Kiwis TAKE FLIGHT

You may have heard the old expression, “ducks fly south for the winter”. Well, in this case, quite a number of Kiwis have flown west instead, to Australia. Over the past 40-plus years, a steady stream of New Zealanders have tried their luck there in everything from Super Sedan to the Nitro ranks. The first time I went to the land of the long white cloud was in 1977 to join Garth Hogan and some other Kiwi racers who were going to tour California. For me, it turned out to be a great way to share time with one of your country’s greatest drag racers, as we did a workshop tour of the brands that Garth imported into New Zealand. Hogan raced in Australia with both his ‘Arrow’ nitro funny car and ‘Speed Pro’ Top Fuel dragster in the final decades of last century.

Since the late ’70s, a number of Top Alcohol racers have also made their way to the ‘West Island’, including the dragster of Bob Clarkson and Lewis Wymer, and the alky funny cars of Alan Dunlop and Wayne Yearbury. Both of these flopper drivers