We had come from a fairly successful background in oval track. After witnessing our first Top Fuel race we came away with the opinion that “these are the most awesome cars on the planet”
It was only natural, with a background racing overhead cam engines (our dad was the Meyer Drake “Offy” distributor in Australia), to ask the question why hasn’t someone done this before?
The first version of the engine was very much like an Offy with integral blocks and heads. Although powerful and strong it was very difficult to work on. In 1986 the motor was redesigned to a more conventional configuration and was actually faster to service than a Chrysler.
Obviously building a motor is just a small part of what is required to field a race team.Most of the “motor” problems had nothing to do with the motor. When you try to build more power you identify a lot of other weak links on the racecar. With the torque of the 4-valve engine we had a succession of catastrophic drive train failures and expended an enormous amount of time and energy making everything else on the car, better. As it started to run properly we started to burn it up and had to make bigger fuel pumps and barrel valves.In any combustion chamber when you have detonation it will damage the most vulnerable area of the chamber. On a two-valve motor a trough gets burnt between the exhaust valve and the plugs. With the 4-valve engine it would pick on the area between the exhaust valves. We made one piece dual valve seats that took care of that and we ran the last few years with a half dozen heads being rotated in service.
Finally we did start to run well. We bought a state-of-the-art chassis, hired a champion driver and assembled an experienced crew. We purchased the best clutches, superchargers and ignitions available and began to make respectable runs. At that point we began to qualify for most of the races, sometimes in the top half of the field, and occasionally won some rounds. We broke into the 4’s in 1992 with Gary Beck driving.
We went from being laughed at to being the subject of a lot of behind-the-scenes secret meetings with engine builders, auto companies, team owners and race officials. Long before the rules were written, in 1997, to outlaw overhead cam, multi valve engines, most of the teams had been scared off realizing that any advantage with the engine would be negated by added weight.
Today Phil and I are racing with our kids and having fun. Our dad, Hedley, was inducted into the Australian Speedway Hall of Fame in 2007. We still have some unfinished business in the world of fuel racing. We will be a part of fuel racing again. Visit
Mcgee Cams Jr. Dragster Racing or
Kaitlyn McGee Racing for more news. Chris McGee.
