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Fresh from a third-place class finish at Street Machine Drag Challenge 2024 in the 1100rwhp Carnage VS ute we call ‘Grimace’, our own Scotty Taylor kept the ball rolling with a runner-up trophy at the Kenda 660 Radial Series Nightmare at The Bend event in mid-December.

It was an awesome showcase for radial racing in South Australia, with hot cars from WA, Queensland and Victoria joining the SA locals to throw down on the world-class Dragway at The Bend surface, and there were plenty of Drag Challenge regulars in the mix.

Scotty contested the Radial Renegade 5.50 index class at the event. “The car runs 8.50s down the quarter easy, so I knew that’d calculate out to a 5.50 on the eighth-mile,” he says. “The biggest difference was the style of racing. I had to get the car and my head ready for that pro tree they run at Kenda; it’s very different to Drag Challenge!”

Friday’s testing was a mixed bag for Scotty, with hot track temps giving him a few dramas early on. “Thankfully, Adam Rogash flew over from Melbourne to give us a hand, and he helped get a tune for us that resulted in a solid 5.57 pass in the evening,” he says.

Saturday’s race day was also a hot one, but the beauty of round-robin index racing is that it isn’t just about outright speed. After three rounds of qualifying, Scotty copped a grid spot of seventh, racing in the first round against Glenn Henley’s Datsun 1200 ute. He got the win, advancing to also beat Jarryd Duggan’s baby-blue LX Torana and Tyson Long’s VS Commodore ute in the following two rounds.

His final battle for the Radial Renegade 5.50 crown was against Brad Schreiber’s VB Commodore, and it went down to the wire, with Brad nabbing the win by just 14 thousandths of a second!

“We didn’t get quite enough time to cool down the car between runs for the final, but that’s racing,” says Scotty. “But I got the jump off the tree in every race, so that was awesome for my confidence, and to go up against the number-one qualifier in the final was amazing. I had no ambitions to win anything when we went there, so to make it that far was good enough for me.

“It was such an awesome event, very much like Drag Challenge in the community aspect,” he continues. “Everyone was really positive about being there and it was super well run, so I’ve got to give massive props to Justin Simpson and his crew for the show they put on, especially for us entrants.”

Massive thanks also go to those who’ve supported Grimace’s journey so far, including MPW Performance, VPW Australia, Proflow, RTS, Street Pro, Haltech, Turbosmart, Tuff Mounts, AllFast Converters and Pulsar Turbos.