What an interesting week I had over in Perth at the 42nd Western Nationals! Making it to the Semi Finals, running under the ET and over the mph records in the worst conditions I have ever raced in.

From my last update you may remember I was waiting on a new set of headers to come over from the USA. Not knowing when they were going to be ready I fitted the Gebbler Tri-Y's onto the car before it went in the container and left for Perth. Fortunately the headers arrived on the Tuesday before the Westerns which was also the day I was leaving for Perth as I flew over on Tuesday night to test on the Wednesday at the track T&T.

Leanne Bernhard and I set off from Melbourne early on Friday morning to make our way to Adelaide for the 3rd round of the Aeroflow Championship. Obviously not early enough as we hit the Monash Freeway and come to a shuddering halt; so much for meeting up with Matt Forbes in Ballarat.

All things considered it was a pretty uneventful trip except for the road works from Ballarat in Victoria to Talem Bend in South Australia. I don't think I've seen a 25km speed sign before – these must have been hand painted.

Approaching Adelaide I can feel the excitement start to build. I saw my very first drag race as a 5 year old at the track I'm now going to race at for the first time. This is where it all started, my fascination for the sport we all love.

Parker prepares for the Westernationals (Photo courtesy Tom Dowden)Things have been a little quiet in the workshop since the Portland round of the championship. This is due to the next race meeting being 2 months after Portland, in Perth on the 2nd and 3rd of March and lots of time to get everything done.

Normal activity after a race meeting is to get straight onto stripping the car down and checking everything is ok and working out what needs to be done to get ready for the next race meeting. As you know from my last update this was a pretty faultless meeting on the cars behalf so compared to recent times there wasn't much work required.

First order of work was to get onto Peter Ridgeway and have a set of headers built in the USA for the new engine. The old Gebbler Tri-Y headers I had on the old motor were originally off a 358ci Pro Stock truck motor and are a little small for our 400ci motors, although they perform very well.

Darren Parker - Runner-up and record setter in Super Comp (Photo courtesy Tom Dowden)First of all I would like to wish the Just Drag Racing family a very happy new year and a safe and prosperous 2013 on the track.

As you would have read on the Just Drag Racing Website I was runner up at the Portland round of the ANDRA Sportsman Championship series last weekend to Craig Geddes. I desperately needed points after not earning any in Sydney with the broken transmission and had high hopes for the weekend of winning the meeting and resetting both the ET and MPH record. I came close with both of the records and a runner up.

Leading into the meeting there were 6 vehicles entered for Super Stock and it was understood that we would be running on our own and not being combined to run Super Comp. A closer look at the rule showed 6 vehicles needed to attempt qualifying (only 5 had turned up to qualify) and even though there were 9 vehicles entered Competition ANDRA combined the two classes to make Super Comp.

Collecting the winner's trophy in Super Gas (Photo courtesy Dave Hope)Wow... what a weekend at Fuchs-Southcoastraceway Portland for round 2 of the Aeroflow Sportsman Championship!

But let's rewind back to Wednesday when I was preparing the car for the weekend. Whip the valve covers off to do the rockers and find coolant on top of the head. Hmmm... ring Paul Rogers and he says we can fix it Friday night at the track. Catastrophe averted.

Drive down to Portland Friday and get in about 6:30pm. Set up and Paul comes over to fix the problem. Seems I've got some leaky studs which is pretty common for a 400 Chev. Paul works his magic and Robbie Cassar gives me some goo to put in the radiator in the morning.

Michael Bibby and I are sleeping in the trailer for the weekend so we both wake up with sore backs in the morning – checker plate flooring is not that good for spinal posture. Put the goo in the radiator and go through the normal warm up procedure. Fingers crossed this works; lift the valve covers off and no water! We're back in business baby.

Following on from a relatively disappointing debut of the new engine in the GXP at the Australian Nationals I returned home to Melbourne and got underway ordering parts for the carburettors and transmission.

I mentioned in my last update about the engine being very rich off the line and through 1st gear and it wasn't until the top end of second gear that it started to clear itself up. One of the first things I did when I got home was to call Bob Book at Book Racing Enterprises as he built the carburettors for the motor and we spoke about a number of changes that needed to be made. I ordered a handful of parts from Bob and they were promptly on their way to Australia for me to fit to the carbs.