Category Archives: Racing

Headed off to Calder park once again for the true blue slam fest,
With plenty of dramas on the trip down, we came this close to giving up on the event, what with dad in hospital and what not. None the less he endured huge amounts of pain to get the car to the track, and tune it from his sick bed. It was a great opportunity for the crew, to step up and show what they’re made of…(not much as it turns out…) naaah they did great! It’s a big deal to control these cars from a crew chief point of view. I’m proud of the guys for pulling together to get us down the track and for dad to allow us to run the car without his hands on.

As for the event we only managed 3 runs. And this is how they break down;

Q1; because of the devastating weekend we had down there last time we planned to just slide the car down the track nice and easy. We did, with a 4.37sec at 169mph I think.

Q2; we got after it a little bit more. And cranked out a 4.22 sec at 170mph pass. It was a loose run, heading for the wall then a bump in the track caused the tyres to break free and it made a big move toward the centre line. This later turned out to be the 2nd quickest run down that lane for the entire weekend, only bettered in the final by Maurice Fabietti.

R1; because we had lane choice over Dale Clothier I chose the lane without the bump. Coming up to the line I found that I couldn’t see the tree and as a result had to move over out of the groove, for the launch. The car made a big move toward the centre line straight off the launch, I short shifted and drove it straight to the win. A 4.25sec at 174mph beat a 5 something. Unfortunately only the quickest 4 winners progressed to the semis. I wasn’t one of them. I think er cam 6th overall.

We prepped the car to go to Portland in two weeks time – Saturday 5th February.

We will keep you posted.

Sorry for not writing for quite a while. I have a few excuses – I am a lazy bastard, my wife had a baby and been busy with work and play….

I guess I wasn’t really enthused to write about our performance for 2009. We junked three motors in 3 races. It was a very frustrating bad time for me and the team. In support of Top Doorslammer 1/8 mile efforts we slapped together an old engine and headed to Mildura for the first ever Slamfest in March 2010 with very low expectations due to our recent poor form.

Mildura was hot (40 degree) the flies were bad BUT the racing was great. We opted to go for a test run on Friday afternoon. The track looked fairly slick and that was demonstrated to me perfectly in the burnout where i lost complete control and nearly smacked both walls. Needless to say I was very embarassed and disappointed with myself. I didn’t make a run becuase I was a bit unsettled after that wild moment and I didn’t think it was a safe choice.

Saturday the main event. Due to the heat, racing was set back to late afternoon for the first run. Which saw Maurice Fabietti plough into the wall with huge force all but destroying his car which didn’t leave me or the other drivers I suspect with much confidence for our first run. As it turned out the Racetech Steel Statesman hooked up and launched harder then it has ever launched before. We had backed the power down as much as we could and ran a 4.24. This run was top qualifier and quickest for the round until Scott McLean picked us at the post.

The second round we made no changes and fronted up with a 4.20sec run. Taking out low et for that round and top qualifying. We were to run the secondest quickest winner from the second round in the final. That put us up against Mat Abel.

The final was run late in the night at about 11pm. The air had got better, but the track had cooled off. We miss judged the setup slightly after a poor reaction time we shot out with another personal best 60ft .99 but it was too little too late as Mat Abel had reacted quicker to the starting light and got away from me. At half track I got a little loose and backed off and coasted thru with a 4.4 something.

We were estatic about the weekend. The result, the track, the Mildura people/fans, my crew made it one of the best events we have ever attended. A big thanks to Victor Bray, Peter Kapiris, Maurice Fabietti and everyone else who helped get this event up and running including the mayor for supporting the event.

about Mildura Slamfest (our last race).

The Broadbent / Blake team have gone through some significant changes since we last raced at the Australian Nationals September 08 at WSID which was ultimately rained out after two qualifying runs.

We have since changed our entire configuration, a move we think will see us have a lot quicker car to 330ft and a faster car overall. This should all be true if we can get the power to the ground and keep it straight.

Some changes we are making for this year’s competition include;
- Most significantly we have increased compression, this should give us the MPH we require to bring down our 2nd half times.
- We have also changed our diff ratio, this is a big change, but we think if we are smart we can get it to work.
- Our cams have been completely redesigned, to make better use of the unique 3 valve heads we use. Cams, being the brain of the engine, could bring us some serious horse power gains, if we have made the right move.
- We will now be using the same stroke as when we ran our personal best 6.20sec but with a smaller bore, the compression gain should make up for the cubic inch drop, power-wise , however we are at a further disadvantage due to our cubic inch to weight problem. (We are not too concerned about weight at this stage as we are also in the process of building a new car!!!)
- By the Nitro’s we should also have the programmable ignition timing device, that everyone else seems to be running. This will allow us to add and remove timing at different stages of a run as many times as we like.
- We will also attempt to run with a different suspension setup. This is to try and better handle the increase in raw horse power and the new diff ratio.
- In addition we have re-valved out shock absorbers.

There are more changes made but we just can’t reveal everything in case we hit something sweet.

With all these changes and more we are sure to have some dramas sorting it out but we feel we will be a whole lot faster once it all comes together. The engine will be working a lot harder, so maintenance is going to be something to keep our minds on. With the new cams and comp we think we should see many more RPM’s out of the engine.

At this stage we haven’t put our engine together, as we are still waiting for parts from USA, (due to arrive this week). We will have a mad scramble to put the engine together and find a fuel combination and predict a clutch combo to start with that should slide our Racetech Steel Aussie Bananas Top Doorslammer Statesman down the track safely.

Come see us race at the Karcher Nitro Champs, Presented By Shannons at WSID – Western Sydney International Dragway.
When – Friday 1st, Saturday, 2nd and Sunday 3rd May 2009
Who’s racing – Top Fuel, Top Doorslammer, Top Alcohol, Top Bike, Pro Stock, Pro Stock Motorcycle.