Leif has been racing at many places in the world and at tracks that we didn’t knew existed. But he had one mission that he hadn’t done, until last December 2012. And it was to race "down under" in Australia.

Leif started as a hot rod builder and won several prices with his -55 Chevy Cab that he got in 1965. About ten years after that he got his first race car, a T-23 CA Altered and in that race car his drag racing carrier started. A few years later he got a Monza Funny Car and because of that  had to change class. It was with this car the Starkotter name was born, after a while.

During more than the 40 years Leif has been racing, he has spent a lot of time in US at different tracks and made a lot of friends over the years. And he got a reputation of being a fabulous and skilled driver. That information did get around the world and finally landed in Australia and Adelaide.  

- I got a question if anyone in Europe was interested of going down under and run Bailey Brother Racing´s spare Funny Car at Adelaide Intl Raceway Nitro Funny Car Race, which was held on the 8th of December. And as I always wanted to race in Australia once in my life I took the chance and emailed back that I was the guy to do this, tells Leif. 

So on Monday the 3rd of December at 09.00 the trip started at Midlanda Airport in Sundsvall towards Adelaide via London and Singapore. A trip of about 41 hours. Two days later he landed at Adelaide Airport  and was told that someone was meeting him. After a while he saw a guy with a NHRA  t-shirt and that made it clear who was who.

Ricky Monserrat was a former Funny Car driver, who took care of Leif during the whole week he stayed.  - First day started off with a show at a mall in the city to display Christine Steffens Funny Car to make people aware of the upcoming race, tells Leif. The day after we spend the whole day at the track to get the car ready for the race next day.


pictured: Leif racing in Europe..


.. and in Australia. And of course Leif displayed the significant Starkotter sticker on the car.


Getting race ready in Adelaide.

Leif Helander - a one of a kind legend.

And it was an old car not used for some years, so the first problem was that I didn't fit in the car. It was to narrow so they had a lot of work to do to fix that and I needed to know that I could get out if something happened.

The crew normally work at Steve Read´s car and they had made the car race ready for me " the Australian" way.  On Saturday the car was finally ready and we did some warm ups  and made a test run the same afternoon. There was some problems with the clutch where black dust came out, just like a curtain. So I didn´t see anything and the car got loose as well, so I had a bit of an experience there. 

This event was in the evening and there was  runs at night from 19.00 until 23.00. All in all there was three rounds and it was just a show race. First round out was a bit better then the test round but it seemed that all cars got loose at the same spot. The second round Leif vas racing versus Anthony Begley who also was his team mate.  - At least I got a nice shot of the flames there, Leif smiles.  Last run was against Christine herself. But after the burnout the crew chief found a fuel leak so Leif was cut off.  - At least the car seemed to have HP and I had 0,93 at the 60th and I didn´t wreck the car but I was close to the center line and the wall at the same run.  I had a great time and met lots of nice and friendly people. Besides lending me a Funny Car, they took me round to an animal park so I could see some of the famous citizens of Australia, the kangaroos and koalas.


The aussies of course took Leif to meet the native citizens of Australia.


I want to thank Rodney Bailey and Monserrat family and all the nice people I met down under. I will be happy to go again sometime, ends Leif.