Lee Povey took out the top gong at Northern Nats earlier this year and is now preparing to make his Desert Nationals debut at Alice Springs Inland Dragway across August 24 and 25.
The event marks the first round of the new ANDRA Regional Sportsman Championship, with Povey set to field his twin turbo VL Holden Calais in the Top Sportsman bracket.
The Mt Isa mechanic and co-owner of LAP Auto Centre will then be staying on for Red CentreNATS, taking place the following weekend at a number of venues including Alice Springs Inland Dragway.
“This will be the first time we have raced the Desert Nationals, although we have been to Alice Springs Inland Dragway a number of times and really like it there,” Povey said.
“It has been great to see the upgrades they have done over the last few years. We have a few guys coming over from Mt Isa with us racing in the other classes and are looking forward to hopefully a good and laid back event.
“We are keen as to get into it – Red CentreNATS is always on our calendar, so when the Desert Nationals was scheduled for the weekend before it made sense to throw our hat in the ring and see if we can keep some of the other guys on their toes!
“We are not sure how we will go against some of the other more regular guys like Greg Damiani, but we will certainly give it a crack!”
While Povey’s racing machine cuts a tough figure, it is completely street legal.
“It is a full street car with electric windows, electric mirrors and so on and is street registered, but we also race a lot of events in it,” he explained.
“The quickest it has gone is 7.43 at 186mph, I am not sure we will get that out of it at Alice Springs but we will see what we can do. We will be running radial tyres also where a lot of our competitors will be on big slicks; if we can run a low eight pass I will be pretty happy, and we will certainly be doing our best.
“We have been on a pretty good streak lately, including winning the OG 275 class at the Kenda 660 Radial event held two weekends ago at Benaraby, so hopefully we can keep that momentum going,” he added, while thanking his wife Anna, Spot On Performance, Troy from Warspeed and Kon from Wollongong Automotive Services for their support.
Entries for the Desert Nationals close on August 16th, 2024. Go to www.cadra.com.au to enter.
For more from ANDRA, visit www.andra.com.au
2024/2025 ANDRA REGIONAL SPORTSMAN CHAMPIONSHIP DATES
• Round one – August 24-25 – Alice Springs Inland Dragway – Desert Nationals
• Round two – September 21-22* – Mildura’s Sunset Strip – Sunset Nationals
• Round three – November 22-23 – Perth Motorplex – Goldenstates
• Round four – December 7-8* – Portland’s South Coast Raceway – South Coast Nationals
• Round five – February 8-9^ – Dragway at The Bend
• Round six – February 14-15 – Mildura’s Sunset Strip – Twilight Nationals
• Round seven – March 15-16 – Whyalla’s Steel City Raceway – event name TBC
• Round eight – TBC – Dragway at The Bend – ANDRA Grand Final
*track will host an optional test day on the Friday
^event will double as a track championship round
