With over 800bhp and huge wrinkle-wall slicks, Jurgen Caruana’s Mk5 Ford Escort drag car is 1/4 mile royalty, and he’s come all the way from Malta to Santa Pod’s hallowed strip to prove it.
When it comes to drag racing, few places in the world can hold a candle to the speed Mecca that is Santa Pod. Nestled in the otherwise sleepy village of Podington, Northamptonshire, the iconic quarter-mile strip is known the world over as one of the fastest stretches of tarmac on the planet. Drag racing fans travel from all over the globe to witness the extraordinary feats of petrol– and nitro–fuelled fun as daredevils strap themselves into and onto some of the most extreme vehicles on the planet and hurtle towards the horizon at often world record-breaking speeds.
It takes a special kind of petrolhead to push the boundaries of the standing quarter-mile, one that’s not only willing to risk their lives for an adrenaline hit that lasts less than ten seconds, but is also prepared to invest their blood, sweat, tears and a whole bucketload of money into building their maniacal machines. Of course, as diehard modifying fans ourselves, we can easily understand the lure of tuning your car to go faster, handle better and generally be more fun, but for those at the upper echelons of drag racing, these cars aren’t just considerably quicker versions of your daily driver – they’ve metamorphosed into something much more extreme.
How the Mk5 Ford Escort has evolved over 19 years
Hailing from the sunny Mediterranean island of Malta, 38-year-old gypsum installation expert Jurgen Caruana is one such automotive extremist, who likes his cars to be similarly single-minded in the quest for ultimate speed. You see, what started out as a humble 1.4-litre LX-spec Mk5 Escort has evolved over his 19-years of ownership. Firstly with the addition of a 1.6-litre RS Turbo engine, before a Zetec bottom end and 8v head found their way under the bonnet. Both of these incarnations were merely quick street cars though, and were soon eclipsed as the draw of ever-diminishing quarter-mile times began to take over Jurgen’s every waking thought.
Soon the ability to drive the car on the public highway was all but a distant memory, as a fire-breathing fully forged 2.0-litre equipped with a gigantic metal snail became the car’s new powerplant, while the radial street-legal tyres made way for fat wrinkle-wall slicks. No longer could the Escort transport Jurgen and his family on trips to the supermarket, or even partake in a few laps on a track day. Now its only mission was to cover a sticky quarter-mile stretch of tarmac in the quickest time possible.
“For such a small island, there’s a really strong car scene in Malta,” explains Jurgen when we meet him and his extreme machine on a scorching summer’s day at Santa Pod’s Doorslammers event. “Us Maltese petrolheads love to modify our cars, and drag racing is a very popular motorsport, however most people focus their builds around Japanese machinery like Hondas and Toyotas. But for me, it has always been about Fords.”
From Malta to Santa Pod
This addiction to building ballistic Blue Ovals has led to Jurgen travelling almost 2000 miles over land and sea to test its mettle on the legendary quarter-mile strip here in Blighty. With the Escort on a trailer, that’s one epic journey which sees Jurgen and his band of equally speed-obsessed mates leave Malta on a ferry before traversing the west coast of Sardinia, the entire length of Italy, then northern France, before crossing the English Channel and hitting the UK. And if that’s not commitment to your cause, we really don’t know what is!
“There are drag strips in Malta, but nothing that compares to Santa Pod,” beams Jurgen, proud to be competing in his own car at the venue of his dreams. “So it was well worth the journey to come here to race.”
Tucked in a gazebo in Santa Pod’s pit area, Jurgen and the team busily prepare the car for its debut run up the strip. Tyre pressures are monitored and laptops are plugged in so the vital parameters of the engine’s FuelTech FT600 ECU can be checked and tweaked to ensure the best results off the line.
Ford Escort Drag Car Engine Modifications
With the front bumper removed, we get to eyeball that monstrous motor and drink in all the details. “The engine is based on a 2.0-litre Zetec from an ST170,” Jurgen explains. “It has been rebuilt with a fully forged bottom end, including pistons, rods and crankshaft, and has an additional aluminium girdle with billet main caps and a cement-filled block to improve block rigidity and strength.”
This belt-and-braces approach to the bottom end has wisely been extended to the head too, where strengthened Supertech valves with double valve springs are actuated by custom high-lift Cat Cams camshafts with adjustable vernier pulleys.
But while all this extra strength would be considered overkill in the ST170’s usual naturally-aspirated environment, it is absolutely essential to hold things together once you add the tsunami of boost that the Garrett G42-1200 turbo supplies. Capable of flowing enough air to produce a whopping 1200bhp, this brutal blower, mounted down low in the front bumper on a Zisco forward-facing exhaust manifold, is running a comparatively conservative 800bhp in Jurgen’s Escort and is cooled by a custom charge-cooler with bumper-mounted ice box.
Cooling the Ford Escort Drag Car
“When running high boost levels, adequate cooling of the intake charge is critical,” he says. “On a hot day like today at Santa Pod, it can make a big difference to the car’s performance. And in Malta, where the average ambient air temperature is much higher, it’s even more important if you want to maintain peak performance and reliability.”
But where the nearside of the front bumper is all about keeping cool, the offside is a veritable inferno, as this is where the turbo’s hot-side spits out the waste gases from the custom exhaust system and screamer pipe that exit just ahead of the front wheel.
“It’s pretty loud when you launch it,” Jurgen laughs. “But you only have to bear the noise for just over nine seconds and you’ve crossed the finish line.”
Of course, few people are going to be concerned with a noisy exhaust when they’re fighting to keep this beast in a straight line and out of the barriers for the next quarter-of-a-mile, but Jurgen has made a host of running gear modifications to help him do just that.
Ford Escort Drag Car Transmission & Chassis Modifications
“The power is transmitted to the tarmac via a Toyota MR2 5-speed gearbox with an SQS dog kit and sequential shifter,” he says. “Along with the engine, this shifter sits on a Zisco Race Fabrications custom front subframe with custom wishbones, and a rear axle that’s mounted further back to increase the wheelbase to add extra straight-line stability.”
GAZ adjustable coilovers are dialed-in to reduce rear squat and improve front end traction, while the wide 10×13” Keizer front wheels with M&H slick tyres do their best to contain the tortuous torque unleashed by Jurgen’s right foot. Unlike the front, traction is the enemy at the rear, so Jurgen has fitted a pair of ultra-skinny 4.5×15” wheels with drag radials to reduce frictional losses as well as improve aerodynamics.
Speaking of aero, as a drag car, the last thing Jurgen wants is too much downforce, as that will only slow him down. However, his Escort does have bodywork upgrades and they are no less functional. The front end is from an Escort Cosworth, as the wider front arches are needed to house the wide slick tyres, while at the rear a low-level spoiler helps reduce drag and keep the rear of the car running straight and true.
The eagle-eyed among you will have no doubt spotted the lightweight Plexiglass windows as well as the huge parachute bolted to the rear; this is a requirement of any car that is capable of posting in excess of 150mph in the quarter-mile, and is used only in an emergency, to slow the car as quickly as possible if all else fails.
Interior modifications
Inside, the Ford Escort drag car is also kitted out with worst case scenarios in mind, with a full drag specification rollcage, window nets and a single aluminium Kirkey bucket seat with Sparco harnesses. The rest of the interior is similarly function-over-form, being stripped to the essentials of speed such as the sequential shifter, lightweight carbon panels, an OBP pedal box and a FuelTech steering wheel, which is riddled with holes for an additional weight saving.
When the time finally comes for Jurgen to hit the strip, the team push the Mk5 into the queue and wait their turn patiently until it’s their time to line up at the start line. Firing the mighty engine into life, the angry exhaust note is ear-splitting, even on idle, and turns absolutely thunderous as Jurgen completes a tyre-warming burnout that spews plumes of acrid blue smoke from the front arches.
Launching at Santa Pod
Inching into stage, his eyes fixed on the Christmas tree lights at the centre of the track, the revs raise to a crescendo before the green light signifies for all hell to break loose.
Unfortunately, when the clutch is dropped, rather than the usual slingshot launch to the horizon that Jurgen and the team were expecting, the Escort stutters and bogs down before limping off the line.
Much head-scratching and studying of the datalogs later and Jurgen tries again. Once more, the build-up is fine, but the launch again proves tricky and the run is abandoned. After having successfully completed a 9.7 second pass in the car with its current setup at a track in Malta only weeks before, the launch issue is perplexing the team, and frustrating Jurgen.
“With everything in drag racing pushed to the very limits, it can only take a tiny issue to cause a problem,” he shrugs. “We know what the car is capable of, even at low boost, and were hoping to push into the eights here at Santa Pod, but the drag gods are just not smiling on us today.”
What’s next?
The team tries to get the Escort off the line cleanly multiple times over the course of the weekend, but nothing seems to work and Jurgen’s dream of a personal best pass at his dream track will have to be put on hold for another day. But they say you can’t keep a good man down, and Jurgen is no exception. He’s loved his time at Santa Pod and vows to come back to tame this iconic strip at next year’s event. Let’s just hope his ford Escort drag car has had enough of teasing him and will finally give up the pass he’s been hoping for.
Words & Photos: Dan Sherwood.
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