UPDATE

Fonzie and the Barramont have done us proud at Sick Week Summer. Fonzie turned it up on the final day to run an 8.944-seconds at 151mph.

The Fairmont was the fastest six of the event (out of only two) and finished second in the Sick Freak class behind Rob Courtney’s AWD Honda Civic.

5 JUNE, 2023

Sick Week Summer kicks off today at Cordova Raceway in Illinois. It is a five-day offshoot of Sick Week that has a little Australian flavour in the mix, thanks to Aussie Drag Week veterans Nick Skarajew and John Faraone.

They’ll also be joined by an honorary Aussie, Michigan’s Fonzie Novelo in his Barra-powered 1979 Ford Fairmont.

Sick Week Summer will be the competition debut of the Fairmont, which has been in the build for the past two years.

Based on the same platform as the Fox-body Mustang, these Fairmonts are the perfect proposition for a Barra swap. Fonzie started with a ripper – a one-owner car in Light Chamois with just 36,000 miles on the clock, needing only minor rust repairs and some retrimming to come up looking like new.

Fonzie wanted to keep the car a six-pot and tracked down a Barra from Utah, which he then built up from scratch with Ross pistons, Manley I-beam rods, ARP main and head studs, ACL bearings and Ferrea valves.

There are more than a few Aussie aftermarket parts in the mix, includng a 6boost exhaust manifold, Plazmaman intake, Crow valve springs and a Torque Power adapter for the TH400. The turbo is a Forced Inductions 80mm unit.

The rest of the driveline consists of a Hughes converter, a Gear Vendors overdrive and a Ford 8.8-inch diff with 3.31 gears.

The rims are Weld Draglites, sneakily hidden by factory Fairmont hubcaps.

Fonzie has run mid-nines in testing and is hoping to take out the Sick Freaks class at Sick Summer. Check out the Barramont’s Facebook page here.