: Have you been pleased with the way things have been going with record crowds at the regional rounds?

GC: We are and so too are the tracks. We are keeping everyone happy and this model - it is the best way to achieve that. We have delivered huge crowds, great media, record runs and happy fans, so we have to be happy but we are always going to be working to make it better for the future. We are looking to have more tracks, some more side shows and you’ll have to keep an eye on what we have planned for next year. We are going to add some value to it but in nitro racing - not necessarily funny cars or dragsters but another form of nitro entertainment.

Wendy and I are very proud of what we have achieved so far with Aeroflow Outlaw Nitro Funny Car Series and we have had great support from Series Manager Steve Bettes and our marketing manager, Rob Sharp, and we are focused on improving our show in an entertaining way each year. I turned 70 this year and I want to leave a legacy behind when it is time for me to go upstairs. We want to have a short sharp show on a Saturday evening -- the days of three- and four-day events see people not having the time or being able to afford it anymore.

The way for the sport of drag racing to succeed down the road is to entertain the fans and ourselves – that’s my opinion and so far it’s working. Could you imagine going to a race with twenty fuel funny cars, wheelstanders, jets and say some fuel altereds. While drag racers would know maybe we might have to change the name of altered as people new to the sport don’t know what they are. Imagine them with huge sound and big flames as an entertainment thing, not necessarily rotating the earth with ETs but putting on a great show to entertain the fans. Get the kids to go onto social media and talk about their experience because in my opinion, and only my opinion, the diehards of the sport are literally dying so we need young people to be involved in it. So how do we do that?

: Currently in Australia most sports are seeing declining crowds be it any form of football, Speedway as young people seem to do two or three things in one night.

GC: You talk about Speedway, well, that is similar to drag racing where you see the diehards on the hill but no one else. They should look at bringing back the biff (basically a punch up on the football field) to Rugby League [by the way, Australian players don’t wear helmets in their football matches – Ed.]  Football spectators don’t mind watching a bit of fisticuffs during a game. I am sure that if they did bring back the biff then they would pack it out. While we could look at having some play acting in our series, the good thing is that everybody gets on and has fun. We have taken away the expense of going to a race and taking time off work to go somewhere to not qualify, costing you a small fortune and when you get home you say, “Why did we do that?”

: And not come back out for another twelve months.

GC: Exactly – this is a different approach to it. Another thing too is that fans can get confused by handicap racing - watching cars starting off slow and then going faster only to be disqualified even though it looked like they had won the race. To me heads-up racing is the way to go – that is what drag racing is all about. At the Olympics you don’t see someone getting a head start in swimming – they all take off together, don’t they? We need to simplify the sport to make it easy to follow so the fans can understand it. We are going to encourage more heads-up racing and that is one reason why we have gone with the APSA as 99% of their racing is heads up. You need that, you need the turbo cars to get those people involved and you need some burnout cars as well. We need to showcase our sport to the fans that come to see the burnouts so we can get some of them to come. The key is the kids. [The APSA is the Australian Pro Street Association, home of 10.5 and turbo cars – Ed.]