Over the weekend of June 5-7, Rod Harvey, Terry Bowden and the Rayglass Boats team took on Australia’s best at the Castrol Edge Winternationals event, held at Willowbank Raceway outside of Brisbane, Australia. As the second fastest import in Australasia — behind Joe Signorelli’s GAS Motorsport Celica’s 6.52 @ 348kph — Rod was hopeful of improving on his 6.54 @ 332kph. Unfortunately, despite coming close, the team were unable to better their ET, and struggled with a tyre shake problem throughout the event.

After a couple of slower qualifying passes, Rod turned it on for his fastest pass of the event in qualifying up against Signorelli’s sister Toyota Celica. Side-by-side, Joe and Rod passed the beams to record 6.67 @ 339kph and 6.66 @ 346kph respectively, with Rod scoring the narrowest of victories over his closest rival. Unfortunately, this was as fast as Rod would run over the weekend, recording an 8.78 in the first round of eliminations against Tony Wedlock, who collected the wall and was disqualified. In his second round of eliminations, Rod faced Ivan Skaramuca in a 20B-powered Mazda RX-3. Despite having the quicker car — and proving it with a 6.76 @ 289kph pass — this would be as far as Rod’s shot at the Winternationals Super Compact crown would go when he red light from the line.