Drag Challenge 2024 is so bloody close! Day one of racing gets underway from 9am this morning at Calder Park, but yesterday all the entrants had to come through to get stickered up, signed up and safety checked for the week of mayhem.

One of the major talking points was John Ricca’s new-to-him VH Commodore, overall Drag Challenge winner in 2016 with former owner Bubba Medlyn. The Holden V8 powered machine has been given a last-minute rebirth with new turbos, interior, paint colour change and a full once over.

The Little Paw, Holden-based mill was chucking out digits in the 2000hp range on the dyno the night before sign in, but with the car still untested, the boys still have a lot of work ahead of them before heading on track today and getting through the week.

Nick Hansen’s 1963 Dodge Phoenix is over from Perth, running a 360 punched out to 408 cubes. He’s only owned the car for a few months, and so far has run a PB of 12.72@108MPH aspirated. For Drag Challenge he has a 100 shot of gas, so he’ll be looking to improve that PB over the week in the Hare & Forbes DYO.

Brendon de Ruyter’s K24-powered Toyota Celica is back for another crack at nabbing a seven second hat, running in Tuff Mounts 235 Blown. Daniel Smith is backing driving again this year, but what has changed is a full billet version of the K24. The overall PB for the 1300hp machine is a 7.76@183MPH, so it’ll be one to watch this week.

Kelvin Mann’s super neat VS ute has been through the ringer the last couple of days. It runs an LS with a rear mounted turbo, but the mexican Chev nuked itself during in testing just a week out from the event. A spare LS has been sourced, given some gapped rings and stabbed in ready for a week of drag and drive.

Everyone expected Maxx Performance head man Zane Heath to bring some Barra-swung Ford to DC, but instead he has sweet WRX! The STi has a 2.0-litre with semi closed deck, rods, pistons, big single PSR turbo and Link engine management. It’s rocking 350awkW through the six-speed manual, with four drag radials strapped to the roof for racing. Madness!

Chris Spicer’s S13 Silvia has lived a life, including being trashed by Cleetus McFarland! It has had several LS combos during that time, currently running an L98 with a GT42 hairdryer. It’s roughly a 1000hp combo, running a max of 21psi. Its current PB is a 10.40@147MPH, but he plans to lower that to as close to a 9.50 as possible this week, running in the Pro Street Radials 9.5 Radial index class.

Manny Debrincat won the Speed Pro Six Cylinder class at Drag Challenge last year, but this year his billet RB VL Calais gave him engine troubles right on the eve of the event. “We had it on the dyno and it did some valves, then we found the balancer had stripped the tooth from the crank!” Not wanting to miss out, he’s subbed in his 2016 Porsche 911 GT3 RS. Finding Drag Challenge-legal rubber was a mega challenge (it has to be under 140 tread wear) stretched him thin, but the lightly tuned Porsche has suitable shoes for the week.