WITH mid-eight-second performance and a heap of experience from running Hot Rod Drag Week in the USA, Jamie Farmer’s ‘Dirty Bird’ Falcon ute was always going to be a strong contender to take out the Tuff Mounts Radial Blown class at Street Machine Drag Challenge Weekend. Amazingly, his pre-event prep was as simple as replacing one of his 69mm BorgWarner turbos.

“I’m not sure why it failed, but it had oil pooled inside of it; the other turbo is fine,” Jamie said.

Other than that, the 402ci iron block LS remains the same as how it went to Drag Week, with CP Bullet slugs, Eagle crank and rods, and 241-cast cathedral-port heads.

Straight off the bat on Friday the XH ute was in the hunt, with an 8.41@160mph on the sticky Willowbank strip, before backing it up with a 5.87 on the eighth at Warwick.

“We had to pull all the power out of it, and even then it still had too much,” laughed Jamie. “We run an MS3Pro computer and that can run traction control, but we didn’t have time to hook it up before this event.”

Jamie and his crew kept tuning the set-up back at Willowbank on Sunday, running in the mid-eights all day, and with an 8.451 good enough to pip Ben Vlekken for second overall and in Tuff Mounts Radial Blown by less than four-hundredths of a second!

“We didn’t have any issues on the road, as it drives really nicely,” said Jamie. “We just cruise along and take it at our own speed. The tracks have been good, so it has been fun.”