Words and photos by Jon Van Daal

The Ampol New Year Drag Racing Series was an iconic Australian drag racing series that was a regular feature at the old Surfers Paradise Raceway on Queensland’s Gold Coast in the 1970s. Willowbank Raceway opened in 1985 and had run them in the past, but after an eight year break they again thought that the time was right to resurrect what was the greatest of summer fuel races. To celebrate they bought out Gary Densham in his Racebricks Chev Monte Carlo to face a bunch of local funny car racers and the good times definitely returned to Australian drag racing as Jon Van Daal reports.

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The old Surfers race track was located inland from a strip of beaches on the Gold Coast of Southern Queensland. Surfers Paradise is exactly that, with miles and miles of golden beaches with a climate similar to that of Florida; in fact there is a suburb on the Gold Coast called Miami.

The original New Year series was run at Surfers in late December and in January. Three dates were run there over five weekends with the imported American stars going to other interstate tracks on the other weekends too. Returning to Surfers, I was aware that in those halcyon days that this was a very, very successful series of races. The track was a multi-purpose venue, having a complete circuit where car and motorcycle racing was also run.

While the success of the roundy round was hit and miss, drag racing always worked and at the time, the New Year Series was the “bomb” so to speak. The spectator receipts from the first round were said to have paid all the expenses for the entire five weekend American tour. The second round would pay all the expenses for all the different disciplines at the track for the entire year, while the third round would then be profit.

On race days when the sun started to set, thousands and thousands of sunburnt tourists left the beach and streamed into the facility, taking their place on the hill on the right side of the track. Sometimes they would be fifty deep when the Americans came into town, creating an incredible atmosphere on those hot balmy nights. Gary Densham originally came out with a relatively unknown racer called John Force in late 1975, and while both went on to super stardom, it was Densham who had a soft spot for the land down under, returning another eleven times.

“I love coming back to Australia – I love the fans and the warm greeting that I receive every time I return,” he freely admitted during a between-rounds breather. This two round  Willowbank Series came 34 years after that first appearance at Surfers, and again the veteran Californian racer put on a spectacular show.

“As it stands I haven’t found the sponsorship dollars to compete on the NHRA circuit for the coming year. If this race does turn out to be my next to last race then I really would be just as happy,” he openly conceded. “I hope that isn’t the case but obviously things aren’t that good back home.”

Funny Car racing in Australia has been virtually non-existent over the past decade. When the Nationals were being run at Calder Park in the nineties, good fields of both Fuel Funny Cars and Fuel Dragsters were a common sight. But when the event was moved to Willowbank near Brisbane, the dominance of the southern nitro floppers ebbed away.