The recent Radial Riot round of the Kenda 660 Drag Radial Series at Willowbank Raceway was one of the richest Aussie street-car meets of all time, with a monumental $75,000 paid out. Needless to say, racers turned out in force for a chance at snagging a chunk of that prodigious prize purse.

First published in the December 2024 issue of Street Machine

The weather forecast wasn’t looking the best leading up to the event, but the Kenda team decided to push on after putting the vote to racers. But rain it did, which ended up seeing the main race day on Saturday 28 September being moved to Sunday thanks to the support of the awesome management team at Willowbank.

The action kicked off on Friday, with the night-time King of the Kids event seeing an eight-car field buying in for chance at a hefty $10,000 prize pot, with sponsors Light Vehicle Solutions and Gold Coast RAM topping up the remainder.

It came down to a battle of the big guns, with Wade Wagstaff in his evil ‘The Grinch’ 1957 Chevy taking on Steve Smith’s ex-Luppino Mustang. Unfortunately, Smith had hurt the transmission in the early rounds, and despite Wade giving him as much time as possible to repair the car, the show had to go on, as the dew was starting to settle on the track.

It wasn’t the way he wanted it to go down, but Wagstaff stamped his authority on proceedings and took the win, reminding everyone that even though he had sat out for the previous 12 months, he was still the man to beat, having run consistent three-second passes throughout the rounds.

Saturday saw the weather radars indicating rain heading right for the venue, so it was decided that everyone would get just one qualifying pass, with the main event moved to Sunday – a difficult but fair call under the circumstances.

The 6.40-indexed Rumble in the Jungle shootout was up first on Sunday and attracted a whopping 64 entrants thanks to the mind-boggling $25,000 on offer for the winner.

“It was a big call offering $25K,” said promoter Justin Simpson. “We weren’t going to be like some other events that cut their payouts due to fine-print conditions, entry numbers not being enough, or any other reason. We made the call, and we were going to stand by the $25K. I wanted to offer a prize purse that had the ability to actually change someone’s life and make a difference. We all own calculators and knew that the buy-ins didn’t amount to $25,000, so IDRP Group and Gold Coast RAM tipped in the balance of the prize money.”

To put it into perspective, this was the biggest payday for street-car racers in Australian Sportsman history!

As one might imagine, though, with that much dosh up for grabs, there were rules in place. To enter, you had to have a fair-dinkum, fully registered street car, and from there, you could simply get a day licence and come out and run. Only one crew member per car was allowed, and you had to hot-lap your car straight back up to the staging lanes without returning to the pits. You couldn’t touch anyone else’s car or hold up the show. The format was simple: 64 become 32, 32 become 16, 16 become eight, and so on until there was a winner.

Racing was frantic, and highlights would surely include Jessie Lindner’s Round One pass in her dad’s blown 1969 Camaro – a perfect 6.400! Having only done some street driving and a few licensing hits after levelling up from Junior Dragster, this was Jessie’s first full pass in racing conditions!

As expected, there were quite a few competitors who broke out, with many trying to slow down quicker cars to make the index. Jason Seng, who normally runs in the Renegade 5.50 class, succumbed to the pressure in the semi-finals when he left before the tree dropped.

The last two standing were Shane Locke in his SBC-powered Chevy LUV and Bill Abdou’s fastback Mustang, powered by a twin-turbo small-block. In true Sportsman fashion, they both agreed to split the $25K prior to the race, but they did have a $500 side-bet between themselves, which Locke won when Abdou broke out with a 6.39.

And that was just the beginning – a record 167 entries saw plenty of great competition across a bunch of classes, including Outlaw 315, Outlaw 275, OG275, Outlaw 235, 5.50 Renegade, 5.80 Ruckus, and 7.00 Rebels – not to mention the crazy cats on two wheels.

After racing for the $10K in King of the Kids on Friday night, Wade Wagstaff and Steve Smith met once again in the Outlaw 315 final. Wagstaff’s 3.78@200mph was just too much for Smith’s hard-charging Mustang, which stopped the clocks with a 4.25@197mph.

The 4.60-indexed OG275 is the hottest class in radial racing right now, and it was great to see Victorian Matt Turnbull back in his bad-arse VS Commodore ute. After an engine rebuild and a diet, the ute was dialled into the low 4.70s all day, once some suspension changes were made after the first qualifier. Matt went on to meet Jason Cowen in the turbo LS-powered, CPE-built Torana in the final.

Turnbull got done on the tree by .040sec before getting ahead by half-track, but ended up losing to Cowen by just .006sec – all in an eighth of a mile!

Outlaw 275 was another tight class, with Geoff Campbell-Brown’s ‘Moonshine’ Chevelle meeting the Spot On Performance-prepared Fox-body Mustang of Jamie Jeffreys in the final. Brown took the win in a nail-biter, with a 4.32 to Jamie’s 4.61.

Outlaw 235 saw one of the most dramatic finals of the weekend when Nick Baxter’s Toyota 3RZ-powered Fox-body Mustang met Caleb Seng in the ex-Dale Heiler Commodore. On the previous pass, the LS in Seng’s car – which has been a Seng family workhorse in half-a-dozen cars now – kicked the rods out right on the finish line. Incredibly, the team got the wounded bullet running and were able to take the beams in the final. While Baxter ended up taking the win, it was an incredible feat by the Seng family to even stage the car.

Cam Riley in the LS-powered VK deserves a mention, as he was able to equal the Australian 235 record of 4.48 in testing. Unfortunately, had to head home after a mechanical issue and didn’t make race day. Hopefully he travels north again to have another crack at the Queensland 235 army.

Despite the rain throwing a spanner in things, this Kenda Radial 660 meeting was one for the ages. “The track was really on point, thanks to Justin,” said Chris Diggles, who provided stellar commentary all weekend. “It was prepped after every session and round, with tyre dragging and spray so racers really had an awesome racing platform.”

If you haven’t yet been to a Kenda round, it’s a must-do, whether as a competitor or a spectator. The back end of the 2024-’25 season looks to be a cracker. Matt McCarthy is set to return in his flying Bluebird, which is now eight inches longer in the nose and fitted with a twin-turbo billet small-block. We should also see Tony Webb’s monster hatchback Torana back out there, sporting a billet Hemi. Sparks continue to fly between these two off-track, so many are keen to see how that plays out on the drag strip – no doubt it’ll make for some awesome racing!

An influx of USA-built Pro Mods is also on the cards, which could see them come and run with the big boys without having to be slowed down to meet Aussie quarter-mile rules.

The next Kenda 600 Drag Radial Series round is Nightmare at the Bend, wrapping up the year at Dragway at The Bend in South Australia on 13-14 December. Rumour has it our own Scott Taylor will be having a crack in the Carnage VS ute, so if you have the chance, get along and check it out!