In this pre-Christmas episode of Carnage, Scotty heads to the track for the final time in 2022 to seek redemption for Dad’s Ute.

If you’ve been keeping track of our Carnage exploits, you’ll know that in the last episode Scotty had an absolute nightmare at Calder Park’s Fast Friday in Dad’s Ute, with the car choking itself off the line on just about every run.

Scotty reckoned a big part of the problem was heat soak with the carby, so to prepare for this episode he stuck a plastic spacer under the carb in the hopes it’d help curtail the issue.

In this episode we’re at Heathcote Park Raceway this time for a test day, and Scotty’s hopes was for a PB and maybe a 12-second slip with the spacer.

The first run started off well, the car showing no signs of the bogging we saw in the last episode and its best 60-foot time to date. Unfortunately the top end just wasn’t there, the ute ringing home to the tune of a 14.1.

After another 14-second pass Scotty theorised the spacer may actually be robbing him of some much-needed power, so for the next run he ditched it and crossed his fingers there’d be no fuel temp issues.

That gamble paid off, Dad’s Ute leaving the 14s well behind with a 13.26 @102mph, which immediately gave Scotty the taste for a 12.

He went out for another pass and sadly the transmission decided to be the next problem child when second started gear slipping down the track. Given he still had to drive the car back home, that brought a premature end to the final day at the track for Carnage this year.

Next year Scotty will get the transmission beefed up, and then hopefully make a return to the Mopar Nationals at Heathcote to (hopefully) back up this year’s ripping class win.