Rain brought an early end to racing at Dragway at the Bend on the final day of Street Machine Drag Challenge 2025, but not before DC stalwart Brandon Zito ran a PB of 7.42@191mph to take out the Hare & Forbes Machineryhouse Radial Blown class and seal a memorable outright victory in his twin-turbo LC Torana. We caught up with Brandon after his big win to find out how it all went down.

Congratulations on winning Street Machine Drag Challenge 2025, Brandon!

It hasn’t sunk in yet; I can’t believe it. This morning when I woke up, I was shaking. I didn’t know how today was going to pan out with the weather – what if someone got a run in before us and it got delayed? But we got the whole field through, and as soon as I got that run in, we all said to each other, “I think we’re done.” I was so happy. We’ve been one and done all week; it’s been really cool. The last drive was hard, but we made it finally. It sat on 215 degrees the whole way here – we didn’t do it easy. When we saw these lights and Tailem Bend, I was like, “Thank God!”

Your LC has been given a thorough makeover for this year’s DC; tell us about it.

This year it’s a brand-new car: new arse-end, new motor, new front end – everything. So, to go out and do this after two test passes on the Tuesday, I’m stoked. We went from a 275/50R15 radial to a 275/60, and what a difference that made. We can feed in so much more power earlier on. It’s only the beginning I think; there’s still so much more power to throw at it.

What’s the Torana’s driveline now?
Small-block Chev, twin Pulsar G42-1450 turbos, Powerglide, SDE converter, and a nine-inch with 3.5:1 gears. It made 1450hp on the hub dyno on 30psi, but we’re pushing it a lot more now. It’s still got an electric fuel pump, Siemens 2400 injectors, and runs E85. Hopefully we can still go faster.

Any issues with the new combo during the week?

We had some problems with the eGates at Mildura. When they’re working, they’re the best thing ever, but when they screw up they’re a headache to fix. We did one pass on Day Three and went 5.1, but we found out the eGate had popped and were trying to assess it. When we were fixing that one, we fried the other one, and we were at the track ’til about midnight. Then we went to CSV at Mildura and were there ’til 5am – we finished it and got back to the room at 5:15. We were back up at 7am the next day to head to the track and went 5.01@145mph; we just disconnected one of the gates. Even the pass today was only on one gate, and we PB’d again and went 191mph, which was crazy fast.

You’ve been a regular DC competitor for many years; how does it feel to finally get the overall win?

It’s been an awesome week. I think this is the fifth Drag Challenge I’ve done, and the best we’ve finished before this was third outright and second in my class, so to get the win this time, I’m so happy. Thanks to everyone who helped get me here: JR Modifications for doing the rear end in the car; Jake and Frank from Dandy Engines; Nathaniel Ardern – he’s a wizard and he makes it work; everyone else who helped me get here; and my crew with me in the car.