The lads from the Hackshop Garage YouTube channel Nathan Camilleri and Michael Ludviksen took on a mammoth 14 week build of Nathan’s XE to get it ready for this year’s Drag Challenge, and boy was it worth the effort!

They swapped the turbo SOHC six pot gear from Nathan’s NF Fairlane, a car that’s successfully completed two Drag Challenges. You can read more about how that swap went down here.

We pick up that story with their two part video series from DC 2024, a pair of ripper feature length videos showing the ins and outs of this crazy event. Despite being a freshly completed car, the lads had bugger all trouble on the road or track during the punishing five day, 2000 kilometre marathon in the untested machine.

Nathan’s opening runs at the eighth-mile Atlantic Oils Sunset Strip in Mildura was the very first passes for the XE, having no time to test as the lads took Michael’s HQ on the Hardass 1000 the week prior.

He ran a best of 6.92@102mph there, but it was the following day at Dragway at The Bend where things got really exciting. This is where the driveline had PB’d the year before in Nathan’s heavier Fairlane at a 10.84, so he and Michael were quietly confident of a solid number.

On its first full quarter mile pass, the XE ripped off a 10.58@126mph. To run a 10.5 on its first full fat rip was awesome, and that was pushing through the foot brake!

Being localish to Heathcote Park Raceway, Nathan opted to wait until the two last days at the central Victorian track to really let the XE eat. The penultimate day saw him make good on that and run even faster again, a 10.34@129mph, followed by a 10.48 the following day to wrap out the week with a top 10 finish in the Speed Pro Six Cylinder class.

So go grab your favourite brewski, crack it open and enjoy part one of their Drag Challenge ’24 episodes below.