The reigning Australian Nitro Funny Car Champion Morice McMillin will debut a brand-new car for the 2023-24 National Drag Racing Championship season, kicking off in Sydney later this month.
Off the heels of last week’s announcement of Tommy Johnson Juniors pending arrival to drive McMillin championship-winning car, many fans wondered what car McMillin would be piloting at the Sydney Dragway event.
The car is a brand-new, unraced Mustang Funny Car with the latest technology out of the United States, albeit modified somewhat to suit the quarter-mile distance that the Funny Car categories races over in Australia.
With McMillin stepping out of the Camry that he has campaigned for several years, there are some nerves from the experienced nitro pilot in getting behind the wheel of a relatively untested combination.
“Since the last season the boys have been working so hard to get this new Aeroflow Mustang built and let me tell you it’s one of the nicest funny cars in existence,” he said.
“To run a brand-new car was nerve racking knowing how much time, effort and resources had gone in to it, but these Aeroflow Boys have done an outstanding job as they always do and this thing was on pace on just it’s second pass.
“Going in to this Sydney Race with only a handful of runs on the new car without a doubt has me a little nervous – we know it’s fast but we pride ourselves on being consistent lap after lap – and, as it stands, we haven’t been able to run the car in a range of conditions so we might be racing a little bit off the cuff at this first event.”
McMillin is conflicted about moving out of the original Aeroflow Car that Johnson Jnr will be campaigning in Sydney, saying, “Look, it’s a bittersweet moment, that car that we won in last year has a lot of sentimental value to myself and the team – it’s the OG Aeroflow Ninja as we called it.
“It will be strange to see someone else in that car but it’s also so cool that Tommy Johnson Jnr is going to be that person.”
The addition of the new Mustang will mean that the Aeroflow/Rocket team will effectively be campaigning four cars (for McMillin, Johnson, Brandon Gosbell and Justin Walshe) at the Sydney event, with more than 50 crew members from across Australia on site to ensure that the cars runs smoothly.
“It’s a massive undertaking to run four nitro cars at one event; not just from a people and personnel standpoint but also in parts.
“Just as an example, we will go through more than 100 clutch discs, we will demolish more than 320 Spark Plugs and we will use nearly 1500 litres of Nitro through the event.”
The Sydney Nationals begins on Friday, October 27 at Sydney Dragway.
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