Video: Drag Challenge 2024 day two

All the highlights from the first day of racing at Mildura

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Photographers: Noah Thorley, Shaun Tanner
Videographers: Matt Hull, Shawn McCann, Axel Cox

After a long, hot drive up from Calder Park on Wednesday, entrants were chomping at the bit to get their first passes down at the eighth-mile Atlantic Oils Sunset Strip, just outside Mildura.

The morning started off fast, with three big guns reeling off four second passes. The first of those was Adam Rogash, who was one of the first cars down the track to the tune of a 4.84@157mph.

While it was a ripping start to his day, it quickly went sideways for Adam and the MPW crew. The fatty in the Capri suffered a dud lifter, killing one of the camshaft lobes. The MPW crew and Dandy Engine’s Frank Marchese went into overdrive to fit a spare cam, and Adam belted out a 4.78@158mph late in the afternoon whilst everyone else had already hit the road to Tailem Bend.

The 4.71 is the fastest eighth-mile pass in Drag Challenge history, giving Adam the lead both overall and in the Carnage Outlaw Blown class.

Others to join the four second runners were Keith Hards in FAIRXW with a 4.86@153mph, and OG DC racer Luke Foley ran his first four second pass at Drag Challenge, posting a 4.97@146mph. They both sit second and third outright, and first and second in the Boostline Radial Blown class respectively.

The day wasn’t without casualties, and the biggest of the day was Jim Sakelleridis’s Factory Five hot rod The LS-powered machine collided heavily with the right hand side wall in the fast end of the track, but thankfully Jim was okay.

John Ricca’s VH Commodore made its maiden pass since its last minute rebuild for DC. The RPM crew managed to reel off a 5.39, and they later found that was only on seven cylinders!

Most headed off in the late afternoon for the near 400km trip to Tailem Bend, which took us back down to Ouyen and across to Murrayville for the mandatory photo stop at the Murrayville tanks. With cooler temperatures to the previous day’s drive, many competitors made it to Tailem before nightfall.

You can see the full list of results by class from day one in the table below, and if you want to grab spectators for day three at Drag at The Bend, you can do that right here.

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