Street Champion  is an opportunity for genuine and regularly street driven vehicles to get their name in lights at Summernats 38. Unlike Grand Champion where the scene’s most expertly detailed and refined vehicles vie for the top gong, Street Champion is more relatable to the average punter and the field at Summernats 38 was incredibly diverse with everything from hot rods to Aussie muscle, some American influence and even a sprinkling of JDM.

The Street Top Ten convened on the burnout pad on Saturday morning and included ex-Street Machine feature cars like Jason McGrath’s RUMBLS LC Torana, Michael Ellard’s Corolla wagon and Justin Gardner’s stunning supercharged EH that we featured way back in 2011, which still looks as good as the day we shot it!

“It could be any one of five cars the way we’re looking after judging,” admitted Judge Drago Ostric as the driving events wrapped up. “Everyone here drove exceptionally well, it’s going to be a close competition.”

The driving events would be the deciding factor that saw Canberra-local Dave Darcy’s HJ Premier emerge as the Summernats 38 Street Champion.

Dave and the HJ Premier are regular fixtures in the Street Class, and it’s a great representative for the category. Dave shows the car regularly and isn’t afraid to drive it hard. It’s also dripping with a stack of good bits – paint and panel by the team at Exclusive Customs, a 6-speed equipped L77 engine swap and a trick coilover suspension and big brake combo are a dead giveaway as to Dave’s intention to build a well-rounded street car.

The car debuted two years ago and made the Top 60 and the Elite Class, but your focus recently has been the Street Class and really enjoying the car.

You’re right! I only ever built it as a street car but when we debuted it, Drago insisted we go in Elite which was a great experience to be up on blocks alongside FORGED at our first show, but recently we’ve been doing a few smaller shows and really focusing on what the car was built for, which is driving it whenever we’ve got good weather!

The car obviously presents impeccably, but under the skin you’ve done all these suspension and brake upgrades to make it so much nicer to drive.

I’m an old school guy and I love steel bodied cars, but I wanted this to drive as well as a daily driver. So we put the new drivetrain in with the L77 and manual gearbox, Wilwood disc brakes all the way round and the Viking adjustable suspension on every corner.

And I love the fact that you’ve kept the manual box in it!

Yeah, I wanted to actually drive it! If I wanted to go for an auto I would have built a big block and gone and done some skids! But I wanted this thing to fight me, I want to swear at it when I drive it hard. That’s the fun part!

Oftentimes the judging in Street and Elite Class comes down to the driving events, and you’ve got plenty of seat time in the HJ.

Yeah it is, and this year we only got one run. I don’t mind flicking the car around and putting it through its paces. At an event in Shepparton I did over 30 go-to-whoa runs over the weekend, so when we only got one run on Saturday here the ‘Nats I think that’s where the car and I excelled because we do the driving events at nearly every show, and plenty of street cruising too.

You’ve reached the pinnacle of Street Class, where to for you and the car now?

I’ve got one of two more trophies that I’m eyeing off this year. We’ll do MotorEx as well, but that’s easy because it’s a static show so we can park the car up and enjoy the rest of the show. 

But then I’ll have to think about what I can tweak or change on the car, and realistically, it’s probably the engine bay. It’s not as clean as some of the other ones that have tucked wires because when I built it I was trying to keep it as HJ as possible. I wouldn’t mind adding a little extra horsepower, either.