ROD HADFIELD - A RARE SPARES LEGEND

Introducing Rod Hadfield, Rare Spares Legend...

Rod Hadfield’s desire to build custom machines began when his grandfather handcrafted a model of a ’30’s open wheel sprint car and gave it to him as a child. Rod inherited his grandfather’s eye for proportion and design and has built cars all of his life. As a young man Rod Hadfield began building customized cars out of his garage, at age 16 Rod had already started building his first hot rod - a blown Y block powered 1934 Ford. In 1975 Rod moved to Castlemaine, Victoria, Australia with his wife Carol and opened “The Castlemaine Rod Shop”. Carol has had a major role in Rod’s success in the automotive industry and was even office manager at the shop while Rod looked after the workshop and 18 employees. They did any type of automotive customizing that was requested. Rod’s desire was to create customized cars of extraordinary power and design. The first conversion from the Castlemaine Rod Shop was a 1600 Datsun four speed gearbox to Rod's father's FB ute. Interest evolved from that swap and soon Rod was fitting them to other makes and models.

Rod has built many top cars over the years including;

- a 1934 Ford Coupe (winning every event that a car of that time could)
- a V8 powered FJ Holden
- a supercharged and fuel injected Chevrolet powered Zephyr
- a chopped top Ford Anglia
- a '55 Chevrolet Tudor
- a '68 Chevrolet Camaro
- a '67 Chevrolet step side pickup
- a chopped top EK 454 Chevrolet panel van
- a 1919 T Coupe powered by a twin supercharged 429 shotgun motor
- a ’55 Chevrolet powered by a Packhard Merlin 27 litre V12 painted like a P51 Mustang (the aircraft the motor was from)
- a ‘A model Ford pickup powered by a V12 Lincoln side valve motor
- and the list goes on......

Click here to read more about this legend of Street Machining...

CHIC & THE JACK DANIELS GIRLS...

Check out this great shot of Chic with the Jack Daniels girls at Summernats 21. All are previous Miss Summernats Competition winners.

From left to right:

• Tanya Lazarou     Miss S'Nats 18
• Elissa Michel         Miss S'Nats 15
• Hayley Walker     Miss S'Nats 16
• Nahdi Connelly     Miss S'Nats 17
• Janelle Smith     Miss S'Nats 20
• Bree Fenton     Miss S'Nats 19

The 21^st Street Machine Summernats was the birthday party I hoped it would be with a big crowd (105,565) and no shortage of memorable highlights. As I write this, the latest issue of Street Machine is out and I’m looking forward to seeing the Special Edition out in a few weeks. We’re madly cutting and shutting the film footage for the Official Summernats 21 DVD and plan to get it out much earlier. You can also see plenty of highlights on www.channelvision.com.au

I had a huge time and whilst my highlights are many, the real highlight was being able to hang out with so many fantastic people. Make no mistake, I know I’m a lucky person to be able to have the opportunity to share my time with people who are telling me what a great time it is to be at the Summernats. I’ve never shaken so many hands, had so many kisses from enthusiastic ladies, had so many photos taken with kids and so on.

The bonuses are to see the cars that are built especially to be seen at the Summernats above all other shows and to see people rise to the occasion, such as Rob Godfrey with his 900 plus hp tonner winning the Grand Champion sword. Ditch getting Top Elite. Joe Pegano winning the Burnouts. Even seeing Yummy’s yellow ute die again and me getting an opportunity to present him with a sign he’d ripped off the Armco. And then long-time mate, Johnny Peterson appearing out of the blue with his Mk3 Zephyr to do a celebratory skid for me and the 21^st Summernats. I didn’t know that was coming.

I got to sit in the Tiger helicopter. Up top where the gunnery stuff is with General Peter Leahy, my good friend looking on. Fantastic. A cruise around the block with Victor in Black Bess and a ride in his burnout 57 Chevy. Seeing the Gladiator Challenge go so well. The cheeky dialogue between Brett Stevens and James Scarlett the Challenger, was priceless. Damn, even when my bloody Camaro caught fire on the track was a highlight to me. Can’t forget the photo opportunities with the gorgeous Jack Daniels Miss Summernats Winners. Six of them and a seventh. Could it get any better? Well, maybe. The firey end of the Fever Eye Candy show was spectacular as was the ACT Fireworks and Lawrence wrecking the Roller. The PPG Supercruise and Stunt Show was just the thing for a 21^st celebration.

The highlights were endless. It was a really great Summernats and as I said, I’m proud to do what I do and yes, I’ll hang in there for a while yet and I’m already planning some good stuff for 22 including a trip to the States to talk with Troy Trepanier about getting him and one of his cool cars to the next Event.

Stay tuned for more.  

No-one ever said that the Street Machine Summernats was a quiet weekend in the Nation’s Capital. When you really know me, you know that I’m into having a good time and the Summernats is all about that. Just as that dumb-arse kid from Melbourne with the white sunnies found out, when you throw a big party, it can easily get rowdy.

The media coverage of the Summernats from Monday onwards, has not done us any favours, but as a lot of people know, what you read in the local rag, is mostly exaggerated. I will say that the Marshall acting very inappropriately is something I do not support, even though he and other security personel and marshals had copped racial abuse all weekend. The so-called riotous mob took us by surprise and as time goes on, I’m finding out more and more that it was a big group for sure, but a riot? Define a riot and you’ll find that the mob was nothing like that. I’ll come back to the truth of the media stuff a bit later so stay tuned for that in two or three weeks. What hasn’t done us any favours is that there’s a lot of bloody dickheads out there. We’ll sort it out. You’ll see.

Make 08 great. Keep cruisin’.

Chic

PPG’s Refinisher magazine’s latest copy features Chic’s Chrysler 330C wagon and has an article on the twenty one “celebration colours” they will feature on their display at the Event.

Besides the PPG special mix maroon applied by Newgel, Chic’s 300 isn’t as the Mopar Factory produced it. Tyres from Bridgestone on 22x9.5 billets. Nolathane fitted their suspension magic and Genie provided the headers to go with a healthy sounding Powatone exhaust. Factory cold air intake,  throttle body extension and a Jet performance module helps the hemi with the highway boogie. BDL Car Stereo fitted the DVD screens and a dash module specially made to suit 300’s. Not bad for a daily hack.

I thought it would be nice to develop a trophy that represents a 21st birthday and the people at Capital Trophies and Sportswear have excelled themselves. Almost every award winner at the 21st received a trophy like this one.

A mate of mine sent me this recently: a positive spin on car hoons

The plea for greater understanding of hoon culture appears in the latest edition of the journal Youth Studies Australia. Rob White, professor of sociology at the University of Tasmania, and his co-author Hannah Graham argue that sensational media reports have given the impression of "hoons taking over our streets".

"Hooning has been criminalised," they write. "However, close analysis of 'hooning accidents' as such reveals that hooning is not the large road safety problem the media makes it out to be."

Very few crashes involve high-performance vehicles, they say. Older and cheaper vehicles are more often implicated. And as a percentage of all motor vehicle accidents, so-called hoons account for a very small number.

Professor White said there was a difference between dangerous driving on the street, which was never acceptable, and the kind of activities car-crazed youths liked to engage in.

"We know from watching the Grand Prix that speed, fishtailing and burn-outs are exhilarating," he said. Providing these activities took place off the streets, in areas such as unoccupied industrial sites, they were not necessarily dangerous. "Indeed there are cases when certain types of hooning might well be considered safer than driving on main roads at rush hour," he said.

Young men who were part of the car culture derived excitement, status, and a sense of control through having an impressive vehicle to drive, the authors argue. They liked to build hot cars. They took pride in their driving skills. Having a passion for cars could be an exciting and positive lifestyle choice for young men with time on their hands. And spending money on cars was better than spending it on drugs.

"Drag racing in the streets is dangerous," Professor White said. "Give the young people a race track, or a disused or unoccupied industrial site instead. Offer help and hints on how to race fast, and safely."

The last line says it all. 

Chic.

(Havin’ a chat).

I was sitting in on a session at a Conference I recently attended and this well-known dude from the USA really got my attention when he said that serious exposure to exhaust emissions regularly could lower my I.Q. I figured that my problem was that I was getting older and slower but there’s more to it than that.

I think about my kids a lot and when I finally check out, I hope that somehow I’ve made a difference to their world. There’s some serious stuff being said about the Earth as it is and what it’s becoming and I want to do a bit myself to help and I’m asking you guys to think about it too. It’s the old story, “If we all do a little bit, it’ll become a lot.” Hey, I’m no Greenie tree-hugger, but I can do stuff such as turning off lights I don’t need, fixing leaking taps and using recycling bins when I can.

Over the next few months, I’m gonna throw a few simple ideas your way. We can’t escape the fact that we drive bloody hungry cars and we could easily come under some serious government and community pressure because of this. You want the Summernats to survive don’t you? Me too. How ‘bout we do some stuff together to ease the problems?

Have you ever seen photos of the Earth from Space? Damn, this place looks cool from out there. It’s our home and just like our cars, a bit of regular preventative maintenance will keep it ticking along really well. More later. In the meantime, switch off lights you don’t need on. It’ll help.

PS. The Sunday Telegraph newspaper has a good liftout series on Saving Planet Earth. Positive ways we can make a difference.

Chic.

(Havin’ a chat).

No Alcohol to be brought into Summernats

Summernats Car Festival
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MITCHELL ACT 2911
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