FULL HOUSE!

MIC HOUSE COMBINED MODERN TECH WITH OLD-SCHOOL STREET MACHINING VALUES TO TAKE HIS FRESHLY BUILT HD WAGON ONTO THE 235 BLOWN PODIUM AT DRAG CHALLENGE 2024

- KIAN HEAGNEY

WE CAN only begin to imagine Mic House's excitement when he was crowned third in the Tuff Mounts 235 Blown class at last year's Street Machine Drag Challenge. After all, just 48 hours prior to the start of the event, the L77 engine in his HD Holden had decided to eat half its bearings!

"We had a failure with the oil pick-up on the dyno, so at 8000rpm it wiped out the bearings, and we only had two days to fix it," Mic recalls. "I ripped the sump off with the engine still in the car, replaced the bearings I could get to and just sent it - there wasn't time for anything else!"

The rest of the HD was also a fresh build, and due to the engine dramas, Mic had virtually no time to test anything before towing it down to Melbourne's Calder Park from Wodonga for the DC 2024 check-in day.

After the first day's racing at Calder was cancelled due to an unsafe track, the HD's first real test was the drive to Mildura. "We'd just put an all-new IFS front end in it, and it'd done maybe 20 metres before we hit the road out of Calder for the Day One road leg," says Mic. "So, I was on my own, had no idea how it'd drive, and just had to wing it. Luckily, the car drove beautifully all week - like a dream!"