Lee Povey’s VL Calais wins Haltech Horsepower Heroes with 2109hp

Another record breaking year in the Haltech Horsepower Heroes dyno competition has come to a close at Street Machine Summernats 37, with Lee Povey’s twin-turbo, Dart LS VL Calais taking home the top prize.

After making 2011hp in qualifying yesterday, the 427ci Warspeed-built combo backed it up with two runs over 2000hp, the biggest coming in at 2109hp to the hubs. He took home the top Haltech Horsepower Hero award, as well as first place in the 8CYL Forced Induction class.

Second place went to MPW Performance’s Avyon ‘Abe’ McLeod and his XFZILLA XF Falcon, a car that recently enjoyed success at Drag Challenge with a class win from the freshly-built machine. Coming into Summernats the 7.3-litre Godzilla, twin turbo combo had made around 1400hp.

In qualifying the lads eclipsed that well and truly with a 1702hp run, and in the finals he went one better with a fresh dyno PB for the car of 1739hp, running out of fuel system. He scored second place both overall and in the 8CYL Forced Induction class.

MORE 2500hp VL Commodore wins Haltech Horsepower Heroes at Summernats 36

Third spot overall was awarded to Bilal Hamoud’s FG G6E, which uses an (albeit unverified) world-first 4.3-litre stroker Barra combo from Kanaris Engines.

He’d already been the top qualifier at one stage throughout the weekend with a run of 1620hp, and proved that effort was no fluke with a 1667hp figure recorded in the finals. That yielded him third spot overall, and first place in the 6CYL Forced Induction class.

Second place in the forced six class went to another turbo Barra FG, EJ Chrisanthou’s XR6 Turbo punching out 1474hp from the de-stroked 3.8-litre mill built by Tunnel Vision Turbocharging. He ran 46psi through that poor little Barra, handing him the Boost Demon award.

Having two Barras in the same chassis but different stroke duke it out for top honours in class was an added level of interest for the crowd, showing just how diverse the Barra combo has become.

Third placed qualifier Lachlan Gow couldn’t make it for the finals in yet another turbo FG Falcon, so his spot was filled by Scott Mathieson’s 2JZ-powered MX83 Toyota Cressida.

Having qualified with 990hp, like many of the finalists he jumped up his PB and became the sixteenth car to run over 1000hp this weekend with a peak of 1024hp.

In a cool moment for us, our own Scotty Taylor qualified for the third place spot in the 8CYL Forced Induction class with 1346hp from our twin-turbo ‘Grimace’ VS Commodore ute. He went even better today with a new power PB of 1362hp, a phenomenal result for a car he drove all the way from Melbourne and intends to drive back home!

Along with having the most amount of 1000hp qualifiers ever, another record that was broken was the highest horsepower we’ve ever seen from an aspirated V8.

Finished on New Year’s Eve, Edin Dervisevic’s stunning HK Monaro thumps to the tune of the 632ci fatty built by John from VP Racing. Sucking through a 1650cfm carby and tunnel-rammed intake, it re-wrote the record books during qualifying with an astonishing 1098hp!

After some ignition troubles right before it was due to run in the finals, a bad earth was corrected and it romped to a class winning number of 1083hp. He was also awarded the Torque Titan trophy to go with his 8CYL Aspirated class win.

Second place in the 8CYL Aspirated class went to another big-block, but from the Blue Oval. Adam Mitchell’s 1964 Ford Fairlane 500 and its 540ci Ford full fat qualified with 718hp, furthering that on Sunday with 735hp.

Other winners included Josh Smith, whose Dodge R6 Nascar-powered VH Commodore was chosen by dyno operator and MPW Performance Adam Rogash for the Outstanding Engineering and third place in the 8CYL Aspirated class with 661hp.

The final class of the weekend was for the aspo six-pots, Wes Goodwin’s AU Falcon XR6 circuit car taking the top cherry. The Intech is mildly fettled for production car racing, and chucked out 245hp through the T5 gearbox.

Second place in the 6CYL Aspirated went to Ron Gow’s EF Fairmont with 171hp from the SOHC, and sadly Dean Grima’s stroked 202 VK Commodore that qualified in third wasn’t able to make a run in the finals as it started leaking power steering fluid as it was getting bolted onto the dyno.

All in all, with a whopping 16 cars breaking the four-digit barrier and plenty of variety across the winners, it was a year to remember for the Haltech Horsepower Heroes at Summernats.