First published in the February 2008 issue of Street Machine

For 15 years, revheads from all over WA have been heading down to Narrogin for a weekend of controlled mayhem and for the first time I thought I’d join them. It should only be a two-and-a-half-hour trip from Perth but thanks to a tank full of crappy fuel, photographer Brian’s Kombi was playing up before we even got to the end of the freeway. Serves him right for buying cheap fuel — not to mention a Kombi!

After leaving him for dead thanks to eight cylinders of Uncle Sam’s finest, I eventually pulled over to let him catch up and a quick check under the bonnet of my car revealed a split radiator hose! All of a sudden our 10am ETA for the Supercruise was looking shaky.

In the end we got there with plenty of time to spare and headed straight to the mustering point for the cruise through town. There were already several dozen cars, so I figured we must be almost good to go but the cars kept rolling in — by the time we got rolling there must have been more than 100 cars lined up.

With police controlling intersections and leading the way, the public lining the main drag were greeted by a non-stop procession of cool hot rods, Aussie muscle, Yankee classics and some very tough late-model gear. The odd shitbox managed to find its way into the line-up but I was probably the only person who really cared — or noticed. The crowd was made up of all ages and lined both sides of the Great Southern Highway. It looked like they were having a great time and it was good to see the coppers not worrying about a couple of uncorked exhausts and a few big revs to entertain the crowd.

It was already getting pretty warm, and with the number of cars on the cruise it was slow going, so after a return lap down the main drag it was straight to the Thomas Hogg Oval to get into the real action. It’s nice to entertain the general public but we wanted to see burnouts and just a little bit of craziness.

And Revheads didn’t disappoint. If you dig your burnouts, Narrogin is the place to be — it’s non-stop! The program is pretty simple: Friday — burnouts; Saturday — more burnouts; Sunday — burnout finals.

Actually, that’s not fair as there was loads more going on, including freestyle motocross, spear-a-spud, trials bikes, a dyno comp, engine blow-ups, and let’s not forget a few hundred cars at the show ’n’ shine. But in the background the soundtrack was an engine screaming as a thick plume of smoke rose into the air. With 135 people attempting to make the Top 10 Burnout Final — via a two-round qualifying competition — it’s a pretty serious game, and some of these boys could easily take it to the best at Summernats. With $10,000 in cash prizes up for the taking, it’s not surprising really.

For next year the prize money is being increased to $15,000 but don’t expect to roll up in any old heap and take the cash.

“There are going to be some major changes; each car will be scrutinised before the event and we will be asking entrants to supply photos of all four sides of the car. We want to lift the standard of the cars a bit,” said burnout coordinator Peter Kulker.

It’s tough to keep the cars looking a million bucks when they’re parked on dirt and run open pipes but the changes are aimed at reducing the number of cars that can barely spin their wheels, let alone put on a 90-second smoke show.

The only downside would be a reduction in a classic bit of crowd participation — in the event of a less-than-spectacular performance, the Narrogin mob shout out in unison: “Bullsh*t!”

Every now and then the burnouts stopped and the pad was cleared of the big bits of shrapnel so that a gaggle of hot chicks in bikinis could strut their stuff. It could only be Miss Revheads. It must take some courage to strut around a bitumen pad with only a couple of square inches of fabric and a wobbly bit of Cyclone fence between you and thousands of red-blooded blokes.

A few of the girls relished the opportunity and covered the entire perimeter showing off their wares, while others made a bee-line for announcer Richie Howlett, handsome bloke that he is, even if he was wearing the worst hat in existence!

The show ’n’ shine attracted some very neat cars, including Mick Roberts’s ’32 coupe, which he drove down for the weekend, fresh from winning Second Top Coupe at the West Australian Hot Rod and Street Machine Spectacular. No surprise that he won Top Street Rod at Revheads.

On a more sombre note, there were quite a few overdoses on the weekend, with the ambulance almost wearing out a path to Camp Land, the feral side of the event. Thankfully there were no fatalities but come on people — do you really want to check out face down in the dirt with a bunch of pissed idiots around you?

In the past the organisers have been pretty lenient but next year it will be swags, tents and food only in Camp Land — no BYO and no cars. If you want to do burnouts, you’re going to have to do them on the burnout pad.

Any event attracting 5000 people needs security and that was a concern here — it looked like the company involved had employed some blokes who would have been better off answering phones on an off-shore call centre. There weren’t any major dramas but I’d hate to think what would’ve happened if they’d actually had to try to control a situation.

But don’t worry, Revheads will be on again next year. There will be some changes but they will all be for the better.

SIX-POT SCREAMER

Ryan ‘Cruncho’ Humfrey’s XE Falcon might not look much tougher than your average taxi but you won’t want a ride home after seeing it on the pad.

Ryan’s technique is simple: rev to 6500rpm, dump the clutch and shift into third. Yep, this is one of the few manual cars that still hits the burnout pad. As if that wasn’t enough of a disadvantage, it’s missing a couple of cylinders too!

“It’s a 250 but it’s got 221 rods, an awesomely ported head and a 600DP Holley. I kept blowing up the stock gearbox so it’s now got a V8 top loader. I left-foot brake and clutch, so the left foot is pretty busy during a burnout!”

The screaming SIX-POT impressed enough to make it to the Top 10, finishing sixth overall, and winning Top Non-V8 burnout.

Cruncho has just finished fixing up his dad’s old XW ute. It was pretty rough when he started but now the old workhorse is resplendent in GT trim and sports twin LPG mixers and a couple of extra cylinders.

WHALE WATCHING

Lee Mulvey comes up to Revheads every year with a group of mates from Albany, and this year he did in style with his ’60 Cadillac coupe. “I bought it in Tassie then flew over to Melbourne and drove the big girl home. Three and a half days later we were in Albany — the car ran like an absolute clock.

It cost me $901 from Tullamarine to Albany and the temp didn’t go over a quarter the whole way,” Lee says. You might think it would be an expensive way to bring a car back, but Lee proves otherwise: “Considering there were four of us on board and about 80kg of beer, it was pretty cheap really. The $1.79 per litre on the Nullarbor was interesting though!”

MISS REVHEAD

In a very hotly contested Miss Revheads, it was 19-year-old Celeste Myc (left) who impressed the judges most. Hailing from Mariginup (sounds like a country town but it’s a suburb of Perth), Celeste spends her days as a hostie for Skippers Aviation looking after all those fly-in, fly-out boys heading to and from the mines. Runner-up was Emma Evans from Rockingham, who came down with the Homegrown Maniacs crew. She’s not just a pretty face; she also rides bikes and does a bit of promo work for HGM, including a bit of hosting on their video spots.

WHERE’S WALLY?

When a bunch of guys are running around with Wally Boys Racing stickers on their cars, you just have to ask where the hell is Wally? Well, it’s short for Walliston, an outer suburb of Perth and it seems to breed some fairly serious revheads — all with nicknames of course.

Darran ‘Diesel’ Williams was looking pretty good in the first round of burnout competition with his flamed XE Falcon until he threw a belt and the fire went out. After spending a fair whack of cash on the 393 stroker Clevo — including a Scat crank, CHI heads and intake, as well as a drum of methanol — he wasn’t prepared to risk it after a quick inspection of the motor showed up some potential problems. All was not lost — fellow Wally-boy, Ryan ‘Cruncho’ Humfrey flew the flag in the final.

HIGHLIGHTS:

1. Doug Allan, showing the style that took him to second in the burnout finals.

2. Luke Anderson was a crowd favourite with his flamed and supercharged Torana but a couple of stalls in the first round of qualifying hurt his points and he could only manage 50th spot.

3. Colin Johnson brought his impressive ’57 Chevy pick-up to the show ’n’ shine and took home the silverware for Top Street Car, Modified. He’s not afraid to do a few skids and went out on the burnout pad on Saturday night — much to the delight of the crowd. The blown 502 had no problems turning its big 20-inch hoops.

4. Six-hundred and thirty-two cubic inches of big-block gets this sweet ute along just nicely.

5. It looks like Morpheus Purple is the new Tiger Mica — it’s on all manner of cars. Got to admit, it looks pretty sweet on this Cobra though!

6. You can rely on country boys to come up with some crazy machines. Glen Baker’s Mini has a Holden V8 stuffed in it so it smokes the correct wheels when he floors it! Having to sit up against the back window makes for an interesting ride.

7. Adrian ‘Ardie’ Vendenberg made the trek up from Albany in his ’64 Chevy Bel Air which had just been freshened up. Still missing its side trim, Adrian applied a bit of ingenuity and cleverly concealed the fact with a strip of chrome tape.

8. This tidy little LC Torrie now packs a supercharged V6 punch. Backing it up is a strengthened Turbo 700 with a nine-inch diff, while it rolls on 15×7 and 15×8 Weld Prostars.

9. There’s an oversize radiator in the front which may not look flash but it does the job. Rowdy Mantach kicked arse by top qualifying and winning the final. Must be something about black cars with flames.

10. Adrian Irving managed to make it into the Top 10 and it’s pretty easy to see why.

11. Jon Groves is studying for his Bachelor of Technology in Motorsports degree at Edith Cowan University. If there’s a class called Burnout 101, this scores him a pass. The great thing about the whole deal is that it’s a father-and-son project. Even better, Jon’s dad gave up his spot in the co-pilot’s seat so that I could go for a spin. Thanks!

12. What do you do when you pick up an old ambulance for $500, your mate’s a signwriter and it runs a 351, four-barrel, C6 and an LSD 9in? You enter it in the burnout comp of course! At least that’s what John Hetherington did.

RESULTS:

BURNOUTS

SHOW ’N’ SHINE