Howdy to all our Supporters, 1000 MPH Club Members, Sponsors and Aussie Invader newsletter recipients, welcome to our October edition. Boy what a huge and extremely busy month it has been for the Aussie Invader LSR Team.

Rocket interface manifold is delivered
Yippee… our interface manifold has been completed, thank you so much to our 1000 MPH Club members who made this vital part reality and the support Calm Aluminium for the material sponsorship. This part has been a mammoth effort by a lot of people and the machining of it needed to be precise but unfortunately very expensive.

It is now mounted to our B3 rocket nozzle and we are now full steam ahead building a display and test stand for the complete motor, both for our Sydney Motor Show appearance and for our torch ignitor test program, which we hope to complete shortly after our Sydney appearance.

We have coupled our ignitor to a FA/18 ignitor and ignitor box and are experimenting with various torch ignitor propellants to find the hottest and most efficient rocket ignition system. More on this next month.

We have also been working closely with Braeco Sales in Perth who build and supply precision hydraulic, pneumatic and electric actuators and a range of specialist cryogenic control valves which we are testing for flow application for our motors liquid oxygen and bio kerosene propellants. Thanks must go to Mike McAuliffe, for your lifetime friendship and worldly experience in this specialist area, which is much appreciated.

Wheel production is underway
Our Calm Aluminium solid wheels are currently being machined in a defence contractor’s machine shop here in Perth and we are hopeful of having a completed wheel in a week, ready to go on display in Sydney. Extreme thanks to Calm Aluminium, John Ackroyd, Ben Parry and Element Engineering Australia (EEA) for the huge effort you have put into the design of these 1000 mph wheels.

Aussie Invader III helping to promote Covs expansion
In last month’s newsletter we reported we met with Covs, a leading auto, industrial and mining parts supplier in Western Australia. Things have moved on from there and we are going to help Covs with the promotion of their stores throughout our state. Covs wanted to use Australia’s current fastest car, Aussie Invader III, as a catalyst to draw attention to their new store outlets and huge new mega warehousing facility.

This approach came about after Matt Birney, Covs General Manager, heard me talking on 6PR (thanks Millsy). Matt and his team paid my team a visit to our out of town location where Aussie Invader III has sat idle in a shed on her transport trailer for several years.

We discussed the concept of putting this beautiful car on display but agreed that the car had to be presented in a more appealing format to the public than on the transport trailer she was sitting on. We decided on building a purpose built display rack that would allow the car to be transported to the display location via a tilt tray truck with an 8 metre tray.

First job was to get Aussie Invader III to our workshop and that was a task alone. To read the full story and see pictures of the move, please click here.

Where do you start? Loyal crew members Pete Taylor and Chris Demunck started measuring up and designing the transport rack, I started contacting several local companies that could help bring this concept together. First call was to our long time sponsor and most loyal supporter in the world… Di Candilo Steel City. Could they supply the 250mm x 150mm beam sections we needed? “Where would you like them delivered was their response?” what a great response that was to hear.

Now I needed someone to build it as this job was way too big for my guys to construct, having several jobs still to complete for the Sydney Motor Show, so we needed professional help. We found a great quality steel fabrication company in Perth’s northern suburbs called Reeves Engineering. After a brief discussion with the owner John Reeves, our steel product was delivered to him and his instructions were “we need it yesterday”. Reeves Engineering put our transport frame together in LSR time and did a great job.

Next we needed to find a first class transport company to haul our car to and from these displays. Daynite Towing have been established in Western Australia for a long time and they are regarded as one of the best operators in the business. I met with the owner Rob Waters who also doubles as a professional Truck Racer and discussed using their services and one of their top operators Garry to perform our transport needs. Thank you Daynite Towing and thanks must also go to The Rigging Shed, Compac Marketing, Chief Car Covers and Shannons for your support.

Preparation for Sydney is relentless
We are currently busy building display stands and signage, along with all the merchandise we have produced for Sydney, packing it all into a 20′ shipping container very kindly supplied by Speedmark Australia with some great backup support from Merchant Shipping here in WA. Thank you kindly Glenn and Nick for your fantastic support.

Once our container is loaded it will transverse Australia via rail in readiness for our Sydney appearance. A lot of the work completed over the past month could not have been done without the help of my inspirational son Bryce who unfortunately for him came back home to recharge his batteries after working away for some time, but then found himself working flat strap to assist the crew and me with our huge workload.

Bryce has been a major player in my land speed and drag racing aspirations since he could walk. He had his own car on the salt at age 4 and always worked with my loyal team helping out wherever he could. At age 15 he could drive my 18 wheeler truck and transporter by himself and assisted me to prep, race and maintain our jet dragsters. Thankfully he learned at a young age that my chosen work was way too hard and became a divemaster and skipper.

We were happy to be a part of Redkite Children’s Charity this month by offering as a prize the opportunity for a company to visit our workshop and have my team and I give them a talk and guided tour… Keep up the great work you are doing Redkite.

That’s about it for this month, there is a million other things we are working on and some great people supporting, bringing our project to reality, we thank you all. Chas Shaffer, thank you mate and sorry for not getting back to you yet.