THE Tuff Mounts Radial Blown class at Street Machine Drag Challenge Weekend was a diverse mix of cars, from the big hitters like Terry Seng, down to guys like Jason Ross, who turned up with a budget-built, nine-second UC Torana hatch street cruiser.

Jason’s UC rocks a stock-bottom-end LS1 with a turbo hanging off one side. “It is a complete budget build,” he said. “The turbo is a Garrett GT42 copy off eBay, we built the headers, it runs a stock PCM reflashed to run E85, and I got the engine for $400.

“We had to clean the rust off the bores with some emery paper, but she has been going well. I finished it around 14 months ago and have just been having fun with it, as it is my first turbo car and first radial car.”

Drinking E85 and pushing 14psi into the alloy block, Jason’s hatch is a familiar combo for those who follow the rapidly growing ‘stock bottom end’ movement.

Drag Challenge Weekend started off strongly for Jason at Willowbank on Friday, where he equalled his PB of 9.0@147mph. He backed that up with a 5.922 at Warwick, the fourth quickest run in the class on Day Two!

While he had been knocking on the door of an eight-second pass, back at Willowbank on Sunday Jason was ready to pack up and head home, but he gave it one last go and scored an 8.91@144mph, completing the biggest goal he’d set for the UC coming into the event.

Jason finished Drag Challenge Weekend in seventh overall, with the difference between fourth and seventh place a mere seven-tenths of a second.

“I do a lot of kilometres in the car, cruising it from the Sunshine Coast to Willowbank, so I have really loved the event,” Jason enthused.