TAKING FLIGHT

STREET MACHINERS TAKE OFF AT TAREE AIRPORT FOR ITS FIRST-EVER EIGHTH-MILE DRAG MEETING

- GLENN TORRENS

WELL, this is pretty freakin’ cool. It’s a warm, sunny Saturday morning. It’s my birthday. I’m seated in my just-finished, restored-with-patina ’68 dak-dak that I’ve been spannering on during those long chilly winter evenings, and I’m about to take it for its first real drive. And it gets better: I’m peering through my helmet at two white lights, waiting for the orange lights to drop to green for my first-ever run at the inaugural Taree Airport drags. Alrighty!

The event is organised and hosted by the Mid Coast Drag Racing Association (MCDRA), and the privilege of using the local airport’s handy stretch of bitumen to have some fast fun is the result of a stack of effort and negotiation by the club’s committee.

The task began nearly two years ago, when the club was established and immediately began negotiating to host an event at Taree’s three-flights-per-day-except-Saturday airport. Originally scheduled for July, a last-minute objection to the event postponed it. With those concerns addressed, the 50 available entries filled quickly after the new October date was announced.

It’s easy to see why: Taree is more than three hours north of Sydney, so a cruise to Sydney Dragway on a Wednesday night for a quick number is impossible for most locals. Gunnedah Airport hosts regular drag meets in the currently devastatingly dusty New England region beyond Tamworth, but for coastal locals that’s a five-hour trek via Newcastle.

“We’re a new club, so we’ve never put an event on before,” says MCDRA President Nathan Cooper. “We had to think about and plan everything from parking to getting to know the timing system. We needed to get the cars safely down the track, and we wanted everyone to get plenty of runs.