Victorian Craig Geddes is no stranger to winning events, the Group 2 Super Stock and Competition Eliminator gun for over two decades has now set his sights on the top tier of aspirated drag racing – Pro Stock.
This week’s Atlantic Oil Top Fuel Slam event will see the Pro Stock competition debut of Geddes with his DecoGlaze GTO. However to get to this point, it has involved a mountain of work from the team.
“The car is a 2008 Pontiac GTO built by Stroupe Race Cars USA,” said Geddes.
“Jason Hedges purchased it new and had great success with it.
He sold it to the Gullotto Family in WA as a roller and they ran it in Competition with 500″ motor. They then fitted a twin turbo LS engine which ran into the mid 6 second zone before an on track incident saw the car tap the wall and flipping onto its roof and skidding down track.
“It was early 2022 when I contacted the guys to see if I could purchase the damaged roller. A deal was done and the car was delivered to us and we set about the task for the rebuild – the repairs went well and it is back to its former glory.
“The engine, clutch, trans and headers were all supplied by Chris Soldatos and have ran as fast as 7.00 at 195mph on leaded fuel at 2300lb.
I gave the engine a basic freshen myself with assistance from Peter Ridgeway, he dynoed it with Arthur from Custom Engines on ETS unleaded and we are very happy with it.”
Despite all his success in the sportsman classes, Geddes is well aware of the brutal nature of running competitively in Pro Stock. Likewise his competitors will know the resume he is bringing into the class.
“Our plan is to take our time learning how to run one of these cars and sneak up on the combination,” said Geddes.
“I am very realistic about what it takes to run these cars and the respect they demand, but confident we can do our team and supporters proud.
“We will be testing early January and have entered to run with the Top Fuel Championship Series in Sydney on the Australia Day weekend. We are really looking forward to running on the all-run format with the guys, and this style of racing really suits us with a mid pack type car we have assembled.”
Geddes did in fact manage some testing last weekend at South Coast Raceway ahead of the Atlantic Oil Top Fuel Slam event, taking to the Portland track for a few shakedown launches.
– Drag News Magazine
