Dean Rossiter has spent much of his career helping other people go racing. 

The owner of Rossiter Performance has worked with one of Australia’s best-known Top Fuel teams, Lamattina Top Fuel Racing, built engines and fabricated cars for customers, and spent years making sure race cars are ready to perform when it matters. 

Now he’s building a car for himself.The car started life as a clean 1981 VH Commodore from Shepparton with a six-cylinder under the bonnet. Dean bought the car with plans to slowly modify it, but those plans changed after he put it on the chassis dyno at his workshop. 

“The first car I put on the dyno was the VH, and I broke the six-cylinder,” he says. 

“So, at that point it was like, well, I guess we just go for it.” 

The six-cylinder came out the following day.  In its place is a 6.0-litre LS with forged pistons, H-beam rods and DRP heads, backed by a Turbo 400 built by Bullitt Transmissions in Wagga. Adding extra spice is a NX 4150 plate-style nitrous system with a 100hp shot. Much of the work has been done in Dean’s own workshop, including custom headers and fabrication throughout the car. 

For its first outing at Street Machine Drag Challenge presented by VPW, the aim is a 10.5-second pass without a rollcage. He’ll be running in the highly-competitive Proflow 235 Blown class. But Dean has longer-term plans for the Commodore. 

“The goal is to run eight seconds in it as a street car,” he says. 

That is what makes Drag Challenge such a good fit for the project. Rather than simply taking a car to a drag strip for a few passes, competitors spend five days racing and driving between tracks, covering long distances in the same cars they race. 

“I just really liked the idea of drag and drive,” Dean says. 

After watching mate Mic House take part in the event in his own HD wagon, Dean decided it was time to build a car and experience it for himself. The challenge will be very different from the professional racing environment Dean is used to. 

His first visit to a drag strip was in 2014, when he travelled to Nitro Champs to work on John Lamattina’s Top Fuel car. 

It was the beginning of a career that would see him spend 12 years working with Lamattina Top Fuel Racing. Before that, Dean had grown up around dirt bikes and cars, with his father involved in race boats. He completed a motorsport course before deciding that engines were where he wanted to build his career. 

Working in Top Fuel gave Dean a unique education in professional drag racing, but he has usually been the person behind the car rather than the person driving it. 

“I’m fairly experienced in being at the racetrack. I’m not super experienced at going down it,” he says. 

Now he is about to change that. 

“This is something a little bit different for me to actually take my own car and run it for myself,” he says. 

There is also a big difference in the level of support. At Top Fuel, Dean has been part of a professional team with specialised equipment, spare parts and plenty of people focused on keeping the car moving. 

For Drag Challenge, the VH and its crew have to be largely self-sufficient. 

The car needs to race, travel between tracks and keep going for the entire week.That reliability is just as important as the time it runs. And Dean is building the car around his normal workload. 

Customer cars continue to come through Rossiter Performance, meaning the VH has been put together in the gaps between running the business. 

The final weeks before Drag Challenge are therefore all about getting the car finished, dynoed and driven, with Dean keen to get as much testing time as possible before heading to the event. 

He’s also bringing people along for the journey through a new YouTube series documenting the build. 

Dean previously helped document the construction of Christina Vithoulkas’s LS-powered S13 drift car, which was filmed over several years. 

This time, the camera is following his own project, from fabrication and engine work through to the dyno, testing and Drag Challenge. 

It gives viewers a chance to see what goes into turning an ordinary old Commodore into a car capable of taking on a five-day racing and road trip. 

For Dean, though, the biggest change will come when he finally gets behind the wheel. 

After years of helping other racers get their cars ready, he’ll be the one responsible for getting his own car to the finish. 

And that’s what makes the VH more than just another Drag Challenge entrant. 

It’s the car Dean is building to find out what he can do when he’s no longer standing behind someone else’s race car. 

You can follow Dean’s VH build through his YouTube series, and check out Rossiter Performance’s Instagram to keep up with the build and his Drag Challenge journey.

Street Machine Drag Challenge, presented by VPW, runs from Tuesday 27 October to Saturday 31 October 2026, starting and finishing at Victorian Motorsports Park.