The Mighty Mouse small block Chev powered Maggs Racing Speedflow dragster had a great start to last weekend’s ANDRA Grand Finals with an off-the-trailer 5.239 @ 210.42mph.
After the routine maintenance was completed, Jason rolled through the waterbox for Q2, but upon the hit of the throttle the engine free-wheeled with no drive to the rear wheels. A quick inspection back in the pit diagnosed a broken gear selector fork. Replacing this with a borrowed one from a fellow racer, Maggs Racing were ready for Q3.
A strong run saw Maggs record a time of 5.133 seconds at 206.61 mph, putting him into qualifying position number two, behind World Record holder John Cannuli – but this is where the good news ends.
0.063 of a second before Maggs crossed the finish line, an internal parts failure caused a chain reaction of events to occur inside the engine leading to a huge backfire explosion that destroyed the intake manifold, and caused a small fire. Fellow racer Wayne Talbot, running alongside Maggs in his Forever Young funny car, saw the flames and stopped quickly beside the wounded Maggs dragster to check on his welfare and assist the fire crews.
Maggs was fine, but same could not be said for “Mighty Mouse.”
With enough damage done due to a suspected camshaft failure to stop the team competing and taking advantage of their number two qualifying position. Jason and Robert Maggs prepared the dragster to look “race ready” as they had a 6:00am bump-in at the AAAA Auto Trade Expo at “Jeff’s Shed” Melbourne Exhibition Centre on Tuesday morning, where Jason will be signing and giving away posters on both Friday and Saturday.
A full teardown will happen next week, and a total assessment of the damage will be completed and the cause found. Then the process of rebuilding “Mighty Mouse” to take on those Hemis again next season, and taking advantage of the performance already seen from Maggs Racing will begin.
– Maggs Racing press release
