The August 2026 issue of Street Machine is almost with here. We are pretty damn happy with the content mix this issue, but probably our favourite yarn is our coverage of the first Blacktop Outlaws no-prep event, held at Casino Airport and run by the Growl Racing crew.

The event was no-prep racing at its most pure. Sweeping off the biggest rocks was the only track prep, and while times were recorded for sanctioning body purposes, ETs were not made public. DYO? Never heard of her. This was pure, heads-up elimination racing, with the no-prep factor levelling the playing field.

We devoted 10 pages to the yarn in the mag, but there is never enough rooms for the images and stories we’d like to tell. So to whet your appetite, please enjoy three of our favourite rides from the event.

Keep your eyes peeled for the mag appearing at your local Coles, Woolies or newsagents on the east coast from Monday! West Aussies, you’ll get yours on Thursday.

BARRA-SWAPPED VG VALIANT HARDTOP

There weren’t many Valiants at Casino airstrip on the day, but we had to check out Matt Hughes’ VF Regal hardtop, which competed in the Street Tyre class. Mopar purists will absolutely hate the fact that it has a turbo Barra up front, but that’s how the two-door came when Matt bought the car. Since then, Matt has tubbed the hardtop himself, using an old Street Machine how-to story as a guide on the process, and he’s also fitted a nine-inch and given the Barra some tougher internals.

Running a Haltech Barra plug-in ECU, the combo makes around 800rwhp thanks to a GT42 turbo and about 25 pounds of boost. Matt has been enjoying the South-East Queensland no-prep scene, having previously run the Valiant at Lakeside, and once he gets onto a prepped drag strip, he’s hoping to run nines with it over the quarter. But he’ll probably only get to do it once because of the bench seat and lack of a rollcage.

BLOWN FE HOLDEN

Simon Grigg travelled down from the Brisbane suburb of Capalaba with his bright yellow FE Holden. It’s no slouch either; the classic Holden has gone 6.30 on the eighth and competed at street-and-strip events such as The Roadtrip. As one of the older cars at the event, the late-50s Holden was a cool piece of ‘old-school’ muscle among the many Commodores and Falcons, but that doesn’t mean it was a total dinosaur.

Under the bonnet, it packs a Dart 378ci small-block Chev running on E85, with a Haltech 2500-controlled, four-barrel EFI throttlebody atop a little Weiand 144 supercharger. We don’t see many of these little blowers anymore, but we recognised the scream of the low-blower as soon as he hit the loud pedal, and Simon had the little unit cranked all the way up to make 9psi of boost. Racing in the Gangsta Tyre class, Simon made it through to the second round, where he suffered severe wheelspin and lost to Tony Horan in his Barra-powered TD Cortina.

HX GTS REPLICA

With its hefty bullbar, mudflaps, Aunger louvres, roof racks, period-perfect mags and lift kit, we were sure that Lloyd Woodland’s HX Holden GTS Monaro replica was an old street warrior that had remained untouched since the early 80s, but no! Lloyd has built the car – which started life as an HZ – from scratch. “It’s running an injected 5.0-litre and a T5,” said Lloyd.

And the styling? “You need a bullbar around here, and the roof racks are because I’m a chippie,” he said. The rear spoiler was left unpainted for exactly the same reason so many scoops and spoilers were left in their factory black back in the 70s and 80s – Lloyd just hasn’t got around to it yet!

Lloyd was eliminated in round one of Hard Tyre, but came back later for some grudge racing fun.