Mark Brew & Ken Lowe TAD

Mark had split with his former partner Adrian and did not have a car. Mark came to me and asked if I was interested in a partnership. His engine and transmission and I supply a race car. The catch was that the Nationals was only a little over 3 weeks away and we did not have a car. Our team at KLRC pledged to work day and night to accomplish this mission. The additional challenge was that this had to be a light weight car with no fat on it anywhere. Twenty one days later the car rolled out of the shop and on to the trailer with a quick stop at Willowbank Raceway for a test hop of 330 feet. The next day we arrived at Eastern Creek Raceway in Sydney for the 1998 Nationals. The car ran 5.97 on its second pass at the Australian (ANDRA) blower overdrive limit. This made it the number 2 qualifier in the field.

The chassis has all the state of the art "trick" to make it a chassis that will put the power to the asphalt/concrete and this makes the car very flexible. We had to solve some support problems for the car in the trailer as the new body was damaged on the way to Willowbank on its first trip to the race track. The body was only slightly "wrinkled" and time did not permit making a new body at the time so we put a coat of white paint on it and some stickers and kept on racing.

We have now made a new body and will soon be ready for paint.

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Photo by John Baremans at Calder Raceway in Melbourne
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The build team from left, Peter Rauchle, Bob Shaw and Ken Lowe. The sign says "5 days down 15 days to go". We built a complete chassis, made the diff assembly shown below and built the wing struts, fuel and water tanks and completely tinned the car and interior.

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As we rolled the car out the door on the way to the first race.

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Peter Miller fully enjoying himself with the Romac girls.
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KLRC modular diff assembly. Three piece assembly with chrom moly fabricated diff center housing and CNC machined 4140 Chrom moly spindles. This unit now has lots of 5 second passes on it and never a loose bolt or a drop of oil. (always a telltale sign that things are moving around)

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No extra weight here. Two piece ultra light floor pan is under the fuel line tunnel. All of which dzus clips out for easy removal and maintenance.

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The dashboard is very light made out of 1/8" material. Note: Even the steering wheel has no grips and and has been lightened.

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Light but strong wing strut mounting. With over 60 runs now this design has proved itself to be both strong as well as light.

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Wing strut mounting to the diff mounting plate.

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Wing braces connecting to the wing uprights.

As of January 2000 Mark and Ken have dissolved the partnership. Mark took his engine and Ken took his car to close the partnership. Currently the car is at the KLRC shop. There are plans for the future but until ANDRA provides a compensation factor for the polyspherical engine in TAD like they provide for the wedge this car will sit for a while.

Do the nostalgia tour here