Stuart Henry Brings an Aussie Attitude to the U.S. Radial Wars

By Michael Galimi

The land down under, Australia, is known for many things, like driving on the wrong side of the road, kangaroos and koala bears. There may be a multitude of differences between “us and them,” but the Aussies do share the American passion for drag racing. Enter Stuart Henry, a native of Toowoomba, a town in Queensland, Australia, who likes to go real fast on U.S. soil in his ’71 Ford Capri, complete with right- side driver’s position. The 36-year-old has been liv- ing the drag racing version of the Endless Summer since he shipped his car here for an adventure hit- ting the biggest drag radial events of the 2015 race season.

Henry has been submerged in Aussie drag racing since he could drive a car. Instead of the normal bracket racing, it was the Pro Street scene that caught his attention when he kept going quicker and quicker in Mod Street with his nitrous-powered Capri. “We have a Pro Street racing scene, which is pretty strong,” Stuart told us when we asked him if there is a similar radial/small-tire scene in Australia. The short- wheelbase car holds its own at home by knocking off 7.20s at 197 mph thanks to a stroked big-block Chevy engine supplied by Sunset Performance of Sherman, Texas.

According to Henry, the Australian Pro Street world is well-versed in the happenings on the American drag scene thanks to the internet, social media and live feed video at most events. A chance encounter with Mark Menscer during an Australian Pro Stock race changed Henry’s life forever. Menscer gained the nickname “Shock Nerd” for his talents in custom valving and tuning racing shocks. When he and Henry began talking drag radial racing the idea of Henry making the trip halfway around the world was spawned. Henry was a fan of radial action, so he only needed a little coaxing to make the trip to see it firsthand.

Henry’s first trip to the U.S. was to hang out during the 2014 running of No Mercy, the biggest radial race in the world, held annually at South Georgia Motorsports Park. As planned, he met with Kevin Neil of Neil Performance Innovations as they worked together on tuning the Capri via email and Facebook private messages. The two hit it off and Henry jumped right in, helping Neil compete at No Mercy with his Fox-body Mustang. “It didn’t take much, but Menscer and Kevin Neal were the two biggest instigators in convincing me to send the car over,” he explained about how he went from foreign fan to international drag racer.

In January 2015, the car made its journey to the Port of Los Angeles, unfortunately a union strike put a delay on Henry’s fun. “I had bought a truck and trailer over here so I could bring the car across the country to race. I was supposed to be racing at the Duck’s race [ed. note: Lights Out at South Georgia Motorsports Park], but the car was stuck in the port. That was probably the most stressful part; wondering when and where the car was going to arrive,” he explained. Once it was released, he loaded up the trailer and hit the road for a cross-country trip, taking the scenic route so he and his traveling companions could enjoy the trip across America. The Eisenhower Interstate Highway system brought them to Memphis, but it wasn’t to see Graceland. He had his Capri, plenty of VP Racing Fuels C23 fuel jugs and 10 Nitrous Outlet nitrous bottles ready for action for his U.S. debut in March 2015 at the Outlaw Street Car Reunion at Memphis International Raceway.

For those wondering about the name of the vehicle, it’s a Capri that was produced by Ford as a European pony car instead of exporting the Mustang brand there in the late ’60s. Ford then began shipping the Capri to Australia in 1969 and there were several models produced through 1986. In America, the Capri fell under the Lincoln- Mercury nameplate. Henry’s Capri is far from stock—it has a race-inspired leaf- spring suspension that helps plant the Mickey Thompson ET Street Radial Pro 275/60-15 radial tires and a SFI 25.5 spec cage has been installed in the cockpit. A Sunset-built 615-ci big-block Chevy was shoehorned into the engine bay. It features a pair of Brodix SR20 heads, a huge camshaft, Holley Dominator carb (modified by APD) with an Edelbrock intake manifold and a Neil Performance Innovation single-stage nitrous kit with parts from Nitrous Outlet.

The 615-ci displacement pushes him into the Outlaw 275 class instead of X275, and the Aussie knocked off 4.60 performances, hardly class-killing numbers, but Henry was living a dream that very few have had a chance to do. He was racing an oddball Capri with the driver’s seat on the opposite side of the vehicle in one of the biggest Outlaw radial races in the world. That was the first of many races for 2015. Henry went home and returned in the summer for a stay lasting several months as he hit the NMCA Finals, Shakedown at the Summit in Norwalk, No Mercy at South Georgia Motorsports Park, Fall Brawl at Holly Springs and Radial Fest at Huntsville.

“If I didn’t have really good friends on this side, it wouldn’t be possible,” explained Henry as he described the logistics of shipping his car by water and flying 20 hours to California. He concluded, “I don’t know what I am going to do: sell the car, keep it here or send it back, but being here has been so cool and it was the people who made it worth it. The racing is great, but it is the drag radial family that we have going that is really awesome.”

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