Australia has always had a great car culture, and many of the performance and racing innovations have come from “Down Under.” There are countless performance engine businesses that are building and designing some of the best performance products in the world. With only a few dragstrips on the entire continent and a limited drag racing season, the races and classes down in Australia have been a little behind the U.S. as far as racing classes and elapsed times. That being said, they are catching up quickly. One of the nation’s leading outlaw racers is named Simon O’Carroll.
O’Carroll has made a name for himself in a nitrous-powered Holdon Torana known as “Ntorius.” O’Carroll was a featured driver who competed against the Street Outlaws from Discovery when the No Prep Kings series took some of their cars down to Australia to film for the TV show.
O’Carroll decided to step up his game after that appearance and multiple trips to the states visiting big events like No Prep Kings races with Kye Kelley and Justin Swanstrom and Big Jake’s prepped grudge race events at Xtreme Raceway Park in Ferris, Texas. He purchased a former Outlaw 10.5 first-gen Camaro originally built and raced by Jim Robbins back in 2009. O’Carroll’s brother bought the car from Robbins and had it shipped Down Under. It was raced as a nitrous car and changed hands a few times before O’Carroll bought it and front-halved the car, making it a double frame rail, full tube chassis car with radial racing in mind.
O’Carroll is a custom pool builder in real life and is in a position now to build his dream car and pilot one of the three fastest door cars in Australia. O’Carroll and his wife run Simon O’carroll Swimming Pools in Brisbane, Queensland. As any business owner knows, sometimes you have to put your racing away for a moment to help your business grow, and that’s exactly what O’Carroll did until just a few years ago. Now he is living his dreams in a car he named “Kraken.”
Let me tell you about “Kraken” and what it’s pushing. And no, this beast was not purchased out of the back of a comic book (cheap Dazed and Confused reference). “Kraken” no longer has a nitrous motor or a twin-turbo motor as its powerplant. Under the bonnet is a 4.8 Noonan Hemi with a PSI D Rotor screw blower and paired with a Liberty 5-speed with a Quick Drive and lockup converter controlled by FuelTech. Ironically, the engine is still mechanical injection on methanol.
When O’Carroll and his crew got the car running, they decided to take the car to test on 315 radials so he could get some seat time without worrying about traction, but never ran it past the 330. With only six 330-foot passes under his belt, the team loaded up and went to the Brisbane Jamboree back in late August.
O’Carroll loaded up with his crew chief Josh Ward, tuning duo Kon Michaladakis and Steven Ham, crew members JP Mitchell, Grant Bedrick, Big Steve Grljak, Will Weber, Kev Dickinson, Kruez Turner Media, and wife Lisa O’Carroll and set out to get some seat time at the Jamboree.
O’Carroll told the crew, “Let’s go to this quarter-mile event and get some more seat time.” Having tested about four weeks earlier, he let off at 3 seconds in the run and coasted to a 6.79. O’Carroll figured if he could stay in it to the 1,000-foot mark, he could run 6.20 or 6.30. Most of the cars at this event in the radial class had only run in the 6.50 range. In the finals, O’Carroll took this beautiful Medina-colored Camaro to a 6.15, letting off 5 seconds into the run.
The Jamboree was run in a Chicago-style format, where each car got three passes and the fastest two cars run it off for the money. O’Carroll won the event handily and is now shooting for the Australian drag radial record currently held by Paul Merry, who has been as quick as 5.85 at 225 mph. If O’Carroll has his way, he will do it on 275s as he gets ready to have his car shipped to the states to mix it up at events like Big Jake’s race and Pro 275 at one of Donald Long’s races in 2026.
O’Carroll also wanted to personally thank Peter Cartwright, owner of Surface Correction and Protection, for always making the car look good before appearances.
O’Carroll said, “I’ve been 4.40s in a stock suspension Holden, I’ve crossed the 660 with the wheels in the air in my nitrous car, but I finally found a car that filled that rush I’ve been chasing my entire life.” He related that his business can be so hectic that drag racing actually feels like life slows down when he’s at the track.
It will be interesting to see what O’Carroll does with this car in the future, as he’s just barely started to make waves as the “Kraken” breaks the surface of the Drag Radial scene.
This story was originally published on October 1, 2025. 
