Home Built HQ Racer

Photos by Brett Youlden & Dirk Klynsmith

Whilst it used to be the normal thing back in the days of Group C, building a car for a national series at home and operating your team from the garage is almost unheard of these days, almost. Touring Car Masters competitor Brett Youlden does exactly that with the help of his best mate Bill Williams, coming into their third full season with a show car shaming HQ.

Day to day, Brett works for himself by selling consumables and equipment to workshops and heavy industry through a business he called The Driving Force, so he had the flexibility to start and finish work early so that he could get on with the Monaro’s build in the late afternoons and evenings. Below you will see a full series of photos documenting the 2-year build and highlighting the level of workmanship that brought bashed-up HQ to the standard it is today.

It is hard to believe just how much rust the Monaro had when Brett started. It had been sitting in a paddock for five years all but abandoned and there wasn’t a whole lot left to work with. The first step was stripping the car back to the bare basics, held up on stands in Brett’s home garage.

Here’s shot showing what Brett was faced with. Even the plenum panel was rusted through!

Many hours were spent replacing all the missing metal, from the bottoms of the doors to the footwells.

The Brown Davis Motorsport roll cage structure is made of cold-drawn seemless (CDS), and it’s the safest material you can use but since the car is 50kg overweight, Brett reckons chromoly would have been a better choice.

Not only did Brett remove all the rust, he high-filled the firewall and other areas for a show-quality end result.

Here’s another angle showing the kind of effort Brett put in to make the car look too good to race.

Back at home, Brett’s work also included relocating front suspension pivot points to help the car turn better. The front track has been widened a little, and it runs much more positive castor and negative camber than your average GTS 350

As you can see from comparing the pics, the floor was replaced. You can also see some of the cage as it goes forward of the dash

The boot floor was cut out not only to fix the rust, but to make way for the fuel cell that you’ll see in a later pic. The rear suspension was altered too, with fabricated upper rear arms, rose jointed standard lower arms the pick-up points on the diff moved 25mm, and an adjustable rear sway bar.

Brett painted the HQ himself, and here you can see it afterwards without the front clip. The entire front sub-frame of these old Holdens simply unbolts from the rest of the body.

You can really see how comprehensive the cage is without the interior in the way. Also note the additional members around the floor (and mounted to the tunnel) to stiffen the chassis.

After Brett had annoyed his neighbours with the noise, his friend Greg Moulden, who is the senior teacher in the Motorsport Dept. at Coburg TAFE, allowed him to finish the project there. Greg and a couple of his students also helped out.

The dash was also high-filled and then it was painted satin black. The alloy section for the instruments houses a few old-school needle-type Auto Meter gauges. The custom steering column that you can see was made Acott Race Craft.

The boot houses a fuel cell that feeds a surge tank, and there’s the reservoir and breather for the dry-sump system as well.

Brett was unhappy with his first engine builder. He now has Neil Burns who worked for Peter Brock, Larry Perkins and Walkinshaw in the past, and Brett reckons it was the best move they ever made. Also note the additional bars that go from the radiator support area up to the top of the firewall to help attach the front end more stiffly.

The car was completed in late 2009, after spending 4:30 until about 9pm on it on every weeknight and some Saturdays as well. Brett says “I worked until their security guard kicked me out every night!”

Brett tells us that despite the anguish the car put him through during the build, it was “very, very rewarding”. He gets a kick out of the response the car, and the category, receives at race meetings, and he seems genuine grateful that people express their appreciation for the car and it’s show-worthy appearance.

As with any real race car, the build was largely made possible by Brett’s sponsors to whom he is sincerely grateful. So if it’s alright with you guys, we thought we’d give them a quick plug; Andrew Pidgeon from Mother’s Polishes Waxes and Cleaners, Bill Deralas from Royal Flair Caravans, Mark Luksich from Autolite Spark Plugs, Graeme Scudemoore from Fulcrum Suspension, Glenn Reid  from Centreline Suspension and Phil Chester from Wolfchester Australia