ADELAIDE bloke Warren Leonard races a seriously cool front-engine dragster. The rail runs a 1969 Top Fuel chassis built by Woody Gilmore in the US, suitably improved to suit modern safety standards. For propulsion, it runs an iron block Chrysler 354-cube Hemi motor and 6/71 blower. Warren is a regular at Portland’s eighth mile South Coast Raceway and when we caught up with him a couple of weekends ago on the coast he had just run his best mph to date with a 5.1-second pass at 143mph – and that was only running on seven cylinders!

After replacing the bent valves in the Hemi, Warren was back out on track. Check out the video as Warren talks us through the car and to see if he managed to set a new PB.