After 18 months on the sidelines, Victorian Darren Parker is making a return to the strip at the upcoming Sydney Dragway Top Doorslammer / Pro Stock meeting on March 18~19th in a new car and in a new class.
With the assistance of Pro Stock legend Peter Ridgeway, Parker had renowned American chassis guru Jerry Haas build a new Pontiac GXP for Australian Pro Stock. At 6’3” tall Darren struggled to find a used car that he would comfortably fit into, so the best solution was to have Jerry build a new car and take advantage of a chassis that has been purpose built for the 400ci engines rather than trying to modify a used 500ci NHRA vehicle to work with the smaller drivelines we’re running over here in Australia. The other benefit of buying a new car was the aerodynamic advantage of the latest ‘Spec body’ vehicles compared to the earlier body styles, so it is win-win all around for Parker.
Powering the new ride is an Australian Pro Stock 398ci SBX Chevrolet sourced by Peter Ridgeway. Running the new CFE SBX-A cylinder head and tuned by Ridgeway and Arthur Sagiarus from Custom Engines it is making more than enough power to push the GXP to the pointy end in both Super Stock and Pro Stock!
Initially Darren is going to run the car in Super Stock to spend some time getting his head around the engine and chassis tuning before stepping up to Pro Stock and racing with the ‘big boys’. It is going to be a steep learning curve going from a 9 second Commodore to a low 7 second Pontiac GXP and he wants to make sure he does it right.
Darren is spending a couple of days testing at Sydney Dragway prior to the race meeting to get some seat time under his belt and get a good baseline ready for racing. The plan is to run the Pro Stock meeting in March, Nitro Champs, Winter Nationals and make a running start at the 2011~2012 Rocket All Stars Super Stock Championship.
With the ANDRA debut of his new car just around the corner Darren wanted to take the opportunity to thank the following people for their assistance in getting everything organised for the car and into Australia ready to race.
Peter Ridgeway, Ridgeway Motorsports.
Neil Hendry, Cryogen Industries. www.cryogen.com.au
Arthur Sagiarus, Custom Engines.
Jerry Haas and Dan Hellmer and all the team at Jerry Haas Race Cars.
Bruno Cugnetto, VPW.
For some history on the build or just to follow Darren and his GXP on the track you can follow his blog at http://www.vdrc.org.au/racers/racer-blogs/darren-parker.html where you will be kept up to date with the latest news out of the Parker Motorsport Engineering GXP Camp.
