On 23 August 2024, the Aussie hot-car community lost two of its best: Leon ‘Harry’ Haig and Andrew Baumgartner, who were killed in a road accident not far from Harry’s home in Mooroopna North, near Shepparton. Their mate AJ John was also injured, but is up and about now.

The Street Machine team had known and worked closely with Harry for well over a decade. From day one, Harry was larger than life and very serious about doing cool shit and having the maximum amount of fun while doing it. Although a truck driver/farmer by trade, he wrote ‘drug dealer’ as his occupation on his first Street Machine tech sheet, and ‘stripper’ on each of his Drag Challenge entry forms! He was the only guy I’d ever seen drift a Toyota Coaster or go fishing on a drag-and-drive.

Harry left his mark on me in many ways, including leaving a gnarly scar on my leg when his HQ spat a fuel cap at me during Drag Challenge 2018. Despite being flat-out at the event wrestling with his car, he made time to check on me – a real gentleman.

We’d only got to know Andrew over the past couple of years, but he impressed us as a genial giant with an oversized talent for the drag-and-drive game.

The loss of both blokes has hit many of us hard. They leave behind grieving families and friends, including Andrew’s parents Monica and Duane and his kids Kayleb, Jeremy, Emma and Tyson, and Harry’s wife Bec and their kids Corty, Jett and Bud.

There is more to write about these guys than we can manage now, but for the moment, let’s look at just some of what Harry and Andrew achieved with the time they had.

Sometimes I question my choice in being a professional car photographer, but these events have taught me something: My photography journey isn’t for me, or the cars I capture; it’s for the people who own and drive them, and their friends and families. My photos are forever; they capture a moment that people can later look back on and remember great times. – Chris Thorogood

1. Our first encounter with Harry was in 2005 at one of the infamous Shepparton compound parties. However, he first came to national attention when he won the first Ultimate Burnout Challenge in 2009 with an 11,000rpm skid in his ITHOPS XR Falcon ute. This was one of the first big-money burnout comps, earning Harry $10,000 – which was immediately spent celebrating.

2. Now fuel-injected, ITHOPS went through 800L of methanol at Performance Car Mania in 2012. Harry had bought the car as a rusty junker at the age of 17, with the tray full to the top with empty stubbies. We featured the XR on the cover of the February 2013 issue.

3. I love this shot of Harry and his good mate, the late John Polkinghorne, filling up Harry’s POP666 HQ on the very first Drag Challenge in 2014. Their adventures included having to roll the rear guards with a jack handle to make the slicks clear. While Harry wasn’t in contention that year due to starting on Day Two, you could see that the drag-and-drive bug had bit him hard, with the HQ running a flat nine at Heathcote.

4. Named after the dog from the old kids’ show The Magic Roundabout, Dougal began life as a Ford Jailbar, with Harry adding wheel spats front and rear to hide the fact that the beast sat on a Hilux chassis. Powered by a $400 big-block Chev, Dougal is pictured here running amok at a Costa’s BBQ event in Bacchus Marsh. Harry built countless cars just for fun, including transforming a stuffed HT van into a cross-continent cruiser to attend the Finke Desert Race.

5. For his first tilt at Hot Rod Drag Week in 2015, Harry purchased a very sad ’69 Chevelle SS for $1500, got it running, and raced it! The next year, Robby Abbott built Harry a monster big-block and shipped it to the States, where it was plugged into the car and raced thanks to the genius of Terry Seng.

6. Gearbox dramas put paid to Harry’s DC ’17 campaign – a hot and wet torture test that included a night swagging outside the Swan Hill Repco.

7. Drag Challenge 2016 turned out to be a mechanical nightmare for Harry, with the HQ suffering a broken lifter on Day Three, followed by a cam change overnight. It then broke a rod on Harry’s only pass on Day Four.

8. Harry was joined by his son Corty and good mate Robby Abbott for Hot Rod Drag Week 2018. They successfully completed the event in the big block-powered ‘Malibu Stacy’ Chevy Malibu.

9. Harry loved the annual Chopped festival and put on an incredible display of drifting at the event in 2012. He then parked it in front of the stage to watch the bands at night. The roadster started life as a ’28 Buick tudor, and Harry spent $1000 getting it ready to rock.

10. For our second Drag Challenge in 2015, Harry gave his POP666 HQ a Pro Mod turbo and an SS-style makeover in honour of the late Craig Brewer – and towed a tinnie so the boys could go fishing along the way!

11. There had been talk forever about when a US Drag Week-style race car with number plates would front up for Drag Challenge, and of course it was Harry who was first to the post in his wild Camaro, which ran the twin-turbo big-block out of the HQ for DC 2023.

12. Harry nailed his second Drag Challenge win at the 2022-’23 event, edging out Dan Szabolics and Luke Foley for outright honours. He sealed the deal with a 7.64@184mph pass on Day Five.

13. Harry battled dramas aplenty to finish overall runner-up to Frank Marchese at Drag Challenge 2018 – and win the Turbosmart Outlaw Blown class – but not before taking out Tappy’s shin with an errant fuel cap during his burnout.

14. 2019 was Harry’s fifth hit-out at Drag Week in a row, and he came third in the Street Race BB Power Adder class. When Swede Magnus Frost pranged his Opel on Day Two, Harry strapped the Opel’s grille to the front of his Chevelle for the rest for the event.

15. Harry edged out Brendan Cherry and Daniel Szabolics to nab his first DC win in 2019. In a great show of sportsmanship, Daniel and his crewmate Frank Marchese donated a rocker arm to keep Harry on the road after Mildura – but tied it up high on a grain silo for that extra bit of challenge!

16. Harry ran two of his own Hardass 1000 drag-and-drives with his brother-from-another-mother, Ryan Ford. The Hardass events reflected Harry and Ryan’s shared love of fun and mechanical mayhem, with rest days placed between each race day for maximum good times. This year’s third event will run in honour of Harry and Andrew, 21-25 October.

17. Harry’s best mate was his son Corty. The pair did countless drag-and-drive events together and built a ton of fun cars, all documented on their Haulass Garage YouTube channel. These include the ‘Dirty Bird’ XM Falcon and Corty’s CTYWOK KE55 Corolla.

18. Originally from South Oz, Victoria-based Andrew had a long history of building cool shit for himself and others, with his car résumé including a BMW, a Mazda RX-2 and a tough HQ ute. But he really came to our attention when he debuted his turbo LS-powered HB Torana.

19. At the first Hardass 1000, Andrew Baumgartner came second outright to Rod Lyall and won the aptly named Dickswingers class.