Like his dad, Ben was bought up on the family farm with one major difference. Ben was 100% sure he wasn’t a farmer regardless of his dad’s attempts to get him involved. From day 1 Ben made his own mind up on what he wanted, and it has been that way ever since. Ben loved soccer and was pretty good at it practising every weekend and competing in local and state competitions for several years.
Ben liked the idea of the new Drag racing class junior dragster and wanted to have a crack at it. Little did his Dad know, Ben had been hanging around the junior pits during events and organised himself a junior dragster which Victor was only too happy to buy. By the time Ben was 12 he could pull the junior motor apart check it change cam timing, tune the engine and set the car up to go racing by doing launches inside the workshop much to Victor’s dilemma. He won the biggest Junior Dragster Nationals at the time along with many wins. Ben raced junior dragsters until he turned 17 and now crews for his 2 children Zack and Dakoda on their journey through junior dragster.
While Ben was racing JD’s he was also working on Victor’s car, taking on crew chief duties at 14 and making the calls on the clutch and ratios by 16. Victor had older equipment that he had updated in the workshop which Ben took a shine to and devised a plan for his upcoming 17th birthday when he could be licensed for Top Doorslammer.
The old twin roll caged heavy customline was sitting in the workshop so he grabbed that. Then started parting a legal Doorslammer together and finally Victor told him to get the parts he needed to finish it off out of the Race spares. Obviously, Victor and Ben had taken different paths to their Doorslammer careers, but if you ask Ben his was the hardest dealing with the old man. Ben wasn’t new to high horsepower cars at 17.
On several occasions – while Victor was interacting with the fans after a burnout show – all of a sudden the car would start doing burnouts again while Victor was still at the fence. Guess who was at the wheel… it stared at Kalbar when he was 14 and Victor would tell you hasn’t stopped since. Ben thought it was funny but Victor thought it was dangerous.
Ben got the customline running and the team went to the track several times for Ben to get some testing in. Victor was amazed at his ability to set the car up and drive it as he always felt Ben wasn’t listening to anything he said, but just maybe he was.
In his first event after licensing he went out in early rounds against Debbie Reeds dragster in supercharged outlaws and he was pissed. He told Victor he wanted to enter the Australian Nationals, an event Victor had won many times and one of the toughest events on the calendar. Ben was so excited Victor got him aside and explained don’t be disappointed if you don’t qualify as the cusso was not as fast as the other cars entered. Some great advice from Dad who had qualified for every event he had entered his whole career except for one thing… Ben qualified at #8 and Victor didn’t qualify for the first time in his career.
As eliminations continued Ben won every race against faster cars with better reaction times and went on to win the event. Later that night, Ben told Victor that it didn’t seem all that hard which earned him a sticker applied by his dad to the rear of the cusso WORLDS FASTEST SMARTASS. Little did the field know that was only the start of Ben Bray’s rampage through the field at many more events over the next couple of years. This included 2 national Championships in Doorslammer and one in Top Alcohol along with Championship runner ups in each category. Not to mention, he earned a reputation to all who lined up against him from then to now to be on their toes.
Although Ben loved running supercharged Doorslammer he soon fell in love with world of turbocharged 4 and 6 cylinder powered sedans and so it startws. Firstly, several street Datsuns with turbo charged engines for the street meets and test and tunes. Ben loved Datsun utes and built one called MR1200 which he competed in successfully for a couple of years, honing his tuning and chassis setup skills.
Ben struck up a friendship with New Zealand champion Rod Harvey who was a regular traveler to Australia to compete in his 2 Door Datsun and was very successful. Eventually Rod wanted to update the Datsun into a US built car he had been eyeing off. Ben jumped at the chance to buy the Datsun from Rod and started competing at a higher level in Sports Compact.
Victor helped Ben with his Sports Compact when requested but Ben did most of the rebuilding and maintenance at nights after work. It started as a hobby alongside the Doorslammer Championship and as usual grew into a major part of Team Bray Racing. Electronic management of engine and basically all aspects in the Doorslammers was not allowed and it didn’t take Ben long to become competent in tuning the complicated Sports Compact cars. He often said by tuning without electronics in Doorslammer and with electronics in Sports Compact gave him a better insight across both categories. Ben had some real success in the Datsun.
After testing and developing the 4 cylinder SR20 it was developing too much power now for the Datsun, so when an ex Prostock car came to the market in Adelaide Ben jumped on it and fitted the 4 banger and driveline to the spaceframe chassis.
It wasn’t too long before Ben was getting close to the World Record for a 4 cylinder powered Drag car over the ¼ mile. He was only a tenth or so away he entered the 2014 Winternationals at Willowbank. During qualifying he was tuning the suspension to the track conditions and on 2 separate runs ran the first 1/8th mile quick enough for the world record, then next pass – with a couple of changes – ran the second half of the track that if coupled with the previous run would have given him the record. Ben made the changes to try and tie the 2 half runs together and fronted the start line. The car left hard and as the car neared past half track turned a hard right hit the wall flipped on the roof at close to 200 mph and continued down the track on the roof spinning stopping just past the finish line.
Ambulance and track officials soon had Ben out of the upturned car and very quickly realised on top of minor injuries Ben had suffered a serious injury to his back and was carefully taken to hospital for tests. Ben had already suffered a serious back injury with 3 fractured vertebrae in a workshop accident a couple of years prior. The diagnoses from the accident were 4 fractured vertebrae, one very serious with a fracture right into the spinal fluid that required absolute stillness with zero movement for around 3 months in hospital and a full back brace for another 6.
Ben was very lucky to recover as he did and within a couple of years was back driving again, albeit very tentatively at first. It was discovered the cause of the accident was the failure of the left side rear shock absorber. A small gear in the top of the shock stripped and allowed the setting to drop to zero which put all the load on the left rear tire on the 2-3 shift… a $20 part. The shocks we run now have both sides connected and no gears in the adjuster so, if there are any failures both shock would drop together which should keep the car reasonably stable.
Once recovered Ben returned to the Doorslammer Championship but the Sports Compact bug soon bit even harder as he knew he had the record back at the Winternationals and wanted to get back in the action. A US built Toyota Solara suitable for a 6 cylinder come on the market and Ben had it in the workshop faster than you can say Sports Compact.
Ben ran the car for a year or so but had a little trouble seeing forward as all late model cars have the back of the bonnet half way up the windscreen for aerodynamics. It was a great car built by a very reputable builder. Victor felt the real reason he sold the Solara was because a NISSAN 370 Z built exclusively for Sports Compact by the worlds best chassis builder may be available soon. Ben had followed this car since its build in the US and said many times he would love to get his hands on it and fit his 4 cylinder out of the crashed car and try again for the world record even though it had been lowered several times while Ben recovered and raced the Solara. As usual when he puts his mind to something he works it out. The NISSAN 370Z now resided in Team Bray Racing workshop.