Day of the Drags in Sydney, Australia

A Decade of Day of the Drags

Words and photos by Jon Van Daal

Now in its tenth year, the Day of the Drags at Australia’s Sydney Dragway has gone through some highs and lows. At one stage this saw so many entries being received that it was run as a two-day event, but, alas, the 2016 version was at the other end of the scale. This is a pity because so many competitors vote it is the best event of the year.

When drag racing returned to Sydney in 2004 it had changed since the days of the mid-nineties when it closed across the road at Eastern Creek. There were new aspects to the sport like import racing and indeed turbo cars were just starting to spool up (excuse the pun). Similarly, the Nostalgia drag racing scene had also gone through a revival with HAMB dragsters now on the scene and the Front Engined Dragster scene really starting to take off.

With this in mind I guess you could think of Australia as a microcosm of the sport in America however with just the population of greater Los Angeles to draw upon some aspects of the sport have fared better than others. This style of racing is mainly attractive as all the competitors are getting older and as such some cars that haven’t appeared for a while have been attracted back into the fold.

Backing up the fuel cars were a number of brackets that covered everything from Classic Bikes to HAMBs and Vintage Gas. The second highest tier was the B Bracket that attracted six cars in the first round and was run in a Chicago Shootout Format. The two with the most wins went through to the final and in this case they were both women. This saw Kaz Williams in her 555 cube big block Chev powered dragster (near lane) take on Jenny Petrie in her Chev 400 cubed Fiat Topolino. Both cut good lights (.39 for Williams and .25 for Petrie) but it was the dial-in that proved to be more important as Williams came from behind with a .012 over 7.442 to take the gold over Petrie’s .108 over 8.588.