Victor Bray
aka The King of Top Doorslammer
Victor Bray left high school and went to Gatton Agricultural College
for 2 years, while he worked on the family tomato farm. He started racing
at the age of 18, mainly on the street, as there were no organized track
meets at that time. As street meets began to be organised at Surfers Paradise
International Raceway, he started to frequent them. Surfers Paradise was
Victor's home track until it was shut down due to noise restrictions in
1987/88. Since then, he has made Willowbank Raceway in Queensland his
home track.
Victor's first taste of success was at Surfers at the ' tin top' titles
in 1983. He raced at Willowbank's first race as a fill-in for the featured
"Wild Bunch" bracket and as a result, he travelled the country
over the next several years as a part of "The Wild Bunch" team.
Victor's first car was a Ford Prefect paddock thrasher' - followed by
a series of FJ, FX, FB, and EK, Holden's. There were 52 of these in total
and he and his mates used these to thrash around the farm. Victor's first
registered road car was an EJ station wagon followed by a Holden Sandman
panel van, which he bought after he sold a successful patch of pumpkins,
half-shares with his grandfather. Then came the Chevy power, several HK,
HT and HG Chevy powered Monaro's.
At Gatton Agricultural College Victor met a student called "Big Dave"
who drove a Plymouth Belvedere. "Big Dave" was Victor's first
contact with USA style cruisers. After Victor left college, a couple of
local guys (John and Brad Parker) were always cursing the streets in these
big old Chevys and Cussos. They influenced Victor greatly, and he remains
friends with them today. Victor ended up with a long line of Chevys ranging
from a 1955 through to many '65 and '68s and just about everything in
between which he still has today.
After the Black 57, Victor decided to build himself a "race car"
with some of his mates in his garage. They went to their local wreckers
with a tape measure and a few ideas and purchased a 1 tonner chassis which
they fitted to a 57 chev body, found at the Toowoomba swap meet a few
weeks earlier. With the addition of fibreglass front and the supercharged
small block Chevy from the "old faithful", Victor Bray found
himself in his first real "purpose built" race car.
After a head on collision involving Victor, wife Marie and daughter Kelly
in 1978, he met guys such as Chic Henry, Wayne Barber and other stalwarts
in the Chev scene and he ended up buying his first 1957 Chevy soon after.
That car, which Victor still owns, is the first black car he raced, and
from there Victor embarked on a path that has seen him end up where he
is today.
Once Victor had felt the benefits of the lighter "purpose built"
car, he went one step further and actually had a car built by a professional
chassis builder. Victor had seen some work by a guy in Melbourne which
he thought was very impressive so he went about ensuring he soon met this
man whose name was Murray Andersen. After much deliberation Victor struck
a deal and had his first race car built by a pro. A great relationship
between Murray Andersen and Victor Bray was soon established both at a
professional and family level, that has only been enhanced with time.
In June 1996, Victor leapfrogged world standards and become the driver
of the quickest and fastest Doorslammer on the planet. A goal Victor had
dreamt of many days on the farm but probably really thought would stay
just that..."A DREAM".
Over the next few years this relationship was to spearhead all performance
advances in supercharged sedan racing throughout the world. When the next
and current Andersen built 57 hit the track in 1993, Victor's exploits
were being recorded and noticed across the globe as a performance leader
for the supercharged Doorslammers.
Over the next few years Victor and his team continued to hold the records.
Whenever a standard set by Victor and his beloved Chevy was bettered by
another team somewhere in the world, Victor allowed them to relish it
for only a short while, and to date, has been able to return the records
back to the Castrol camp.
1999 saw Victor Bray drive his Castrol GP50 Chev to a new World Record
speed of 232.13mph (371.4kph) on his way to winning the opening round
of the Australian Top Doorslammer Championship at Calder Park Raceway
in Melbourne. Bray's stunning performance is the second time he has regained
the record from different challengers since June.
On the first occasion it was fellow Australian Peter Gratz who upped the
mark with a 229.24mph at the Konica Winternationals before Bray reclaimed
the mantle with a speed of 229.94 mph just four weeks later.
American nitro sedan racer Randy Merrick then moved the record across
the Pacific with a 230.7 mph speed. However, just one week later, Victor
managed to reclaim the record and take it back to Australia. "It's
fantastic to get the record back again," said Bray. "We're even
happier about how the Castrol GP50 Chevy did it. Championship points are
the most important thing so we were actually being conservative off the
start line to avoid overpowering the track. We still ran 229 in qualifying,
232 in round one, 229 in the semi-final and a 6.25 at 230 in the final."
The face of Top Doorslammer changed rapidly over the next few years with
many other teams turning professional. The championship has been swapped
around from team to team with many close finishes also seeing spectacular
increases in performances. Through all the financial difficulty the world
has seen over the past few years the growth of motorsport in Australia
has slowed but the level of competition in Top Doorslammer has gone from
strength to strength.
With many competitors wanting to race more events and the need for the
sport to become more regional than it had been in the past Victor and
several other Doorslammer drivers got together and started the Australian
1/8 mile championship. It is run under a series of events called 'SLAMFEST"
and allows the Doorslammers to perform in front of a whole new group of
fans in their own region on tracks that have only been built to cater
for 1/8th mile racing.
With the current 1/4 mile Doorslammer record being set at 5.82 and 250+mph
and the current 1/8th mile record at 4.02 @ 194 there seems to be a big
future for Doorslammers here in OZ and the fire still burns deep in Victors
veins to again be number 1.
A major change in Team Bray for 2011 racing season and beyond is the departure
of long time major sponsor Castrol. Team Bray enjoys continued product
support from Castrol but their marketing focus has changed and all at
Team Bray wish them well.
The big news is that SIDCHROME, manufacturer of Australia's favourite
mechanics tool has become the major sponsor of Team Bray into the future.
SIDCHROME has been sponsoring Team Bray for well over 10 years by supplying
their great products to the team and from now on whenever you see a Team
Bray Race car, crew member or transporter you will see the iconic logo
of SIDCHROME tools across the
years of....YA CANNA HAND A MAN A GRANDER SPANNER.
