Cruising the backroads of Australia with your mates is one of the greatest experiences you will ever have with your street machine. Fortunately, the proliferation of drag-and-drive events over the past decade or so has provided us with many and varied opportunities to do just that, from our own Street Machine Drag Challenge to events like Hot Rod Drag Week or Rocky Mountain Race Week in the US. After all, who wouldn’t want to be a part of a convoy of tough, road-pounding monsters driving from track to track to battle it out for bragging rights?

First published in the October 2025 issue of Street Machine

The latest Aussie event of this type was the inaugural Allstars Drag & Drive in July, hosted by Queensland duo Daniel Düll and Daniel Case. “Queensland has a really strong car culture, and there’d been talk about organising another drag-and-drive up here for a while,” Dan Case said. “We just wanted to light a fire under the car scene here, so we thought, ‘Let’s dip our toes in the drag-and-drive scene and do it.’”

The Dans weren’t out to reinvent the wheel, drawing inspiration from successful events like Drag Week, Sick Summer and Drag Challenge, but with a focus on attracting the best and quickest entrants they could. The three-day event started and ended at Willowbank Raceway, with road legs to and from the eighth-mile Warwick Dragway in between.

From a racer’s perspective, the biggest adversary during any of these events is track prep. Radial cars in particular can struggle on a drag strip, especially in summer heat, so the boys elected to run the event in July. It turned out to be smart idea, with great drag racing weather throughout the event.

There were plenty of classes on offer, catering to a wide range of entrants: Unlimited; Forced and N/A 28s (for cars on a 28×11.5 slick); Forced and N/A 235/255; Pro Import (including Japanese and four- and six-cylinder cars); and three index classes in Pro 8.50, Pro 10.50 and Pro 11.50. Plans for a manual class were aborted for this year, but the two Dans are keen to revisit the idea for future events.

Those who just wanted to cruise alongside the entrants but not participate in the racing could join the Cruise Crew, and as long as you hit the Day One and Day Two checkpoints on the road legs, you could still come away saying you completed the event.

Check-in day was Thursday, with a test-and-tune afterwards at Willowbank Raceway. The early testing meant organisers could spear some hotshots from each class into quarantine for further observation, which would have been a new experience for many racers. As it was the first event, with a lot of drag-and-drive newbies, the quarantine rules were pretty relaxed this year but will tighten for future events.

More than 165 cars entered Allstars, but by the end of Day One’s racing that number had dwindled to the 130s, due either to breakages or racers who just couldn’t get it together.

Daniel Smith immediately bucked the trend of these kinds of events being dominated by boosted bent-eights, running the quickest time on Day One in Brendon De Ruyter’s turbocharged four-cylinder 1983 Celica. “Our highlight was running our first ever four-second pass to the eighth-mile on the first day, and then repeating that on all three days of racing,” he said.

Daniel went on to post a PB of 7.60@185mph on Day Three to firmly stamp his authority over the event and emerge with the overall win. And with 100hp worth of nitrous still up his sleeve, a 7.50 is looking pretty likely before long.

Other stand-outs included Mitchell Sloane’s nitrous LS-powered VN Commodore, which at had its neck wrung every pass, with Mitch eventually running a best of 8.617 on Day Three in the 8.50 index class.

Pro Import racer Guy King was a crowd fave in the 1J-powered KE38 Corolla wagon. Guy had it wicked up for the event, running an 8.74@155mph on Day One and finishing the weekend with a best of 8.59@157mph.

John Vesnaver ran strongly in his HR Holden in the Pro 8.50 class, completing 31 passes over the three days, all between 8.4 and 8.6. The HR’s 6.0-litre LS combo was built by KPM Performance Engines in Gatton, Queensland and is fitted with twin 64/66 Precision turbos.

“Our preparation was minimal, as we were confident with the car’s reliability,” John said. “We just organised spare tyre and wheel sets for the road course, and loved the road section, cruising along surrounded by lots of horsepower.”

Another car that was absolutely dialled in for the Pro 8.50 class was Michael Basile’s twin-turbo, 400ci LS-powered ClubSport, which ran an 8.507 on Day One, 5.512 on Day Two at the Warwick eighth-mile, and took out the class win on Day Three after posting an 8.503.

“The lead-up was all about the preparation and testing, dialling in the 8.50 and making sure everything was in good shape for the event,” said Michael. Sounds easy when you say it fast!

While the big guns were battling it out at the top of the field, the 10.50 class was hotly contested, with a field of 31 cars and the top 10 in class all within two-tenths after Day One. Rob Armstong won the reaction time award each day, with .005 and .008 lights.

Matt Lampard had an interesting few days, struggling with traction in his twin-turbo LS-powered HZ Kingswood, LUMPER, while chasing his 7.80 PB.

“We live around 2200km from where the event was held, so there was a lot of planning to be able carry everything, as well as making sure we had a reliable set-up to withstand the Queensland roads and wildlife,” said the Warrnambool, Victoria local. “Running sidepipes would help scare the animals away, was our theory, but we had to do a few sneaky swerves to dodge some kangaroos on the roads at night.

“We split a fuel line on the drive after Day One, so we did some MacGyvering and removed some sections of inline pumps, chucked out some check valves and just turned an octopus of pumps into a one-pump wonder to limp it to the next town to repair.”

Matt and crew got some fittings off a local guy in the morning, welded up a sidepipe in some dude’s shed, and were back at it on Day Two to set the quickest reaction time for the day in the Forced 28s class.

Like most drag-and-drive events, the camaraderie was sky-high, and the mild Queensland weather made it an entrants’ dream both on track and on the drives. By all accounts, it was an extremely well-run event, too, and we look forward to what the two Dans have in store for Allstars Drag & Drive next year.

“We will probably tweak quarantine for next year and tighten up a few rules,” said Dan Case. “Like any event, there’s always a few who want to stretch the rules, but now that the first event is done and people know what is expected, there will be no more warnings.

“The only other obvious change will be with the route. This year, we let people make their own way from A to B, and despite providing maps, some entrants got lost and ended up on dirt roads. We will be all over this for the next event.

Overall, though, Daniels Düll and Case were pleased with how the first Allstars Drag & Drive panned out. “We’ll focus on filling some of the bigger classes for next year,” Dan C said. “This event is supposed to be for the best and quickest drag-and-drive cars in Australia, and we will keep working to make that happen.”

HIGHLIGHTS:

1. Danny Lansdowne had a wild ride in his VC Commodore when he cleaned up a kangaroo on the drive, with his wife and two kids on board. In the true spirit of the event, they straightened things up with a Porta Power, banged in a new headlight, and kept on trucking.

2. First in the Unlimited class was Shaye O’Reilly in the little Datsun 1200 ute, KRAYZE. It’s a serious car with a three-quarter chassis, four-link and rollcage by Dan Smith at FAB LAB. Up front is a twin-turbo, cast-iron 5.3L LS with a Spool forged crank, Carrillo rods and pistons, LJMS custom-grind cam, DRP heads and BTR valvetrain. The ute produced 1134hp@7200rpm on 27psi on the hub dyno, with tuning by Varun Sharma at 101 Motorsport.

3. The bad-arse Celica of Brendon de Ruyter from Auto Perfection on the Gold Coast took the overall win, driven by Daniel Smith. Powered by a billet-block K24 four-pot with a 4P Kingpin head and Drag Cartel cams and rockers, the Toyota ran a 20.215 total elapsed time for the three days. The trans is a Powerglide built by Greg Brooks with an SDE converter, while a Haltech Nexus R5 runs it all.

4. Sydneysider Steve Reimann walked the tightrope in his non-tech-inspected 1967 Corvette. Powered by a pump gas-sipping 327ci small-block Chev, the car ran a best of 10.39@126mph. Pretty stout for an old bloke!

5. Victorian Matt Lampard was loving the fast pace of the event in his HZ Holden, but was penalised by the one-second staging rule, which cost him heavily, bumping him from what would have been third to seventh place overall.

6. A big shout-out to Nichole Willett from Gympie in her turbo LS-powered HG. Nicole drove and maintained the car on her own for the whole event and ran a best of 10.60.

7. Despite making 31 passes over the three days, with his HR ute running like a Swiss clock, John Vesnayer rolled into third spot in the super-competitive Pro 8.50 class.

8. Winner of the Pro 8.50 class was the bulletproof VE ClubSport of Michael Basile. The LS is based around a Dart block with Brodix LS7 heads, backed by a TH400 transmission with a Circle D bolt-together converter, and a Monro Racecars four-link rear with Menscer shocks.

9. Scott Hoffman recorded the quickest pass of Day Two with a 4.94@153mph in his Corolla, but an 8.18 pass on Day Three allowed Jason Kenny in the LS1 Power Performance & Tuning Commodore to slip past him with a 7.93, leaving Scott in second place in the Forced 28s class, and third overall.