John Willard’s Aussie Outlaw Anglia smashed the world record on the car’s very first track outing.
At the 2200 DRA Drag Day at Sydney Dragway, Willard got the chance to put his wild looking blown Anglia to the test for the first time.
The car was built by Willard at his Flatout Services workshop to compete heads up in the Outlaw Anglia bracket, which is incredibly popular in the UK. Willard, a fan and stalwart of the make here in Australia over the years, set about building his dream machine after taking in the racing overseas, with the ultimate goal to take the car to the UK and compete.
With the car built to the Outlaw Anglia rule spec, the other main goal was to run a six second pass, something that had not been achieved to date by his overseas brethren.
On debut, Willard sent a shockwave overseas as he cranked out a 6.938 at 201mph!
We will let Willard take you through the day’s achievements in his own words courtesy of his Aussie Outlaw Facebook page story.
“We finally got a chance to debut the Aussie Outlaw/ Outlaw Anglia on Saturday 5th of December 2020, and what a debut it was! The intention was to run some short times to hopefully sort the car out for some full power runs at a future event. Well, apart from a loose air line to the shocks and a loose fuel fitting- there were no problems!
FIRST HIT:- Obviously this would be a burnout and a 60′ pass to identify any drivetrain, handling etc problems (and to settle the drivers nerves!). Well, the idiot behind the wheel couldn’t even turn the tyres! Twice! After staging the car anyway, I let it go and it moved to the right a bit so I got out of it, resulting in a 1.112 60′ time.
After killing the engine I heard a loud hissing noise, that upon inspection was an air hose that had come out of the RHS rear shock- easy fix. We decided not to make any chassis adjustments for the next hit, blaming the air line ( and therefore soft shocks) for the right turn.
SECOND HIT:- I got the tyres to turn! But backed out too early and messed it up, resulting in a dud burnout, if you could even call it that! I made it to half track and recorded a 1.093 60’/ 3.001 330′ and a 4.543 660′ @ 157mph. The Haltech data logger said that I got off it at 4.8 seconds but it still went 7.454@147 over the 1/4 mile.
The car still moved right at the hit so we put a flat of preload in the 4-link. Brett also made a small change to the tune up. At this stage everyone was getting excited and the pressure was on for a full pass. This is where experience and know how comes in. Brett demanded that I go to the 1000′ mark so that he could get some data to fit a tune up that would be safe all the way to the 1320.
THIRD HIT:- I finally nailed the burnout! The car launched nice and straight and it recorded a 1.094 60’/ 2.985 330/ 4.513@160 to half track and 5.855 to the 1000′. This produced a 7.190@157 1/4 mile timeslip. Now everyone was really excited, can we run that 6 at our first outing?
The next attempt resulted in a loose fuel fitting during the burnout, so the run was aborted
FOURTH HIT:- While in the staging lanes it started to sprinkle with rain, making me uncomfortable about making what would be the last hit of the day. I suggested giving it a miss- we already had recorded a 7.19- lets be happy with that. Well, the crew was having none of that and man am I glad that I got overruled! After another pretty good (for me) burnout the car made a slow move right again but I think it was me this time, not the car. As the car shifted into 3rd I was thinking do I keep in it? The car felt beautiful so I drove it all the way to the finish line. I braced for the chutes to hit and wow, they hit hard! They lifted the slicks off the ground and bounced them a few times but eventually it settled down (might have to have another look at the anchor height). I turned the car off into the return road to wait for the crew to pick me up thinking to myself- was that a six? I’ve never ran one but it sure felt fast!
The buggy finally appeared with the crew in it doing their best to look unexcited, it was at that point that I was pretty sure we had done it. As they got closer they cracked and shouted that not only was it a 6- it was also a 201 mph pass! WHAT A DAY!.
