Gravel Rush

After dancing around tracks in the drift scene, Braeden Kendrick now rooster-tails gravel with his brock-a-like VK commodore rally car.

- Glenn Torrens

DRIFTING? Sure, there might be mad skills in hanging a car’s tail out at exactly 90 degrees and melting bitumen, but with no need to get to a finish line before the next bloke, surely it’s a bit like kids at school being given Certificates of Participation rather than First Prize? Not for Melbourne’s Braeden Kendrick. Having been busted too many times for street stunts, drifting seemed to him like a great way to have fun.

“I did all the dumb shit,” Braeden admits of his antics in his first car, a VH Commodore SL/E. “Until one day, I collected a semi-trailer. I did a fair bit of damage. So I decided to go to the track. I liked the look of drifting. Nissan Silvias and Skylines were the popular cars, so I ended up buying a Silvia.”

Braeden’s Silvia was powered by a turbocharged Nissan SR20 DOHC four cylinder. “I developed that vehicle over a period of about two years,” he says. “I put a lot of work into the suspension and did maybe 10 track days until the SR20 blew up.”

Braeden then bought another ’caged-out Silvia shell, installed his old car’s suspension and shoved in an LS3 V8 crate motor that was intended for his crash-damaged Commodore.

But eventually, Braeden decided the drifting past-gum-trees sport of rallying would be more fun. “With drifting, you drift five corners 1000 times,” he says. “In rallying you drift 1000 corners once!”

The search was on for a suitable car. “I wanted something rear-wheel drive, and I love the early Commodores,” Braeden says. “I learned with the drift Silvias that you spend a lot of money and time doing a ground-up build. I’d just started my business [Fast Track Towing & Transport], so I had limited time to dedicate to building a car.”