"Can't Live Without It"

CAN'T LIVE WITHOUT IT

Scott Ferguson burns to
race his dragster.
He has nothing else in life,
but wants nothing more,
because this is life.

A recent study in the United States determined that as much as 25 percent of the population are potential elite athletes. These people are born with the genetic makeup to succeed in athletic pursuits, and it's just that most of them don't get the exposure to the right background to ensure they make their mark on the sporting world. If that is true, then surely there must be born drag racers. And if there are, then Scott Ferguson must be one of them.

Ferguson grew up without any background in motorsports, or any particular exposure to it, but he sure as hell has made some advances in recent years. He was taken to an Adelaide street meeting by some mates, saw Dave Hawke's alcohol dragster run a test pass, and figured he was going to build and race one of those.

He set out to build a Top Fueller actually, but in the end decided he had a better chance of chance of coping with Top Alcohol, and finished it off as a T/AD. Working for wages, and with virtually no funding to carry him through, towing interstate with a bunch of mates with just a few dollars between them, having to cash cheques from one event to make the next, he's committed himself to working his way up to be the best. He recognises the yawning gap he has to jump, but already he has Gary Phillips in his sights, somewhere down the line.

At the Nationals we crawled into his trailer, amongst the sleeping bags and dirty clothes and the other remnants of a weekend away with his mates, who are his crew, and set out to find out a little bit more about what makes Scott Ferguson tick.

DA: You haven't been around drag racing very long, and you've jumped straight into one of the toughest brackets in the sport, yet in spite of not having run numbers, you've got this reputation that a lot of longer serving racers would kill for.

SF: It's all about sponsorship these days and I can't race without the money. I can go out and work a hundred hours a week and still not have enough money to run the car properly. We've got to do something, and the way I see it Victor's (Bray) lead the way, really. Get out there, do big burnouts, get the crowd pumped up, get them going.

DA: Yet you have to be careful, don't you? You just did a huge burnout out there and finished with oil all over the place. Did that burnout ultimately lead to the oildown?

SF: No, I blew the same oil line off that I blew off yesterday. We've never put oil on the racetrack in our lives and that's what really fried me because I just hate that! And that's why I won't go out tonight with it, not until we find what's wrong with it, but it's bloody frustrating. Last year, we came to the Nationals, and I said we're going to do a big burnout, and they told us not to, and I did a little one. Every time I come here I try and win races, and last night I thought I'm going to have to do a big one otherwise people read what's written in DRAGSTER and think, "Who the hell is this idiot?" He's only going 20 feet.

DA: When did you decide you wanted to go drag racing and that you were going to commit so much of your life to this?

SF: My mates dragged me out to a street meeting when I was seventeen. I wasn't even into cars at school actually, and then I saw Hawkey (David Hawke) at that street meeting and after seeing that thing go down the track I thought, "hey, that's pretty cool." I thought it would be great to do something like that, a small block car or something, and then I went and did the TAFE course, with the "Educator" Holden, remember that? That was my idea, let's build a drag car at TAFE.

DA: That was actually your idea and you talked the TAFE into doing it?

SF: They said, "Well, if you want to organise it all." So I got everyone into the class at lunch time and asked, "Who wants to do it?" We had this old ute sitting there with a 253 in it and I said we'd just pull it apart and instead of just doing the course and everyone working on individual bits, we'll have a project car. It just took off from there, without looking for sponsors, it was a good starting point. After that I went to work at (Chris) Milton's, got put on to the right contacts to work there with Bob Sherry and others, and obviously with their influence, seeing everyone else's engines, understanding how they work, what was good, what was bad, it just evolved into this thing.

DA: Why pick something that could either have been a Top Fueller or a Top Alcohol dragster? Why pick a pool that is that deep to jump into?

SF: Basically because it's got a KB in it, it's virtually going to be indestructible. The thing is, we are never going to be able to afford to upgrade. if it was a C/Dragster, I'd still be driving a C/Dragster because there's no way I'd be able to sell the thing and come up with the cash to do something like this. So I thought I'm going to sit back, be patient and it will all happen in the end.

DA: Have you found it a steep learning curve, or has it been more of a steep dollar curve?

SF: Yeah, more of a dollar curve. I planned to have heaps of parts first off, but then we trashed a heap of gear as soon as we went out with the car, and since then I've been behind the eight ball. For instance, with this meeting, I was waiting on the cheque from the last Calder meeting to just pay to get here which only just cleared a few days ago, and the only thing we did to the car is buy a set of head gaskets. We're just going to try and make things last. It's just lucky I got involved with the engine reconditioning side of things, because that saves a few dollars.

DA: Last year you came here with something like fifty bucks between you. Is this any way to be running an alcohol dragster?

SF: Well, you're always learning. If you can learn to run a car with absolutely nothing, then once you've got the money and you've got the parts, it's just so much easier. It's the same for all the guys who work on the car. At the moment it's so hard for the guys who work on the car to be able to do anything, but in time when it all happens for us, which we hope it will, we should be able to just cruise through it all. We pull bearings out every pass and that sort of thing.

At Adelaide we have 40 minute turn-around time. Everyone drops the sump with hand tools under there and the little red tool box sitting there, that's all the tools. Then after the meeting it gets completely stripped down, everything goes into work, everything gets double checked, we try not to cut any corners and that's probably why we're lucky enough that we haven't hurt the engine at all. And we've had a lot of good people help us out too, we've gone to the right people for advice. We've been smart enough to separate the good from the bad.

DA: Is it as much fun as you thought it was going to be?

SF: Yes, although it's getting pretty boring with the dragster because it goes too straight, so it's good when it gets loose every now and then, it's worth the drive then! It's fun, although it's been pretty hectic this season because we've had something on virtually every week. Since the start of this year, we've had two weekends off. Every weekend we're either at a show, or travelling with it. We've had two free weekends in four months to maintain the car.

DA: Does it disappoint you when you come to something like this and you don't qualify?

SF: Yes, and no. I look at in that we didn't qualify here, but we won the Adelaide meeting, so they both cancel each other out. If we qualified at both and lost first rounds, I'd consider that the same.

DA: But you don't sit back and say, "I don't expect to qualify, I don't expect to do well. If I do well that's great, but if I don't, it doesn't matter."

SF: As long as we learn. We've come away this weekend once again with so much more information on how to set the car up. Different ideas on the clutch, talking to a few people how to set it up. We're really stuck at the moment, I think we've got the wrong ratios in the thing, it's just too tall now. It's lugging it. We've run one 6.17, two 6.18s and a 6.19, all at 220 plus, and that was with the old daggy clutch, then we put the new gear in, the new ratios and it just won't drive any more. I want to try and start messing with my own ideas now.

I've got to try and get a bit more confidence with myself and make my own judgements. I'll come up with an idea and think this is what we have to do, I ask a hundred people and they all basically agree. It was good in Queensland because we had Bob Pengelly, who used to crew on Steve Read's car, with us and I could actually run the car down the track and I'd get out of the car at the end and he'd ask, "What did the car do?" and I'd say, "Well, it felt like it was sluggish here and it drove through the clutch as I hit second, and it was lugging across the top . . ." and he'd say, "Yep, that's what it sounded like." So I could relate to something, but I've got nothing to work from at the moment.

I've got an idea, but I'm looking at something and saying, "Well, this is how it should work." I don't know whether putting ten grams on the clutch is a big jump, or whether putting on fifty grams is. I've got to find that balance. Every car is different. Bob Meyer gave us the clutch setting for this thing and it went 6.50. It went slower than what we made it go. It's just one of those things. It's an oddball car to run as well, so we're just going to fiddle with it. We wind heaps of static into it and it takes off.

DA: How old are you?

SF: Twenty-seven.

DA: This is one of Murray Anderson's cars isn't it?

SF: Yes.

DA: What do your family think about this?

SF: Oh, my dad used to think I was crazy, spending all this money building a race car. He figured I wouldn't stick at it, that I'd run out of steam and sell it off for a lot less than I'd paid out before I got it finished, but now
. . . well, he's one of my biggest supporters. I think he's really proud of what we've achieved.

DA: Do you feel you've become some sort of cult hero here?

SF: No, I'm just doing what everyone else on the hill would love to do. When I was up on the hill, I always said, "If I had a car like that I'd go out there and smoke it up. It's just great to be in it. We don't have the parts to run quick and we'd be kidding ourselves to think we could outrun Gary Phillips. So the only other way we're going to attract any potential sponsors is by entertaining the people who have to spend thirty bucks to come and watch a race meeting. If you ask most people that leave a race meeting what the quickest time was, most wouldn't have an idea, but if you asked them which car did the biggest burnout, they'll remember the name, and that's the whole point about sponsorship. You've got to get the name across to sell the product.

DA: You've got Tonkin's on the car. Have they been a good support?

SF: They've been excellent, it's just unfortunate they're basically South Australian based and we can't travel. We've been invited to Perth for meetings and some Calder meetings, but because they clash with our races at Adelaide or with a hot rod show we're doing or a car show, we just can't run them. We're committed to our sponsors and that's just the way we work it. They're the only ones who have been willing to support us so far so I'll bend over backwards for them.

DA: Does the fire burn so brightly though that you allow it to consume all of your life like this?

SF: Oh yeah! This is fun, I'm just enjoying it at the moment. There's no way I could live without it and there's no way I ever would live without it. You won't be getting rid of me that easy! Look at people like Gary Phillips. It's so inspirational to see what they've done over all these years. And I don't think even they realise the influence they have over people like us just in what they've done. It makes us think, if they can do it . . . and look at where they are at now - everyone has to start somewhere. We're not going to set the world on fire now, but wait till they get old and go away, we'll be there.