QUEY TO THE CAPE

TOM CARRIERA'S MASSIVE FUNDRAISING ODYSSEY ENDED WITH A BANG!

- JACK HOULIHAN

AN UNLIKELY 70s classic recently notched over 11,000km in a pilgrimage to Australia's northernmost tip and back, raising money and awareness for a great cause along the way. 

Twenty-seven-year-old Tom Carriera of Wangaratta, Victoria drove his HQ Holden ute all the way to Cape York - and back through the centre of Australia - to accompany mate Cam Gray and his dad Andrew on a fundraising mission for Young Veterans, dubbed 'Tassie to the Tip,' in their 1978 HJ45 Land Cruiser.

Tom didn't expect to tag along at first. "Cam said I should come, and I said, 'No way I'd get time off work, and I don't have a 4x4 to do it in,"" he says. "But then my boss said I could take as much time as I want over winter, so I said, 'What about a month to go up to the Cape?"" Tom's an HQ fanatic, with a GTS sedan and Kingswood that make regular Street Machine Summernats appearances, so he decided to have a go with the farm-fresh ute he picked up earlier this year. "It's just a 202 and four-speed; nothing flash," he says. "It's still got the banjo single-wheeler diff, and I had all the Sandman gear in the shed. Because I was tagging along, I thought I'd put a few Young Veterans stickers on the ute, just to help them out a bit." The trip kicked off on 9 June with a 600km leg from Wangaratta. "The day we left was the day I finished the ute," Tom laughs. "I got it registered and did 25 kays around town getting fuel and stuff, then hit the road!"