Day two of Drag Challenge 2026 presented by VPW Australia saw one of the biggest shake ups in the field we’ve likely ever seen in the event’s history, as the top 10 shifted dramatically by day’s end.

Several front runners dropped out of the running, and defending Drag Challenge champion Brandon Zito and his twin turbo LC Torana now sits atop the standings.

We arrived at Portland’s South Coast Raceway to a drizzly and wet morning, which delayed the running for around three hours as the champion crew at the track worked their backsides off to fully dry and prepare the eighth-mile strip.

After discussing with the meeting director, track staff and senior racers, we elected to send the faster cars down the strip first up, ITF Hire Outlaw Blown, Tuff Mounts Outlaw Aspirated followed by SpeedPro Radial Blown and Kemppi Radial Aspirated up first, followed by the rest of the classes and finally VCM Performance / HP Tuners DYO.

Many of the heavy hitters struggled to get their power down off the hit, buzzing tyres and pedalling their way through the traps. Dan Smith in the K24-powered Celica was the first to reel off a solid number, keeping the skinny tyres on the Sillycar glued well enough for a 5.10-second pass.

Brandon Zito was the next to thump out what would end up being the only four second pass of the day, a 4.84-seconds.

Ryan O’Hara in the slammed Riot Lab KE70 Corolla wagon had one of the biggest incidents of the day, the Keysev getting squirrelly after taking flight, initially heading across the track to the right lane before snapping back to the left, tagging the left rear quarter on the wall.

He was okay, and miraculously, the wagon only sustained panel damaged and a ruined rear wheel. The lads are en route to Dragway at The Bend, so Ryan’s still in the fight.

Although there was no major downtime on track at Portland, the significant rain delay at the start of the day meant the call was made to only have one run per class, as there wouldn’t have been time to get close to everyone through for a second run before the track curfew.

As such, Keith Hards in FAIRXW, Danny Howe in the XE Falcon and Frank Marchese in the Brougham elected not to continued in Drag Challenge 2026, as they stated on the Dandy Engines Facebook page:

“Danny Howe, Frank Marchese and Keith Hards in the XE, XW and the Brougham have pulled out of the Street Machine Drag Challenge 2026.

The boys have worked hard and made it to the end of day 2 however due to only having 1 pass each and unable to submit a good E/T the safe and early call has been made to cut the week short. This was a hard decision however it’s a carefully thought out one.

However we aren’t done yet, for the fans and spectators fortunately the cars will be ready for Saturdays Day 5 action at Victorian Motorsports Park to do some demo runs and try run some low 7’s and high 6 second times for all the crowd.”

The full results can be found below, and we’re at Dragway at The Bend today for twilight racing from 3pm – 9pm, tickets available at the gate or at dragchallenge.com.au.