A new year and the Kenda Tires 660 Drag Radial Series is back with their first of what is currently a six race calendar around Australia. The radial brigade headed to the series’ home track, Willowbank Raceway, for three big days of testing and racing (February 20-22).
It was typical hot Queensland summer weather leaving teams to tune around the tricky hot track conditions until the evening when the track and conditions came back to the racers. With no Outlaw 315 field, local Steven Smith had his twin turbo Mustang out cutting some laps putting on a show in the low 4.0s, hopefully the big tyre boys step up and support future Kenda radial events more readily in the future.
It left Outlaw 275 to pick up ball with a strong field that saw Andrew Coles rocket to victory with his Mustang in the final over Tim Cross’ Cortina 4.22 to 4.40.
Outlaw 235 once again saw the Seng brother duke it out in the final, Caleb bettered his sibling driving around a holeshot to take the stripe first with a 4.606 against a 4.732,
Into the OG classes for the serious streeters and OG 315 saw Aaron Gregory rip a 4.53 to just out power Doug Day’s Commodore in the final. Gregory was contesting the first ever event with his wicked looking ‘VADER’ Nova he built himself.
While in OG275 Jason Cowen had his little twin turbo LS LC Torana singing in the final to a 4.69 driving around Bill Abdoo’s small block Mustang also boosted by twin huffers.
K525 was a new category to the expanding Kenda series, open to pretty much any race vehicle, just bolt on radial, remove delay boxes and try and hit a 5.25 index. In the final Brett Farnell’s FED took on Brad Challacombe’s R33, with the Nissan grabbing the win light on a 5.31 after Farnell went too quick on his 5.24 pass.
Into the the rest of the index classes and Troy Lewis topped Jason Seng in Radial Renegade with a 5.612, Seng was narrowly too quick for the 5.50 index with a 5.494. The 5.80 Radial Ruckus win went to Gavin List skimmed the class limit with a 5.813 for the victory when opponent Derek Logan had a nitrous backfire on the hit in his Holden ute. Both finalists punched through the Radial Rumble 6.40 index in the final, Chris Patterson’s closer 6.385 proven the winner over John Oliver’s 6.371. And finally a holeshot win went to Tim Morton in the 7.0 Radial Rebels with his 7.112 edging out a 7.099 from Wayne Newman.
Radial Rockets was another new class for the two wheel weapons. Jake McDonnell dropped a holeshot to upset Brian Alviso as both bikes raced to a 5.80 index. At the stripe McDonnell’s 6.032 snatching the win against a 5.915.
All finals here, plus more videos on the Car Culture Youtube channel from the event.
Gallery from race day courtesy of the Drag Photos team.
