Waltzing Matilda Jet Powered truck

Yep, I remember seeing WM run, was pretty boring off the start line, as mentioned it didnt wind up till about half track and by about 1000 feet was hard on the brakes to avoid a messy sandtrap incident in the braking area. The most exciting thing about jet dragsters was one night in Townsville in the late 80s they chained an old valiant station wagon behind Ross Mcglashans dragster and barbecued it with the afterburners. The wagon was full of old mag wheels and copper pipes to make interesting flames!

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cya

Just found this great article and photos of the Waltzing Matilda history and remembered we had a thread on it.

gregwapling.com/hotrod/land-speed-racing...altzing-matilda.html

lang

Hi,

there is a new/recent book written about Waltzing Matilda that has been written by the people originally involved in the creation of Matilda, waltzingmatildajettruck.com.au/ and a copy of the book was donated to the HCVCA for their library by the authors and I happened to be at the Meeting last week when it was shown to those in attendance so I, my father technically,  borrowed the book and it has been a good read. Could have done with a bit of professional editing skills but the books itself is of high quality and comes with a poster of the image you see at the top of the website.

Lots of photos not seen 'publicly' and many stories from those involved so I enjoyed filling the blanks and my one memory as a little tacker about vaguely recalling seeing a whale or a shark in a tank on the back of truck when I saw Matilda at Sandown, turns out it was part of the Super Boss exhibition that they toured with. It does include some pictures of Drag series with Mean Machine, Detroit Devil and the other trucks competing in the series.

A bit of a spoiler, in the last few pages they talk about the efforts of the current owner in trying to find more of the original truck, that started this thread, and along with O'Hare they intend to build a replica of Waltzing Matilda over the next two years using as many of the original parts that have been found or recovered so far.

Terry