The Team
Phil Pratt
It all started in the early 1970's when I was given a wild card and entry to compete in dirt speedway at Tralee Speedway
in an XY Ford GT. After only one race I was hooked. I continued in speedway for a few years on dirt then bitumen then dirt again but the decline of
local speedway left me wanting more. In the late 1970's I built a rally car to compete in club and state level events. This was before rallying was
so tightly regulated and you could compete in virtually any type of road registered vehicle. There was a mix of 2000cc Mk1 Ford Escorts and
Cortana's, Holden Gemini and Toranas, a mass of Datsun 1600's, Volvo sports and an historic Peugeot with a V8. My car was a HB Torana fitted with
XU1 running gear (thanks Bob Jane) and proved to be quite a handful for my rally apprenticeship. Over the next 10 years I competed in many more
rallies with mixed but relatively successful results.
A business contact was competing in sports sedans racing and after reviewing my motor sport history I was offered a test drive which I eagerly accepted. This drive ended up being a regular occurrence on practice and testing day’s with my lap times being very competitive and usually would have placed me in the top three or four results.
The next serious progression was sprint karting. I started in clubman super heavy and won the local class championship in my first year then went on to finish 9th out of 32 in my first ever Australian Karting Championship the same year. This gave way to competing in Intercontinental A for a season then the mighty twin engine class of 200 super. This class is amazing with more than enough power to burn 2 sets of tyres per meeting with very little effort. Whilst competing in 200 super I met and established a great friendship with a former multiple Australian and State 200 super champion and notable engine builder, Alf Capri. The knowledge Alf shared with me made a massive improvement to my driving resulting in numerous major event wins and placing’s. These included winning 2 Australian Championships and podium finishes in other Championships.
To compete successfully at this level you needed to have numerous motor and chassis configurations to suit different track and weather conditions. From the assortment of motors I had matched 2 reed and 2 rotary valve motors and fitted all 4 of them on a spare chassis. The combining of this equipment resulted in a kart lovingly named by some of the junior competitors as “Godzilla”. This kart had amazing performance and spectator appeal as it would wheel stand on the straight between corners and was a massive amount of fun to drive. The power to weight ratio was 2.8 pounds per horse power. (HSV Commodore is about 12 pounds per horse power)
Whilst this was all a great deal of fun I needed a new challenge so I started building a kart with a GSXR 750 motor. As this no longer complied with the kart formula I had to move on to Hill Climb under the CAMS banner. This caused considerable discussion as I systematically destroyed the majority of the hill climb formula Libra under 750cc records on the east side of Australia. In my first year of Hill Climb I was fortunate enough to win the NSW State and Australian Hill Climb Championships. I continued the development of this vehicle and before selling it with a total of 2 wins and 3 second places in Australian Championship and 5 wins and 2 seconds in NSW Championships.
I was having a ball but soon had the urge to faster still. The next step was to buy or build a vehicle suitable for the next faster category. I missed out on purchasing a UK built Jedi Formula Libra so with invaluable assistance from Errol Richardson we designed and then built a formula Libra car. A full chrome molly chassis with aluminium honeycomb, aero and body work was the result. This car was powered by a generation 1 Suzuki GSXR 1300 motor and was placed third in its first outing. As with most new vehicles it took some time to iron out all the bugs and fine tune the vehicle for optimum performance. This was achieved the following year and I was now a regular on the podium winning both the ACT club and NSW State Championships. The success was to continue with podium finishes at virtually every event I participated in. This car has under gone continuous refinement over the past 6 years now with much improved mechanical grip, aero grip and power from a gen1 Hayabusa motor.
The type of event I enter has now been widened to cover street sprints and lap dashes at various venues throughout NSW and QLD with a view to eventually compete in the CAMS Sports Car Championship.
As luck would have it, a group 2C super sport built by Stewart Hooper came on the market. I was able to snap that up and competed in a couple of hill climbs and a circuit meeting before deciding to change from a combustion engine to multiple electric power sources. Given the trend in automobile development my intention is to prove that electric powered race cars can be very reliable and very competitive. Funding permitting, I would like to embark on a comprehensive development program and increase the performance capabilities until this vehicle is undeniably one of the fastest electric race cars in Australia.
A business contact was competing in sports sedans racing and after reviewing my motor sport history I was offered a test drive which I eagerly accepted. This drive ended up being a regular occurrence on practice and testing day’s with my lap times being very competitive and usually would have placed me in the top three or four results.
The next serious progression was sprint karting. I started in clubman super heavy and won the local class championship in my first year then went on to finish 9th out of 32 in my first ever Australian Karting Championship the same year. This gave way to competing in Intercontinental A for a season then the mighty twin engine class of 200 super. This class is amazing with more than enough power to burn 2 sets of tyres per meeting with very little effort. Whilst competing in 200 super I met and established a great friendship with a former multiple Australian and State 200 super champion and notable engine builder, Alf Capri. The knowledge Alf shared with me made a massive improvement to my driving resulting in numerous major event wins and placing’s. These included winning 2 Australian Championships and podium finishes in other Championships.
To compete successfully at this level you needed to have numerous motor and chassis configurations to suit different track and weather conditions. From the assortment of motors I had matched 2 reed and 2 rotary valve motors and fitted all 4 of them on a spare chassis. The combining of this equipment resulted in a kart lovingly named by some of the junior competitors as “Godzilla”. This kart had amazing performance and spectator appeal as it would wheel stand on the straight between corners and was a massive amount of fun to drive. The power to weight ratio was 2.8 pounds per horse power. (HSV Commodore is about 12 pounds per horse power)
Whilst this was all a great deal of fun I needed a new challenge so I started building a kart with a GSXR 750 motor. As this no longer complied with the kart formula I had to move on to Hill Climb under the CAMS banner. This caused considerable discussion as I systematically destroyed the majority of the hill climb formula Libra under 750cc records on the east side of Australia. In my first year of Hill Climb I was fortunate enough to win the NSW State and Australian Hill Climb Championships. I continued the development of this vehicle and before selling it with a total of 2 wins and 3 second places in Australian Championship and 5 wins and 2 seconds in NSW Championships.
I was having a ball but soon had the urge to faster still. The next step was to buy or build a vehicle suitable for the next faster category. I missed out on purchasing a UK built Jedi Formula Libra so with invaluable assistance from Errol Richardson we designed and then built a formula Libra car. A full chrome molly chassis with aluminium honeycomb, aero and body work was the result. This car was powered by a generation 1 Suzuki GSXR 1300 motor and was placed third in its first outing. As with most new vehicles it took some time to iron out all the bugs and fine tune the vehicle for optimum performance. This was achieved the following year and I was now a regular on the podium winning both the ACT club and NSW State Championships. The success was to continue with podium finishes at virtually every event I participated in. This car has under gone continuous refinement over the past 6 years now with much improved mechanical grip, aero grip and power from a gen1 Hayabusa motor.
The type of event I enter has now been widened to cover street sprints and lap dashes at various venues throughout NSW and QLD with a view to eventually compete in the CAMS Sports Car Championship.
As luck would have it, a group 2C super sport built by Stewart Hooper came on the market. I was able to snap that up and competed in a couple of hill climbs and a circuit meeting before deciding to change from a combustion engine to multiple electric power sources. Given the trend in automobile development my intention is to prove that electric powered race cars can be very reliable and very competitive. Funding permitting, I would like to embark on a comprehensive development program and increase the performance capabilities until this vehicle is undeniably one of the fastest electric race cars in Australia.
Damien Butcher
(to come)
Tony Castley
(to come)