Whanganui's Rivers family lead national drag series after dad, daughter, son win round each in same car

Drag racing is in the DNA of the Rivers family and now dad Grant and siblings Nicole and Adrian have each won a round of the 2020 NZ Drag Racing Championships in the same car.

The Whanganui family lead the competition class of the nationals and added to their record with narrow victory in Round 7 at the Masterton Motorplex track at the weekend.

Their 500 cubic inch big block supercharged Chev dragster is yet another grunty product from Grant's well-known and well-respected Whanganui engine building business Rivers, Speed and Spares.

Named Blues Bros, the car won Round 3 in Taupō on December 29, with 29-year-old Nicole driving for the first time in seven years. Then Rivers team set a new track record at The Rock Dragway track in Nelson earlier this month on the shorter eighth of a mile airstrip for the sixth round of nine in the summer series.

Father and daughter shared driving duties on the day, with Nicole qualifying their dragster at the head of the field after collecting a new best low elapse time (ET), as well as the quickest miles per hour (mph) time in the competition class.

"We qualified first and won that meeting setting a new national record at Nelson. We did a 4.41 second pass on the eighth of a mile track, clocking 160mph," Grant Rivers said.

Nicole then handed over driving duties in the final to Grant and he duly won.

The family celebrated with another great weekend's racing at Masterton Motorplex with Nicole driving on Saturday and Adrian Sunday. They made it to the final where they posted a win in an extremely close contest with Adrian at the wheel.

He ran the quarter mile in 6.906 seconds for a speed of 193.93mph (312.1km/h).

"It was won by reaction time," Grant Rivers said.

"Awesome. Now all three of us have had a win in this championship and all in the same car - that's got to be unique, if not a record of some sort. Thanks to our main sponsors Total Transport Ltd, P N Engine Rebuilders, Penrite Oils, Repco, and all the crew."

Iain Hyndman
Whanganui Chronicle 19/2/20