World’s End Nostalgia Drags ends summer at full throttle

As the country turned the clocks back an hour at the weekend, the sport of drag racing used the last day of summertime to go full-throttle with its time machine.

From behind the tyre smoke at Saturday’s World’s End Nostalgia Drags — an annual event organised by the Tauranga-based Bay Rodders at Meremere Dragway – multiple eras appeared on the start line.

The Nostalgia Drags are in part a hard core drag racing contest where fractions of a second count and also a quarter-mile moving car show for classics and one-off creations.

The racing is a diverse as 90-year-old "four-bangers’’ covering the quarter-mile in a sedate 20secs to the ferocity of nitro funny car and altered exhibition passes.Each year the Nostalgia Drags has a theme and for 2018 the Bay Rodders brought a quartet of Australian Gassers across for a Beach Hop outing and the nostalgia racing at Meremere.

The `55 Chev of Australian racer Ash Hayley was the quickest car in the trans-Tasman Gasser Challenge. Photo / Colin Smith

A Kiwi team was selected for a three-round, 12-race trans-Tasman shootout which saw the Australians enjoy a performance edge as Ash Hayley (`55 Chev) and Damien Kemp (`64 Ford Fairlane) raced into the low-9secs bracket.

Hayley raced with consistency as well as pace from his  Haywire  supercharged `55 Chev and his unbeaten run through three rounds of crowd pleasing old school Gasser action anchored the 24-22 points win for the Australians.

A highlight of the racing included a huge 56-car entry in the pre-72 American Muscle Car category racing to a Super Street DYO format that demands quick reaction times and driving consistency.

Tauranga's James Key won the Pre-72 Muscle Car category in his `66 Chevrolet El Camino. Photo / Colin Smith

The winner was Tauranga’s James Key in his `66 Chevrolet El Camino who beat the `67 Ford Galaxie of Wayne Flord in the final. Rotorua’s Russell Lowe won the 38-car pre-48 Hot Rod contest driving his 1938 Chev Coupe.

Competition cars included two classes for front-engine dragsters (supercharged and normally aspirated). The Blown FED final saw Palmerston North’s John Shepherd deliver a sequence of low-7secs passes in his blown-Hemi  Backdraft  dragster.

John Shepherd ran a 7.025s/198.7mph to win the Supercharged Front-engine dragster challenge in his Backdraft blown-Hemi dragster. Photo / Colin Smith

A strong 7.025s run at 197.8mph defeated Hamilton’s Grant Briffault in the final.Whangarei’s Ross Brown clocked 8.414s on an 8.40secs dial-in to race past Ana Paterson’s Fontana four-cylinder dragster to win the naturally aspirated class.

A strong field of competition cars was split into two eliminators. In the quickest class Palmerston North’s Mark Gapp driving his supercharged `41 Willys Coupe was the winner as Bobby Owens (Te Awamutu) clobbered the wall with his supercharged 427 T-Bucket in the final.

Side-by-side burn-outs for Gasser racers Dave Middlemiss (`54 Chevrolet) and Aussie opponent Ash Hayley (`55 Chev). Photo / Colin Smith

There was also drama in the Comp 2 final with Napier’s Stephen McKay having his `36 Dodge Coupe just far enough ahead to be at a safe distance when Phil Webber spun his `38 Chev Coupe and cleaned out the half-track timing blocks.

Tauranga’s Karen Hay achieved the quickest and fastest pass of the day with her 6.793s/219.0mph pass driving her  Evil II  `27 T Roadster.