Peter Blake - Australian Drag Car Driver

TOP DOORSLAMMER LICENSING

Since we started drag racing about 15 years ago my dream was to one day get to drive dads doorslammer. Recently this dream became reality.

My first ever drive came on the 6th August at a WSID bracket meet. With new crew, new driver and a relatively new engine/chassis combination we didn’t expect much.

The first hurdle was to get the burnout out of the way, as i found out this isn’t as easy as it appears I liken it to running in marshmallow shoes along a log floating in water.

On my first launch things went pretty quick but to my relief the blower belt came off cause I wasn’t ready for anything more than a 60ft shut off. The belt smashed the rpm pickup, but we fixed it. I think we got 4 runs in total and the furthest I drove was 330ft. The best news of the day was that I did a 0.999 60ft which is pretty quick, don’t care whoyare, however all day I didn’t get anywhere near doing a burn out “right”.

I had my second chance at licensing on 27^th August at a WSID test & tune. We had problems getting the car to go straight at the launch. It picked the front wheels up hard and turned left around 60ft again. We spent the whole day trying to counteract this problem with no reward other than some more quick 60’s. On 30th August two days before the east coast nat’s I was invited by Robin Judd to attend a private test. This was my last chance to get my license to run in the nat’s which I had entered. The weather wasn’t good, it rained until lunchtime. Luckily the afternoon cleared up and we got 2 good passes in, to tame the car down, I left in 2nd gear. slow but you can steer when the wheels are on the ground. First run I was suppose to shut off at half track. I pedalled at half track but since it was going pretty good I decided to get back on it again. Ran a 7.55sec @ 185mph and I finally got my burn out sorted. 2nd run was great. Huge smoky burnout saw me get crossed up and gave me a little scare. Rule 1, when your out of control you really have zero control. I was just lucky I didn’t hit the fence. That run I ran a 6.77sec @ 208mph. It felt really good but a little out of my comfort zone, I used half throttle for 75% of the run. The team was stoked and I was surprised it was that quick. They told me 1 more like that and ill get my licence. We got one more run, in the night, and I thought it ran hard. Just after half track the car stepped over to the wall, I got off it straight away and coasted through to a 7.35sec @ 165mph or something like that. There was oil everywhere, it must have got under my tyres. Anyway I was given my license on that final pass. When we got back to the pits we were pretty happy with our achievement and were all in high spirits until we jacked up the car. Oil was leaking out of the sump. I figured someone didn’t do up the sump plug. If only it was that…we broke a rod. We decided it was too much work to fix the engine before the race. There was a fair bit of damage. We spent the weekend as spectators. I’ll take this opportunity to thank the team for all their help, they did a good job.

We are currently now building our second motor and hope to be racing soon.

posted on January 23rd, 2007 under Racing | 1 Comment

Sunday 9th July 2006, was our Top Doorslammer Debut and Robert Broadbent (my father) had his final drive (I think). The decision to test at the bracket meeting/testing session at WSID (Western Sydney International Dragway) was last minute, and there was a lot of hard work endured the week leading up to the Sunday test just to get there. We were very happy with the results in general although on the day the engine wasn’t running hot enough (lacking power). We had three runs and each run was better then the last.

• 300 ft under power ran ET - 8.80 sec (approx) 
• 330 ft – 3.1 sec (3 to 4 tenths off pace)
• 60 ft – 1.13 sec

The car showed heaps of potential and we are looking forward to testing a lot more in the future.

Check out the photos from the day.

Stay tuned, on the 6^th August I will be having my first ever drive in the Top Doorslammer drag car. I am both nervous and excited about the opportunity and have a lot to learn before I get my license and race. These cars have so much power and speed and I have waited and dreamed of this day all my life.

posted on July 20th, 2006 under Racing | Leave a Response

Mark (Davo) Davidson, checking out some damage incurred from a spin, busted crash bar and a bent steering drop arm.

Davo again assessing the damage from an unfortunate roll over.

All in all I had a relatively damage free season compared to some!

posted on May 16th, 2006 under Racing | 3 Comments

The 2005/2006 Parramatta City Raceway season is now over. Peter completed 14 rounds out of 22 which placed him 40th in the official point score. (There were 117 contenders.) The next season will commence around October 2006, so in the meantime we will be stripping the car, servicing the engine and getting prepared to race again. I am sure Peter will tell you more soon. Oh and hopefully we will have some time to relax in between.

Thank you to all our family and friends for helping throughout the season and we look forward to catching up over the break.

Finally Happy Easter and we hope the Easter bunny is good to you all.

Katie (Peter’s wife)

posted on April 10th, 2006 under General | Leave a Response

After each race the car comes apart and is cleaned and checked over.

The trailer is washed inside and we prepare for the next race, usually the following weekend…there goes Saturday and Sunday.

General maintainance on the engine is critical. We clean the fuel system weekly (methanol is very corrosive), wash the air filter, change the oil and filter, and check the water. We also do a leakdown each week to make sure the cylinders still seal properly, and check the tappets - these can give a good indication if there has been a failure in the engine. Finally we wash the cylinders with light oil and petrol, just incase some water got in during the wash or from the compressed air in the leak down.

All this takes me and my beautiful wife about 4 to 6 hours of our sunday and there is still plenty more to do (that is if nothing got damaged)!

posted on March 15th, 2006 under Team | 1 Comment

My car from last year is up for sale.

It’s a 372 maxim 2002 model. It has new wings and a bunch of spares, including shocks, bars, wheels, wings etc. Also a titanium bolt kit plus all light weight components. The engine is 8 races since refresh and sports new JE pistons, titanium valves, bearings and a port job with new resin and flow test.

Car is complete and ready to race. It was competitive for me even against the 410’s at Parramatta Cuty Raceway.

posted on March 14th, 2006 under Racing | Leave a Response

The 4th March was the NSW 410 State Title. I timed well for me with a 12.7sec - good enough for 19th. I was placed in 2nd position for my heat. But due to a bad start I finished in 4th position. Luckily I had done a pretty good time trial, so I made the dash, my second ever! Starting out of 7th, I was a little bit slow and finished in 8th. That put me in 16th for the feature race. Some where along the way I got lapped by the 2 leaders and after a yellow, I was in third on the restart (a lap down) and with that I pushed harder than I ever have before. The leaders got the jump, but I matched them for speed and it turned out that I started to drive away from the cars behind (this is a huge confidence boost, to know that I have what it takes to run with the big guns) after 4 or 5 laps of that I had a spin. I was happy to be off the rear again where I can make some positions. Unfortunately I bounced over the berm and got a couple of foot of air. I came this close to rolling the thing. When I had stopped bouncing I discovered the left rear was off the rim!!!! Why??? I was hoping that it was on it’s way down and that’s why I spun (makes me look better when I can blame something else). There was no damage to the rim or tyre. A bent drag link in the steering and some busted front wing posts was all the damage we had.

The following race was an interesting one, round 19, 11th March. Team owner Robert Broadbent thought it was a good idea to change the diff ratio before the race to try and get some get up and go on the starts and restarts. My confidence was high coming into this race, but the change of gear gave me a whole new car to deal with. I didn’t time well, 13.4sec in position 32. The track was tricky with berms mid corner real rough and greasy, one car even rolled over in time trials. Out of 8th in my heat, but lost 1 position on the start (my excuse is a face full of mud into turn 1) held that position and got 10th in the B. I was racing well for the first 10 laps or so of the B main, then started I to slow up. On a red light with 2 laps to go I found there was only about 2lb of air in my right rear. When we all got rolling again I decided it was too dangerous to race and made my way to the pits and was given a meat ball (defect) flag on my way. When I got to my pit, there was only zero lb of air in the tyre.

Turns out I had a bleeder stick open (basically a pressure relief valve, when the tyre gets hot from friction the air pressure inside increases and we use bleeders to maintain the right air pressure).

PHOTOS BY WENDY

posted on March 11th, 2006 under Racing | Leave a Response

We have a two car team based in Kurrajong NSW. The team consists of a Top Doorslammer Drag car and 2 dirt Sprintcars. These are delivered to and from the track in our transporter. The transporter is a 410 hp Volvo truck pulling our trailer which holds up to 4 complete sedan type cars. It also has a kitchen, lounge, shower and sleeping for 5. There is also a workshop area, complete with spares, tools and tool boxes and some basic machinery, drill, grinder etc. This parks inside our workshop along side the race cars so we can work on them at home, same as we do at the track. To complement our team we also have in the workshop a milling machine, lathe, welders, grinders, oxy, plasma cutters and a complete range of diagnostic tools, including a state of the art, computerised fuel pump dyno (knowing our fuel systems is most important to us.) Almost all our work, maintenance and improvements are done in house, we also build our own engines there.

When we are at the speedway, as we are on dirt, the cars tend to get dirty (go figure), and between rounds it takes quiet some man (and woman) power to clean things up and make the necessary changes to set up in order to look good and go fast. To help with these tasks I have a great team who are always there for me, they include: Katie (my wife), Robert & Carol (dad & mum) Craig & Tracey (brother & sister), Rowan Walker (designer of this web site), Jason & Marie Newby, Mark & Donna Davidson (who have never missed a race yet), Warren Ferguson, and Rowan Williams. (Thanks guys for all your help!!!!)

posted on February 23rd, 2006 under Racing, Team | 2 Comments

What is a Sprintcar?

Sprintcars are the highest (fastest) level of speedway racing. They are built basic with only “go fast” and safety in mind, the engines are brutally powerful up to a rumoured 900 hp. They spend most of their time scrambling for traction, broad sliding around the corners, wheel standing on the straights, and throwing clay into the stands, while the driver wrestles frantically with the steering wheel. Up to 40 cars race alongside each other, all competing for the #1 position on a track that is only 16m wide and 400m in length.

Engine – 410 cubic inch small block chev aluminium V8, producing 850 horse power with methanol fuel injection, and naturally aspirated

Chassis – Chromoly tube frame built by Maxium- USA, 84 inch wheelbase, torsion bar suspension, titanium brake rotors on rear and aluminium for the front left.

Body – Carbon fibre hood and aluminium side panels to protect driver and engine from the clay. One large driver adjustable wing on top used to apply weight to the rear tyres for traction and balance, and one small wing above the front axle to create downforce and gain traction for the steer tyres.

Tyres – A pair giant odd sized rear tyres, 8 to 16 inches difference in rollout (depending on track conditions), larger on the right rear to to help the car roll around the track in an anti clockwise direction and a pair of standard front steering tyres.

Power : Weight – 650kgs : 850 horsepower, second only to Formula One, in circuit racing teams

Driver – Wears a nomex three (3) layer fire suit, fireproof underwear, boots and gloves and carbon fibre helmet layered with up to twenty five (25) tear away strips on the visor to remove mud and dust from drivers vision during a race. Driver sits upright behind the engine, legs straddling the drive shaft above the rear end.

What is a Top Doorslammer Drag Car?

Few motorsport in Australia can match the spectacle, colour and excitement of championship drag racing. Top Doorslammer is Group One drag racing and is the quickest sedan racing in the world, with speeds approaching 260mph (over 400kmh) across a quarter mile (400m) drag strip in around 6.0 secs. Two cars start side by side and race for the finish line, pulling over 3 g’s off the start line and up to negative 5 g’s when twin parachutes are deployed. With so much power in such short cars they can turn on their driver without warning often sending the drivers out of control providing arguably the most exciting and competitive racing in all drag racing.

Engine – 513 cubic inches of All Australian-Made Sainty aluminium BTV (Billet Three Valve) V8. Producing up to 3000 horse-power with PSI supercharger forcing 50 lbs of boost into a methanol fuel injection manifold.

Chassis – Chromoly tube frame and roll cage built by Rod Andrews – Sydney, Australia. 115 inch wheelbase coil over shock absorbers, McPherson front struts and fourlink rear end. Four wheel disk brakes operated by both foot and hand.

Body – Carbon fibre Holden VS Statesman replica, weighing less than 40kg with Lexen windows, aerodynamically modified to suit speeds of around 250mph.

Tyres – Two large rear slicks with extra soft sidewalls and a pair of slim front runners.

Power : Weight – 3000hp : 2700lb

Driver – A five layer fire suit and boots, fire proof gloves and a carbon fibre fire proof helmet. Driver sits alongside the 4 speed transmission, only inches from the ground. Legs out stretched and one hand on the wheel the other operates the handbrake and gear shifter.

posted on February 20th, 2006 under General | 3 Comments

At World of Outlaws #3 promoters sent all the qualifiers out on track for interviews and photos. Qualifying was a great achievement for me, considering my recent bad form. Only 48 cars out of 74 qualified!

posted on February 16th, 2006 under General | Leave a Response