or the clutch. We qualify on six cylinders because the tune-up is so fat. Crower made a couple of "boo-boos" with the clutch, so, we qualify 12th with six cylinders and no lock-up until half way through third gear.

December 13:  We head for Sydney where we will spend the next three weeks doing a tear down on the motor and readying the operation for the next event.

January 5-8:  We load up the now better prepared transporter and head to Canberra for an event called the Summernats. How in God's name they managed to get city council approval for this is beyond me. Take about 100,000 young motorsport enthusiasts, add lots of horsepower and no small amount of alcohol, then put the whole mix onto a circular route surrounding the main infield and let the street machines cruise around and around doing burnouts with the exuberant fans standing inches away from the rear quarter panels, pounding on the "boot lid" (trunk) demanding that the drivers light up the tyres (tires).

All this over three days of scorching heat and not one major mishap. It speaks well of the organisers, the entrants, and the fans. One entry is a "ute" (pick-up) with the bed lined with plastic and filled with water and half a dozen beautiful young women flashing their attributes at the crowd on demand! Only in Australia. Our car is popular and whenever we fire the motor we choose one person out of the crowd to sit in the car. It's an event that everyone should see at least once but I'm afraid that at my age, once will do.

January 9:  Load up again and head for Wagga Wagga. I don't know what a Wagga is or why they need two of them, but it's a lovely little agricultural town about half way between Melbourne and Sydney where the local car club is battling to get a quarter-mile strip. Leigh Rainbird of the club asked me some months ago if we could stop in and help them gain support for their efforts and raise community awareness. They arrange for television, radio, and newspaper interviews. For a day we are famous and we can only hope that we were of some help to the guys.

January 15:  Top Doorslammer event at Willowbank Raceway rained out! Yet another setback in our to-be-continued string of hard luck. After travelling a total of 4000 km without competing, we are actually in the staging lanes when the rains come. Things are worse for another racer three pairs in front of us. He hits the wall and rolls several times. His car is a complete write-off but he is okay. It is at this point that the seeds of a new philosophy began to form in my psyche: "It could be worse".

Anyway, we load up again and head for our next destination, which is Melbourne again. This is approximately 2000 km away and we still haven't been in a race. Worse than this we've still have no practice and the guys are working awfully hard for what seems to be no results.

January 22:  Top Alcohol event at Calder. Here we are back in Melbourne and staying at the Best Western Sunshine Motor Inn. We have now covered about 6000 km and the wear and tear of long days with no returns is starting to weigh a little heavy. Everyone hopes for a good showing. The weather is on our side this time (it's stinking hot) and we qualify 9th in Competition. We didn't really want to compete in a "heads-up" national index class like this, but only certain tracks offer the dial-your-own brackets for blown cars, so we race where we can.

We get in some good qualifying passes in and learn a lot. The clutch is still not locking up. The long and short of it is that if we had qualified about 0.015 second quicker we would not have drawn the #l qualifier, who is Rod Rainford. Rod smokes us in round one and we're on the road again. We leave feeling a little better knowing that we have taken a full half second off the car's best time and qualified. A lot of progress, considering that this brand new car has only made about seven passes.

January 23 - February 7:  We load the car into a 20 foot container for the rail journey to Perth and Grant and I take the transporter and head for Adelaide where the event after Perth will be and where the car will be shipped back to. The promoter at Ravenswood Raceway arranged everything and did a smooth job. We spend the night in Adelaide and get on a plane for Perth.

Diane Davenport graciously offers us accommodation at her beach house near the track and we hire a car and prepare for a few days off. During this time I get a chance to see some of the country around Perth and thoroughly enjoy myself. I plan to return to Perth, both because I like Perth and because the new facility will be a world class drag strip.

Now, one little thing that the promoters at Ravenswood forgot to mention, they penalise racers 1/10 of a second on the index for every race missed in a series. This, naturally, would affect racers from, say, Canada more than racers from Perth. Because we missed three races in their series, we were penalised 3/10 and to win would have had to run about 4/10 under the index. The event is promoted as Canadian Jim Grant against Western Australia, and guess who won? WA! Hooray for the local guys!

Actually, there are no hard feelings and it is all in good fun. They make us feel welcome, treat us like visiting dignitaries, put on a barbecue just for us, and seeing as how they paid for the whole trip, fair enough. We are presented with a plaque commemorating the last year of Ravenswood (my only "trophy") and have a good time. We got some good consistency out of the car, making six passes within 0.14, bringing our best ET down to 7.42 seconds.

February 7-12:  Grant and I are off back to Adelaide where we left the transporter. The event is round three of the Top Fuel Harley World Championships. Again we make a lot of progress and qualified 9th in, again not our best category, AA/AP. As a result we draw, guess who, Rod Rainford and, again, lose in round one to the eventual winner. Rod is a stout competitor with a real handle on his car and the bracket. We had fun though and enjoyed Adelaide and the event. Once more a great barbecue follows and all have a good time.

February 13-19:  We load the car and head to Melbourne for the big one, the Australian Nationals at Calder Park, February 17-19. We're not as far along as we had hoped and are still having dramas with the clutch. Two rainouts has not helped and at this point we have about 12 passes under our belt, not really enough to expect any kind of result at an event where everyone comes big and comes hard. There are some very serious racers in Australia and all will be at the Nationals.

Racers outside Australia, consider this: most "hardcore" parts come from the USA. When he (or she) buys a part that costs $1000 US, it must then be shipped to Australia and, depending on weight and the time frame may add an extra $100-300 to the price which is now say, a $1200 US part. Customs then convert this to Australian currency which will bring the price up to, say, $2000. Then add duty at a rate of about 8 percent which is another $160. Then, add 22 percent sales tax and you wind up with a $1000 part which costs the Australian racer $2635!

The point is that it's bloody expensive for racers down here and whenever racers compare times to those in North America or anywhere else, take inco account what the parts cost and then factor in the weather. It's hot down here and racing in air that is sometimes over 3000 ft corrected altitude is not uncommon. My point is that all things factored in, the Australian racer is as tough as anybody, maybe tougher. If they can't afford the fancy US "off the shelf" hardcore stuff, they'll make it. Quite often its better too.

Another thing, the fan support and comaraderie between racers down under is something that should be respected anywhere. The facilities, when you factor in the population base, are as good as anywhere or better, and in my experience at least, the support of the promoters is head and shoulders above any track I have been to in North America. Granted this is limited to a few tracks and I am no "seasoned veteran", but in my opinion there's something unique and worth preserving down here: Sport!

We set up in the infield on Thursday and the atmosphere starts to build. Transporters and cars roll in. We face the task of qualifying in AA/AP again, which runs on a national index of 6.97 seconds. Considering the limited passes we've had, and the continuing dramas with the clutch, it's going to be tough, but we are optimistic.

To ensure that all will go well, we bleed the brakes and go over the car thoroughly. Not quite thoroughly enough however, because I forget to turn the proportioning valve on the rear brakes back on, and during the burnout for the first qualifying run I can't stop the car with only front brakes and wind up at the finish line. After backing the whole length of the track and having ANDRA officials check the car, the motor is hot.

Because I am still relatively inexperienced at this, I jump through the lights while staging the car. They agree to let me back up and re-stage, but after the other fellow (who has been patiently waiting) makes his pass. By the time he finishes and clears the track, the motor is REALLY hot. I should shut down but I figured that once I bring it up to stage rpm and put some methanol to it, it will cool off. Wrong! The car launches hard and is pulling hard. Just as I pull third gear I feel a "cough" and right after third gear hits hard I hear a bang. I immediately swap feet and wonder what the hell that was!

The next thing I know I am looking at (and heading for) the right wall and the car begins it) bounce on the rear tyres. I'm getting closer to the wall and I remember thinking that I have sure lost a lot of speed because I can see the divisions in the concrete wall going by at what seems like about 20 mph. I'm getting really close to the wall now but don't feel I can correct the drift until the car lands on "all fours" again without rolling it.

At the very last second the car settles and I correct the skid in one pull of the wheel. It's just by sheer luck that I don't over correct and put the rear end into the wall. I pull the 'chute and shut the still idling motor off. I don't know how much I missed the wall by, but it wasn't much (measurable in coats of paint). The 'chute deployed just about at the finish line and the car coasts all the way down the braking area and partially up the return road. Apparently I was doing a little more than 20 mph! The safety crew informs me that they are picking up pieces of block off the track.

At this point I am totally dismayed. Here we are at the biggest event of the tour so far and on the first qualifier I have, through my own inexperience and desire to make a good pass (in spite of better judgement) destroyed the only engine (KB) I have. It's not long however before I begin to realise how lucky I was. I may have blown a motor, but I did not hit the wall and write the car off. After inspecting the damage, we start to believe that maybe we can even save all but the block, one rod and piston, and a liner. The problem is though, these are custom pistons and they now have some runs on them so we should replace the rods and pistons too.

Luckily, Colin Will, who is racing his T-bird Doorslammer has a Stage VIII KB at home and he will sell it to us. I later find after doing a little sourcing in North America, that good used blocks are like hen's teeth down here and we decide to accept Colin's offer and buy his.

February 20 - June 8:  We load up the pieces (if you can't tell, this was my first broken motor) and head home. We pull the motor down. We have thrown #l rod out the side of the block, leaving a hole big enough to put my fist through and the block is cracked almost to the head. The oil pump is pushed away from the block and we have to cut two bolts to get it off. The piston (once uncocked) pushes out of the liner and would probably be usable! The crank, believe it or not, polishes out and checks out to zero cracks! So, some good news. The oil pump, oil pan (one of Leo Grocock's "snap-on" pans), and heads (piston did not touch the valves), are all salvageable.

Bad news is: new block, gear drive cover (raised cam block), cam (large journal), lifters (one inch), rods, pistons, and a fair bit of machining. All up, it comes in around $14,000 for repairs. Throw in a trip home in March and April and well, this does it. I make the official transition from hard up to dead broke. These three months put stress on all involved and we miss four races and a demonstration event we had planned in Gladstone for sponsors Best Western Hotels. I should say at this point that Best Western are great throughout and even though this was their first season-long venture into drag racing, were very understanding and stand by us. Imagine, racers: loyalty from a sponsor! Unique, what?

June 9-11:  We get it all back together and sign up for the Winternationals, the other "biggest" event. I would not like to have to choose between the Nationals and the Winternationals as an event down under, I'm grateful (no matter what happened) that I got to see both. Official car count was 465 cars and everything is set (including us) for a monster of a butt-kicker drag race. We make a "shakedown" pass at 7.95 (short shifted and dumped the laundry early).

We're happy enough that the new motor sounds a lot stouter, but still need MORE weight on the clutch and LESS fuel in the tuneup. We add a little more weight to the clutch for the next pass and with no computer (it decided not to work after sitting in an open shed for three months), no tach (same), we run a 7.80, which puts us 12th out of 21 cars trying for the 16-car field in Top Comp. Grant takes 1/2 a gallon out of the tuneup, getting ready for our last qualifier. We are very hopeful we are gonna go some rounds at last! Then the rains set in. Just before qualifying on Saturday it rains and it basically never stops until they call the race on Sunday.

Well, that's it. Out of seven races we were rained out three times, broke a motor once, and drew Rod Rainford two other times. Hard luck, Harry! That's racing. Them's the breaks. There's always next year. No, actually there isn't. After the greatest trip of my life, I'm hangin it up. Tossing it in. Giving it away (not really, but I will sell it).

This was both the most unforgettable thing and the stupidest thing I have ever done. It cost me every cent I had and put me in debt, cost me several friendships (some of which are salvageable I hope), given me the best memories I can imagine and made me many new friends. I saw more of Australia than many Australians do, and met the woman I'm going to marry. In short. I'd do it again in a heartbeat.

In retrospect, the best advice I can give to anyone who is thinking about shipping their race car to Australia to compete, would be two things:

Australia is a huge coumntry and the major cities that host ANDRA sanctioned events are strung out along the south and east coast (excluding Perth) at an average of 1000 km apart. This means that travelling from a "race meeting" (as they're called downunder) in Adelaide to a race meeting in Brisbane means travelling approximately 2500 km. If not planned properly you might face the next race meeting on the following weekend back in Adelaide. Over an eight months eason in Australia that's a lot of miles on a rig, and with diesel fuel at 90 cents a litre (and climbing), motel rooms that average $90 per night (plus 10 percent GST), and meals that seem expensive compared to North American roadside diners, travelling costs can REALLY add up.

Add into the mix the necessity of finding crew that can either take the time of work to travel or try to arrange crews in each city, and the logistics of a little trip like this start to look daunting. Don't be dismayed though, the enthusiasm for the sport downunder runs so high that finding crews and "partnering up" with someone who maybe doesn't have a car but wants to race is very "do-able." There are lots of websites here dedicated to drag racing and with a few chat requests you will find Australian racers very eager to help another racer, especially if you're willing to travel all the way down to Oz.