WMelbourne’s Calder Park Raceway has finally reopened for drag racing, having been closed for a couple of years due to spicy cough and track upgrades.
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To celebrate the return of Melbourne’s only drag strip, Scotty decided to drive his late father’s VE Valiant ute out there for the Calder’s Friday Night Drags, hoping to beat the small block-powered machine by 12 seconds. PB of be obtained.
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In a recent episode, Scotty had the converter upgraded for higher stall by TCE, as well as fit a bunch of new ignition gear from our friends at Proflow.
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With these minor changes, we hoped it would be enough to squeeze the angry 318-powered Mopar into the 12s, but unfortunately the night was not on Scotty’s side.
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The Valeant was having trouble getting out of the hole, the car almost dying after each launch and struggling for a clean pass. After three tries, Scotty figured it was due to Carby getting hot.
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He went back to the pits and let the thing cool down completely, and even pushed the big wheel to the start line for the next run, opting for a burnout to keep the temps down. Unfortunately, this resulted in a big bag of wheelspin off the line, and Carby was also having some hiccups down the track.
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Things didn’t really improve from there, and with a big drive home in his night, Scotty opted to call it quits on the effort.
The plan from here is to try a plastic spacer under the carby to keep the temperature under wraps. You’ll see if it was okay in a future episode. Massacre, when Scotty heads back to the strip (this time at Heathcote) for another crack at 12 in Dad’s ute. Stay tuned!