Sand Drag V8 bike’s Narooma pit stop

THE extreme machine that is the Mongrel Racing Unlimited V8 Sand Drag racing bike made an unofficial pit stop in Narooma last week.

Owner and “pilot”, the man known as “Stork”, stopped into Narooma on his way back from competing at the Extreme Sand Drags event at Ponde, South Australia and visited crew chief Steve Henness, local resident and owner of Montague Tiles.

Stork and Steve recounted how they managed to come second in the event overcoming a last minute mechanical failure when the front-drive pulley snapped in the middle of the final qualifying race.

They had 40 minutes to repair the pulley and had to dust off a lathe in a nearby farm shed, cooling the hot metal with Corona beer, a move that would have put a smile on the faces of team supporters Ado and Ben Wah from the television show Blokesworld.

They managed to get into the final with seconds to spare only to be beaten by newcomer to the unlimited V8 class, Chad from Sydney by  8/1000th of a second, even though both riders had almost the same reaction time with the bikes reaching 106 miles per hour on the dirt track.

“The boys worked together and under the guidance of crew chief Steve Henness and performed a miracle,” Stork said.

“Who cares about the second, just to make it the final was a victory.”

There were 11 V8 bikes competing in what is a fast growing sport and the boys from Mongrel Racing are always looking for more sponsors.

They have been doing a lot of work at Injection Perfection at Bankstown getting the bike tuned just perfectly putting down 550 horsepower at the rear wheel on the dyno.

The engine is a 5.7-litre V8 from a Holden Commodore that was written off in an accident.

Mongrel Racing was just coming off two victories including at the North Queensland Dirt Drags and remain on the top of the class ladder thanks to Stork’s skill and credo to “keep it simple, stupid.”