Wanganui Road Rodders bringing street drags back to the central city

There are 70-plus entrants for the 2022 event. Photo / Lewis Gardner

Central Whanganui will be filled with the sound of engines this weekend as the city’s annual street drags rev up.

Put on by the Wanganui Road Rodders, it will be the 36th edition of the meet.

Organiser Raj Patel said last year’s races were cancelled due to Covid-19 and he was itching to get them back on.

The track, which is one-eighth of a mile, runs along Taupō Quay.

“We’ve got a big field this year - around 70-plus entrants,” Patel said.

“That ranges from junior dragsters and motorbikes to the souped-up street cars you see every day around the place.”

“Then you’ve got your big, fire-breathing V8s burning rubber and making smoke. It’s getting better and better every year, and competition is getting closer.”

Patel won’t be racing, but his eight-year-old son Kayden Patel will be.

Kayden, eight-year-old Donovan Tunnell and 11-year-old Jake Tunnell are fresh from competing in the New Zealand Junior Dragster Championships last weekend at Meremere and will be lining up again in Whanganui.

“They raced on the big stage and did amazingly well,” Patel said.

“Kayden was runner-up in his class [Junior Dragster] and Donovan and Jake both set personal best times.”

The junior Whanganui contingent will be up against drivers from Wellington and Bulls this weekend.

There would be 15 local drivers taking part, with the rest of the field coming from around the country, Patel said.

Fellow organiser Grant Rivers set a new national record in the quarter-mile AA Funny Car class at Masterton earlier this month, with a time of 6.82 seconds and a top speed of 202.5 miles per hour.

Eight-year-old Kayden Patel will be in action at the Wanganui Street Drags this weekend.

That success followed his son Adrian Rivers’s record-breaking run in the BB Drag class last December.

He reached a top speed of 216.29mp/h and clocked a time of 6.481 seconds.

Both records were set as part of the New Zealand National Drag Racing Series.

Grant Rivers said he was pretty sure it was the first time a father-son duo had achieved the feat in the same season, in different classes.

“It’s a massive achievement. A lot of work has gone into making [the cars] go fast, and both those records were around 20 years old,” Rivers said.

“We’ve got five national records between us now, and we’ll be back at Masterton on March 18 and 19.

“Adrian is going to have a drive of the funny car this time around. He’s never driven it before.”

Patel said Adrian Rivers would be in action this weekend, behind the wheel of a Nissan Silvia.

“Grant’s daughter Nicole Rivers will be racing a Ford Mustang, as she always does. She’ll be going for the top spot as the fastest lady.

“I’ve stepped aside this year to let the juniors go through - plus my car is broken.”

The Whanganui meet was one of only three of its kind left in New Zealand, Patel said.

Other street drags are held in Wellington and Taranaki.

“[Wanganui Road Rodders] will be celebrating 50 years as a club this October.

“We’re 70 members strong at the moment, and it’s a club that’s here to stay. We’re quite diverse, so we do a lot of drag racing, hot-rodding, and muscle cars.

“It’s just like-minded people who enjoy cars.”

The 2022 Wanganui Street Drags is on this Sunday, March 5. Entry for the public is via Liffiton Street, near McDonald’s.

It runs from 10am to 3pm.