A need for speed
Garth grew up in a “Ford house”. He was, and very much still is, a self-described “Ford guy” but realized early on that in drag racing he needed to go to the opposition. “The Ford stuff was all custom made so you were doing the development work [yourself], whereas Chev parts were all off the shelf. It didn’t feel comfortable, but it was practical,” he says.
Garth describes himself as a hot rodder at heart, saying, “I love them as an art form because each car makes a huge statement about its owner — especially the beautifully engineered ones.”
However, the need to race had became all-consuming once Garth had got an initial taste. When it came to searching out sponsorship support, he encountered something of a brick wall: “It was always disappointing talking to potential sponsors about drag racing. There is a prevailing negative attitude from traditional motor sport people and mainstream media seemingly wanting to perpetuate a perception of deadbeats.” Despite being well-educated, personable, and intelligent, Garth found it difficult to overcome his feeling that drag racers were “the poor cousins of motor racing”.
NUMBERS GAME
Perhaps more than any other form of motor sport, drag racing is a numbers game. Power output; cubic inches; torque; elapsed time (ET); and, of course, speed — both in terms of the end of the quarter-mile and the driver’s reactions. While a mathematics degree isn’t critical, a working knowledge of chemistry and physics comes in handy. “ETs are determined by power, not by top speed; the important thing is putting
