One of the wildest blown race cars around will be returning to the track at Sydney Dragway’s Day Of The Drags on the 29th of March.
Joe Schembri and his famed blown FC Holden have had some spectacular moments together over the years, and after a extended layoff Schembri has moved his business back to Sydney and is looking to rekindle his drag racing passion once again.
Since parking the car back in 2007 and moving his Joe Blo Speed Shop to Queensland we have only seen glimpses of the crowd pleasing FC Holden.
“Well I basically parked the car at the end of 2007 as we moved to Queensland and had five years off, we did race the 2011 Winternationals and ran a 6.37 easily,” explained Schembri.
“Then I had another year off and raced at the 2012 Nitro Champs where after putting a new clutch and tyres on it I was expecting good results, but I struggled with tyre spin.”
This led Schembri to effect more changes to get the car back on track.
“I took the clutch to the USA in my bag none the less and had it looked at by Molinari clutches in California and they made some changes which should help,” said Schembri.
“Other changes to the car include a carbon fibre drive shaft and titanium clutch can, the car and myself have also dropped a few pounds so that’s always good!”
Business commitments and building up the bank balance have been the underlying reasons for Schembri’s absence from the track, but Schembri sights the need to promote Joe Blo Speed Shop as the main motivator in returning to the black top.
“My speed shop has been going really strong the last year and a half, we moved back to Sydney and our blown EFI products are selling well, even overseas,” said Schembri.
The team has chosen Sydney Dragway’s Day Of The Drags nostalgia drag racing event as the ideal opportunity for that first hit out.
“Getting back has been on the agenda for a while but it kept getting pushed back,” said Schembri. “Now that I have entered Day Of The Drags and finally got it all booked in, we will use this as a test meet and then prepare for the Nitro Champs.”
Schembri says his plan is just to have some fun with it all, he has a new crew to bed in and has been out of the driver’s seat himself, so he intends to take it one step at a time.
You don’t want to miss the Joe Blo FC Holden skidding up a storm of tyre smoke along with nitro fuelled front engine dragsters and funny cars, blown gassers, muscles cars and hot rods all laying down rubber on the 29th of March at Day Of The Drags at Sydney Dragway.
Day Of The Drags is open to all pre-1978 cars of Australian, American and English origin, Slingshots, Hambsters and other old school cars welcome, see http://www.sydneydragway.com.au for entry details.
Spectator tickets are available at the gate for $25 for adults, $15 for 12-16 year olds and pensioners, kids under 12 are FREE. Show ‘n’ Shine entry is $25 per car.
Gates open 8.00am Sunday 29th March, racing from 9.30 to 5.30 approx. There is plenty of shaded seating with uninterrupted views of the race track from start to finish. Plus a FREE Jumping Castle for the kids to play on as long as they can and trade stands for the big kids.
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