The Weekly Reekie - Watch out Australia, Here Comes Harry and the Hardass 1000!
Have the lunatics taken over the asylum? That would seem to be the case in Shepparton, Victoria, Australia, where Harry Haig is preparing to host his own drag-and-drive event, the Hardass 1000.
Harry has spent many years building a reputation as a loose cannon both in the States and in his homeland. He’s known as the life of the party, the lovable rogue, always flying by the seat of his grease-stained pants. Excuse me for questioning his organizational skills but I can’t ever recall seeing him organized. This is a whole new look for him.
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“There’s more organizing involved than I realized but I’m liking the challenge of doing something different,” said the wild man from Down Under when I attempted a telephone intervention on him recently. “I think everyone who’s coming along on this adventure knows what they’re in for with how rough and ready we are. There’s bound to be a few hiccups for our first event but we’ll work it out on the fly, like we always do.”
He talks a good game, especially for a first-timer, but there are clear signs that the Hardass 1000 is going to be a little loonier and a little looser than most drag-and-drives. For one thing, the very unique promotional artwork for the event depicts two street cars mowing down roadkill in a race to the pub!
“Everyone knows it’ll be fun because we’re doing it,” Harry said of his DIY “street car get-down” event. “There’s no seriousness about it, and there’s not a heap of rules to abide by. It’s meant to be very entry-level and it doesn’t matter what your budget is. I reckon it’ll have a cool dynamic.”
Ready or not, the Hardass 1000 gets underway on March 18 in rural Victoria and will run for six days with four days of racing planned, three at Heathcote Park Raceway and one at Wilby Park Raceway. Several drive-only days have been inserted for a more relaxed schedule, and it’s Harry's dream to have all the cars cruising in convoy and to make every checkpoint its own social event.
“I’ve spent a lot of time choosing the routes and the checkpoints,” he explained. “We spent a week driving around, finding cool spots and trying out different places. It will have the best drives and checkpoints of any event we’ve ever had in Australia. The drive days alone will be killer.”
Over here in the States, Harry is known for his eight-second twin-turbo ’69 Chevelle he calls ‘Stevo’, which has done multiple Drag Weeks and podium’d in its class a couple of times since it was pulled from a swamp in 2016. In Australia, he’s known for his seven-second twin-turbo Holden HQ sedan, ‘The Big Dawg’, which has won Street Machine Drag Challenge twice, in 2019 and 2022/23. Back in October he debuted a new ’67 Camaro build and ran an 8.25 with it on the final day of Drag Challenge.
So what vehicle is he planning to show up in at the inaugural Hardass 1000? Would you believe it if I said a big blue bus?
“I won’t have time to race because I’ll be too busy making sure everybody else has a good time, so I’m taking an old bus,” said Harry. “It’s a 1974 Leyland bus that we chassis-swapped onto a Toyota Dyna chassis and fitted a Chevy Vortec 350 with a Turbo 400. Kinda like Tom Bailey’s ice-cream truck, it’ll have food and drinks on board and we’ll carry tools and parts to help fix broken-down victims on the road. I will have four or five mates riding with me so it should be an awesome time.”
According to Harry, one of the main aims of the Hardass 1000 is to give anybody with a set wheels and sense of adventure the chance to experience the joys of drag-and-drive. He estimates that roughly three-quarters of the expected 150-car field will be newbies.
“It’s an event that’ll really suit people who have never done a drag-and-drive or been down a dragstrip before,” he said. “We’ve also got a Young Guns class for drivers as young as 15. I’ve loved doing drag-and-drive together with my son Corty so I wanted to do the same for other entrants. I want everyone to experience what drag-and-drive is all about, and I especially want to get kids involved and show them they can do it.”
Maybe this crazy mofo ain’t so crazy after all. He seems to have some good ideas and pure intentions, and maybe he’s learned a thing or two over those many years of doing drag-and-drive on two continents.
“A good drag-and-drive is all about the social side of it, the good camaraderie,” he said. “I have lifelong friends in America and Sweden and all over the world who I never would have met if I didn’t do drag-and-drive. So that’s sort of what I’m aiming for, a grassroots event where the fastest guy can be pitted alongside the slowest guy and they can become friends for life.”
For anybody not lucky enough to be located in remote country Victoria, you’ll have to keep up with all the Hardass 1000 action via the Haulass Garage online network.
“We’ll have daily videos on the Haulass Garage YouTube channel and updates on our Instagram and Facebook,” said Harry. “I don’t think we’ll be able to do live feeds because some of these places are so remote and the wifi reception is bad, but we’ll have a video up every day and post up whatever else we can.”
The Hardass 1000 is happening in Victoria, Australia on March 18-24. It starts and ends at Heathcote Park.
“It should be pandemonium,” said Harry. “Just the way I like it.”
Stay Sick, and watch out for big blue buses when crossing the street.
Written by Matt Reekie.
