Winter Workshop - David Filius Production Saloon
August
2008
Most Canterbury speedway fans will recognise the name Filius and relate it to a successfully raced Honda Prelude at Woodford Glen. However this article reveals we now have another racer by the name of David Filius trying his hand at speedway. Gerry's son David has raced at Kaikoura twice (and won) so he's now venturing into Production Saloons at Woodford Glen.
While I was checking out what was happening into the dark hours of Gerry's Kaiapoi garage David appears relatively quiet. Infact it was hard to get him to open up (unlike Gerry who was hard to keep quiet). So one could mistakingly assume David may race quietly to begin with but I get the impression that he will take to Woodford Glen like the perverbial duck takes to water!
With dad providing his bent old production saloon (he's been thrashing the last 4 seasons) the guys are busy taking the roll cage and running gear then putting it into a new chassis/bodyshell. In-fact when I arrived the grinders and welders were going flat out.
This new car is a 1991 BA Prelude running a 2 litre twin-cam fuel injected engine and 5 speed gearbox. They are also confident "it should handle better now because the old chassis was so bent!".
Now aged 22 David's been a spraypainter since leaving school and works at Straighten Up Panel & Paint. David told me "I'm looking forward to getting on the track and I've been wanting to race for some time". He's also been known to say "that if dad hadn't been so stingey & put me in a car earlier that his name would be as popular as Scott Dixon by now". Now those are fighting words and I get the feeling there wont be much love lost when they get on the track together as Gerry is also preparing a new car for himself. I can see this turning into an on-track father/son clash. David added "dad will have problems with his new car so I'm gonna beat him".
David started helping and pitcrewing back in 2000 and now finds himself needing this assistance from others. Family friends have chosen to help with transporting the car to and from the track as David has very little funding at this stage. One of the reasons for limited funds is he's also building one of his old road cars into a drift car. It's a BMW E30 with a Nissan SR20DET engine which he plans to compete alongside his mates in the 6 car team called Unit 23. I can see why they say "Mum has never had garage space!" with the road cars always having to stay outside.
The pit-crew, Mitch & Matt are "Stolen from Dad" and David states "one day I would like to be financial, get my own tow-car then take off on any weekend with the race car to other tracks & try different things. Meantime I'm gonna keep my foot up it, I'll be right, may just have to be a bit more careful at Woodford Glen compared to Kaikoura".
The car is going to be painted red and white and be named ABC2 (Gerry's will be ABC1). ABC Driving School being the major sponsor along with assistance from Academy Signs & Dr Bugs Popcorn. David is also hopeful he can register race number 86 since dad's 68. I reckon that would be a bit confusing if I was a commentator! David would like to thank dad for giving him the car (finally) and both dad & Matt for helping rebuild it. Gerry however added "I will be claiming ALL the prize money!"
Keep an eye on the results sheets to see how these two feature as I reckon this is gonna be a clash well worth watching. [article by Roger Nees]
