DAMIEN Kemp’s ’64 Ford Fairlane gasser was one of a bunch of nostalgia-style drag cars at South Coast Raceway in Portland, Victoria on the weekend, supporting the Aeroflow Outlaw Nitro Funny Cars show. Dubbed Funderbolt, Damien’s car has been terrorising the race tracks of the east coast for almost a decade, usually in the company of Stephen Biggs’s Loose Cannon ’56 Chevrolet.

Familiarity can breed contempt though and Damien recently upgraded the Fairlane with a blown and injected 440-cube Windsor running on E85. “I was getting a bit blasé about it and needed to do something to make it a bit more exciting. Now Steve has to catch up!” he laughs.

Over the quarter-mile the ’64 runs low nines, and at Portland’s eighth-mile it made a best pass for the weekend of 5.6sec, after starting the event with a 6.2sec run on the Friday.

Damien has been a key player in encouraging the old-style gasser drag cars back into the sport. His intention is to put on a show for the spectators, promote grassroots motorsport and just have a great time – and as you’ll see in the video, he’s doing a great job of it!