Vintage Drag Video: The 1972 Australian Drag Racing Nationals – Check Out The Awesome Cars


Vintage Drag Video: The 1972 Australian Drag Racing Nationals – Check Out The Awesome Cars

Boy is this an awesome snapshot or what?! This professionally made film from 1972 features some action at the long defunct Surfer’s Paradise International Raceway. The drag strip that the competitors are racing on is actually part of a larger road course but as you can see, it sure did not hamper performances much as these guys and girls were getting after it hard! The thing we love about the video is the fact that there’s everything from stockers to fuel dragsters shown here. Obviously the dragsters have some familiarity with respect to their shape and all. The door slammers are cool because they are machines that we’ve never had the chance to see in person here in the USA.

By the looks of this video, Australia was altered-crazy in the 1970s. You’ll see a disproportionately large number of them running with everything from little four cylinder engines to blown V8s. The track itself looks beautiful with its grass berms and big grandstands. Unfortunately it closed in the later part of the 1980s and is now some sort of a housing tract or something. A sad end but one that US racing fans are too familiar with. Thankfully we have stuff like this to remember the good days and how it was back when the sport of drag racing was becoming more and more popular in Australia.

One of the things you will not see in this footage is funny cars. Seems crazy, right? By 1972 the funny car craze in the USA had made a serious dent out of the dragster world and all of the hippest and most famous racers were in floppers. The funny car movement would start later in the 1970s when US racers started touring the country and sparking interest in the category.

This is a short, fun look at some truly cool drag racing.

Press play to see fantastic footage from the 1972 Australian Drag Racing Nationals


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