Roadkill (2012–2020): Season 1, Episode 10 - 727 Cubic Inches and Australian Tire Smoke! - full transcript

- On this episode of Roadkill,

we're sucking smoke down under.

(engines roar and tires squeal)

(engine sputters)

(tires squeal)

(lively rock music)

- [Voiceover] We really had no plan here,

other than to get on
a plane in Los Angeles

and fly halfway around the
world to Brisbane, Australia.

We had to get off the plane
and meet this guy named Gup.

And all we really know about him



is that he runs the
Powercruise here in Australia,

which is a series of these
wild events with burnouts

and superchargers and tire smoke
and just the whole program.

We have an eight-hour layover in Brisbane,

and then we've got to get back on a plane

and go all the way to
the west coast to Perth.

So while we're here, Gup
is going to show us around

and just give us a little bit of

the flavor of what the
Powercruise is all about.

(engine roars)

- [Mike] Does the toilet really
flush the other direction?

- It does.

I've actually got video of it

'cause I'm a plumber, originally.



(laughing)

- That's really the
only reason I came here,

was just to check the toilet
out, and then I'm out of here.

- [Gup] Yeah, but which
way does it go over there?

- I don't know.
- [Voiceover] Clockwise.

- I don't know, but I've
heard it's wrong here,

so I'm going to flush it,
get on a plane, I'm out.

I just want to kick a kangaroo,

watch the toilet, drink
some beer, out of here.

- [Gup] Careful when you
kick the kangaroo, though.

- [Voiceover] They hurt.

- [Gup] No, they'll kick you back.

- This is like America, but inside out.

After 18 hours on the plane,
Finnegan is just useless.

He pretty much turns into
a pumpkin at midnight.

So he's a vegetable,
but we thought it would

be a good idea to go drinking.

Last time I was in Australia, I complained

that there just wasn't good beer,

so Gup was out to prove me wrong,

and also I got to cook a fish on a rock.

- 1:45 and Mike's hit the wall already.

It's only midday.

- I'm good.

(Gup laughs)

Let's race.

- [Gup] You keep telling yourself that.

(laughing)

- It says, drink driving, it's a crime.

It's a drunk guy made that sticker.

(laughing)

I got this, dude.

Don't worry about it.

♫ Couldn't leave, I had to meet her

♫ Greet the girl of my dreams
with a kiss on the hand

♫ What up ♫

- [Gup] I'm just going to
the bank for two minutes.

- Yeah, okay.

Wow, our host is filling a cheap

suitcase full of money at a bank.

We're going to jail.

(engine roars)

- We're still catatonic off
the airplane for 13 hours,

but we're about to see our first

motorsports action in Australia.

- [Mike] We're at Queensland Raceways.

- In Brisbane, and there's like five

or six different hot rods here.

They're like mid-70s Monaros with

twin-turbo LS motors
in 'em, and it's weird.

These guys like having
the 1,200 horsepower,

but they don't really
care about going fast.

They care about tire smoke.

- They're going to cruise
around the road course.

When they hit the last turn,
they'll be side-by-side,

racing while doing a burn out.

- Right.

- No lawyers, no insurance companies.

- No roll cage, no helmet, no shoes.

Yeah, these are our people.

- Not worried about it.
(David chuckles)

This should be awesome.

(engines roaring)

- [David] There was this
one car that we heard

was going to be the quickest car there,

and we showed up and saw it, and it's tan,

and it looks like a Camry to me,

although I guess it was a GM product.

And it's got this turbo LS on it,

and it gets out on the track and just

freight-trains this twin-turbo
Lamborghini, giving credence,

once again, to my statement,
not $400,000 worth of fast.

(engines roaring)

- [Mike] I just figured out
why Australia's awesome.

I don't think they have
insurance or lawyers here.

- They have 1,200 horsepower cars

with four people in 'em with no helmets

with the express intent of doing burnouts

side-by-side for a quarter mile.

There's no fail in this program.

Then Gup brought out the big guns,

which is his '74 HQ, which
is legendary in Australia.

It's this bright green thing.

He gives rides to everybody
at his Powercruise events.

It has a 540 in it with a
106-millimeter turbo called Elvis.

And this thing makes 1,200
horsepower to the wheels,

and it's not really about going fast.

It is about blazing tires.

(engine rumbles and roars)

We've been awake 40 hours now,

and we have to go back to the airport

and catch another flight
for four or five hours,

all the way to the other
side of the country.

So, do the math and that means we've spent

two nights on a plane,
no hotel room, no shower.

Yeah, Australia style.

(engine roars)

Yesterday was a 36- hour travel day,

where we flew from LA and
then stopped in Brisbon and...

- Ate a koala.

- (chuckles) Ate a koala and drove around

and raced at Queensland Raceways.

And this morning, we're in Perth, no.

We're in, what's the trash can say?

Joondalup, this is the land of
cities with too many vowels.

And, we're about to head off to

Gup's event called the Powercruise,

which apparently is just the
burnout fest like we've never,

ever seen before, and
we're going to drive that.

- It looks sort of
European, kind of looks like

an Audi, but it's a 2006 Holden HQS?

- It's an HSV.

- HSV?

- Yeah, we basically
have no idea what it is.

- It's a red car with black
wheels and 1,200 horsepower.

Don't know what it's called, but

I know it does this really good.

- [] Finally, the real
reason that we came.

Gup has got this car that is
a Holden HSV ClubSport R8,

which is a fancy way of
saying Pontiac G8 in American.

But the thing is, it is loaded with

this Sonny Leonard 727-cubic-inch Hemi.

It's an all aluminum motor, makes

1,275 horsepower on 91 octane gas.

Check out this throttle body, 3,600 CFM.

The engine, at Sonny Leonard, with all

these options, is like 65 grand.

The car, before you even start
hacking it up, is 70 grand.

And I can't imagine that the
guys at Hi-Torque Performance

who assembled the whole thing,

didn't ring up like
another 100K on this deal.

I can't believe he's actually

giving us the keys to this thing.

- Ah, this is weird.

- [David] Wrong side?

You're taking the bullet.

- This is weird.

I'm buckling up for sure.

This isn't safe at all. (laughs)

- [David] When was the last time you drove

on the wrong side of the road?

- Never in my entire life.

- Never been to England, never been to--

- And not with 1,200 horsepower either.

(engine rumbles)

- It's a button?

- Come on, baby.

It says check engine oil.

I'm just going to ignore that, though.

I'm sure they've checked it
before they gave us the car.

(laughing)

- Treat it like a rental, it's not yours.

Let's go.

- [Mike] Driving in Australia. (laughs)

- [David] Don't high-center
it on the driveway.

(lively R&B music)

- [Mike] Oh, wow!

- Ah, traffic!

- (laughs) Oh my God!

Get out of the way, we're American.

Oh wow, traffic circle, okay.

- (chuckles) Run for your lives!

- I hope there's no pedestrians here.

They are screwed if there are.

- Bus!

Oh dude, wait, wait, wait, wait!

- [Mike] We're playing chicken.

- (laughs) That was bad.

- Hey, you know what, this car has

1,200 horsepower and air conditioning.

Let's make it work.

- Oh, wow.

- You do it, I'm going to concentrate

on the left side of the road.

- Yeah, I suggest you do that.

(engine roars)

- Haven't seen any
kangaroos yet or koalas.

Maybe that's a myth.

Maybe they're not really around.

- They don't really exist?

- Yeah, like that's a myth
to lure tourists here,

and then you get here and you realize,

there's nothing to see.

- It worked for us.

- Yeah, suckers! (laughs)

(engine roars)

How do we get off this circle?

- [David] This is a roundabout.

- [Mike] Yeah, how do we
get off this roundabout?

- Unfortunately, we're going to
have to change lanes, I think.

(Mike laughs)

You just missed it.

That was it over there.

- We're going to, dude,
this is going to be

our third trip around this thing.

- [David] Don't worry,
people aren't staring.

- No, no, not at all.

I can't get over. (laughs)

All right, dude, I don't care.

I'm cutting people off.

I'm getting out of the circle right now.

- I don't know which
way we're going, do you?

- I'm going this way.

Oh, I'm turning the wipers on, too.

(upbeat synth music)

- [David] Well, we just took a

cruise up by the ocean by Two Rocks.

Is that what that was?

- [Mike] I was avoiding
not hitting two cars, dude.

- Neat lagoon, really, really,
green pretty water out there.

So we made that cruise.

I really have no idea what city we're in.

Just having a little
bit of a charging issue.

You really got to keep the RPM up,

to keep the batteries charged.

And back there at the
light, we came to a stop,

and the voltage came down, and it died,

so we're thinking we're going to
cool it off a little bit here.

Maybe have a bite to eat
and hit the road again.

(engine roars)

- It's 154 liters a gallon?

- I don't know what the
154 is, but it's liters.

- Where do you put the card in?

- You don't.

- Nobody steals gas in Australia.

- Apparently.

- Very trusting here.

- [David] And that premium's 98.

- Wow, we've gone like what,
80 miles, and we're out of gas.

- Yeah, pretty much,
and it has a huge tank.

What did we put in the other day, 30?

- [Mike] 30 gallons.

- Yeah, 30 gallons, and we've gone

probably 80 miles, something like that.

But one of the things
I've figured out is that

this being 727 cubic inches, basically,

each four-cylinder bank on this motor

is the size of a 350 small-block Chevy,

so it's like having two 350s.

So if those 350s get 12 miles
per gallon, this gets six.

It all adds up, right?

- Adds up to an expensive ride.

That's what that adds up to.

I wasn't standing there very long.

How did I pump 57 liters in it already?

How many gallons is that?

How many gallons are in a liter?

- Pshaw, I'm American.

I know nothing.

- Okay, so we've been
driving a couple hours now.

- Dirt.

- [Mike] And we've now
approached a dirt road

in the middle, we're lost, dude.

- (laughs) You think Gup minds
if we drive his car on dirt?

- He might mind a little.

You know what I mind though is...

- No kangaroos?

- No koalas, no kangaroos.

I'm starting to think it really is

a conspiracy to get tourists here.

- Okay, well...

But the good news about all of that

is that we are in the middle of nowhere

with a nice, little paved road.

- Burnouts?

- You thinking what I'm thinking?

- I like burnouts.

(engine roars)

(laughing)

It does good burnouts.

- [David] I approve.

- Your favorite gauge
is not happy right now.

See that?

- Yep, the engine's hotter
than the transmission.

I think the...

- That's a bad sign.

This is a brand new car.

How could it be overheating?

- (laughs) It has 727 reasons to overheat.

- Yeah, but...

- I know how to fix it though.

- Ooh, why not?

Just cause we're in Australia,

doesn't mean the rules don't apply.

- Wow, there's some unusual
bugs on the hood, too.

Let's go for the shade over there.

Let's go make some laps and cool it down.

- I think burnouts would cool it down.

- They're leaving nothing on
the table with the flies here.

(engine roaring)

That was a good one.

- That was a good one. (laughs)

(engine roaring)

I feel much better about
not seeing koala bears now.

(laughing)

- [David] Check this guy out.

I think this guy spun out and landed

there and walked away from his car.

- Dude, it does look he's, oh yeah--

- Oh look, he broke the wheel off!

- Wheel is busted off.

- [David] That's awesome!
- He broke the center.

He broke the center out of the wheel.

- That is cool!

- Whoa.

We just saw our first roadkill.

It's like a purplish-lookin'
Ford Festiva or somethin'.

I don't know.

Looks like he spun out and hit a curb

and actually broke the
centers out of his wheels,

and the car's abandoned over here.

I think it's been sitting
here for a long time

'cause you can see weeds
growing up around it,

so we're going to go get a better look.

What, do I stink or something?

Look at this car.

This is the image that Gup
has in his brain right now.

- Of what we're doing to his--

- [Mike] Of what we're
doing to his car. (laughs)

- Completely.

- I'm taking a spoke with me.

I got a souvenir.

- Wow, this thing's hashed.

Do you think it was
parking break turn or what?

You can see the skids where
they came right around here.

I wonder if they thought that
they were going to be slick

and like drift it around and
keep going, and they failed.

Pop the hood, let's see
if it has a battery.

Nope!

- [Mike] Hey, it's kind of like a motor.

- Only smaller.

This is like one cylinder's
worth of Gup's motor.

(hood bangs)

- All right, I'm done with the flies.

Let's get back in the car.

(David laughs)

(easy-going rock music)

- [David] (spits) Yuck!

Well, now we can say that we've done

hellacious burnouts on two continents.

It's been a pretty good day,
but it's time to wrap it up,

try and sleep for the
first time on this trip,

and hit Powercruise in the morning.

(engine roars)

(fast-paced rock music)

(engines roaring)

So we're here at some track
I can't even pronounce,

looking at cars I don't even recognize,

but I know a good turbo blower

and nitrous when I see it,
and every car here has one.

What Gup has put together is kind of like

the ultimate cruise night with no cops.

Unfortunately, guys in
other countries flat out

have more balls at car
shows than Americans do,

and I know it's an outrageous statement,

a lot of people are going to
be really upset with that,

but these guys are all about the throttle.

They're not showing up
with their baby dolls

that they're leaning up against the car.

They're not riding their
lawn chair all day.

It is about showing up and smoking tires.

They bring stacks of tires with

them to burn them to the rim, seriously.

Why don't we do this?

(engines roaring)

- (laughs) This is the
last day of Powercruise,

and this is the power-skidding finals,

so I guess the goal here is to

turn your tires to barbecue sauce,

keep the car going as straight as you can,

don't use the breaks, don't lift.

Just make as much smoke
as you possibly can.

(engines roaring)

Oh my God, orange smoke.

No (bleep) way.

How the hell do you make orange smoke?

- Finnegan has been doing
most of the driving around

with a 727 cubic inches,
and I wanted to one-up him,

and so Gup hooked me
up with Frank Gaffiero,

who has this truck that
has 1,500 cubic inches

and 2,200 horsepower
and weighs eight tons.

Watch this.

(engine rumbling)

(horn honks)

(engine roars)

(laughs) It was really weird to be

out there in this giant truck,

towering above these little
cars all circling around us.

(engine roars)

The thing that makes this
thing crazy is it only runs

about mid-12s in a quarter
mile, about 110 miles an hour,

but it just lights up the tires so easily.

(engine roars)

But the real fun part of it was

taking the giant semi-truck and doing that

big donut at the end,
making smoke everywhere.

(engine roars)

(laughs) Well, dude, you failed us

on the kangaroos but
left nothing on the table

when it comes to burnout action.

This thing has been a lot of fun. (laughs)

- Did you have a good
time with it yesterday?

You took it out the highway for a drive?

- Yeah, we puttered around a little bit.

It was good.

We learned to drive, you know.

- Did you behave yourself?

- Oh, completely babied it.

(engine roaring)

- Since you didn't do
anything in it yesterday,

I guess the only thing to do
now is rock, paper, scissors.

Who's going to take it
in the race tonight?

- You going to let us race the thing?

- I'll let you race it!

- Ready, rock, paper, scissors.

Smash, again!

I always win this.

- I quit.

- Get out of the way, I'm racing.

- No, you're not.

You're in the wrong side of the car, dude.

(laughing)

- [David] Okay, let's just
go ahead and say that I

intentionally gave up
the seat in the drag race

because there is no chance he's

making it through this drag race.

He's going to blow the
tires off the thing,

possibly put it into the wall,

and I don't want to be that guy.

Ladies and gentlemen, Mr. Mike Finnegan.

- [Mike] I'm about to go
street racing on a drag strip,

in a car that I've never
holeshotted before,

on drag radials that I'm not allowed

to do a burnout on to warm up.

This is going to be awesome.

I roll up to the starting
line for race number one,

and I think they
cherry-picked somebody for me

because I was at the back of the line,

and they sent me around
to the front of the line

and line me up with some dude.

I don't know who he was.

And I just kind of gingerly
rolled it off the line,

made sure the tires were hooked,

and then gave it maybe
a quarter of a throttle

and drove by this guy for an easy win.

(engine roars)

That was a little too easy.

Okay, so my next race is a white
four-door Holden Commodore.

Looks like something my
grandma would take to church,

but since everything here is
supercharged or running N2O,

that's nitrous for you kids at home,

you never know, this guy
could be something stout.

What do you got in there?

- Ah, it's all chrome.

Don't worry.

It doesn't run for shit.

(engines roaring)

Okay, that wasn't exactly
fair for the other guy.

I left him like he was chained
to the pole behind him.

- [David] He's not doing
bad, but I can't deny that

it looks like they are putting
up ringers in this race,

and by ringer, I mean the slowest guy

they can find to line up with him.

- [Mike] So, I come back around, and I'm

feeling pretty cocksure about myself.

That's a good-looking car right there.

(engine roars)

Be a damn shame when I send him packing.

This one's for America. (laughs)

(engines roaring)

(sad trombone music)

Ah shit, man. (bleep)

In the third race, I
don't know what happened,

but I just floored it off the line.

The car unhooked.

When I realize it's not accelerating,

I shift into high gear and give it

even more gas 'cause I'm an idiot.

- [David] All of a sudden there's a moment

where the thing kicks really sideways,

and he's got to choose between the wall,

Australia, jail, and a car
owner who's way bigger than him,

or he gets to just look like a chump,

and he chose chump, which actually

is what I would have done as well.

- [Mike] And as the much slower
and crappier car pulls away

from the most expensive Holden ever built,

all I want to do is choke
the hell out of a koala

'cause I just lost a
race I should have won.

Sorry, America, we just
got our asses kicked.

- I said to him, you
should use first gear.

That might give you a bit more of a drive.

Probably use the first gear as well.

I used first gear, he used too much pedal,

smoked the tires, and then he stayed

on it while he went to second gear.

It looked good, but he lost.

- [Mike] This is going
to sound like an excuse,

but the Holden is utterly
useless in a drag race.

It's too much torque, too little tire,

too little talent on
the part of the driver.

Now that I've lost and
I can't race anymore,

they can't exactly kick me out for

smoking the tires now, can they?

(engine roars)

- Look, now he's smoking it up there.

(engine roars)

- [Mike] (laughs) It makes good smoke.

I think the tires are defective.

(Gup laughs)

Should I do a burnout right
next to him with his own car?

(engine roars)

(laughs) That was great.

(engine roars)

- What did we learn?

- We learned that you
struggled awfully hard

to cheat me out of the driver's seat,

so that you could embarrass yourself.

- I'm not embarrassed.

(David laughs)

You see the smoke I made?

- [David] I did.

- Here, there, and up there.

- What I actually saw was
the moment that you made

the choice not to crash Gup's car.

You wanted to win really badly,

but you just couldn't pile
it into the chingadera there.

- Well, he's bigger than me.

- [David] (laughs) Yes,
quite a bit larger--

- I'm almost positive he
owns most of Australia,

so yeah, I wasn't getting out of

here alive if I wrecked his car.

- So, we like the car, we blame him

for the lack of kangaroo, we're done.

- Yeah, Jesus, where's
the koalas in this place?

- No koalas, no duck-billed platypus,

no dingos, just tire smoke.

(engine roars)

What is the story, that
they brought rabbits here,

and the rabbits ate all the
kangaroo, and the kangaroo ate

all the capybara or something like that?

I forget exactly how it goes.

- You notice there was no
Fosters anywhere we went?

- No, they don't drink that stuff.

- No Foster's, no Paul Hogan.

- Not one person has said crikey to me.

Can you guys work on that?

(laughing)

Actually, you know what the secret is?

We didn't even film this
episode in Australia.

This is actually Northern California.

- We're in Palm Springs right now.

- We just drove on the wrong side

of the street the whole time. (laughs)

- It feels like we're in Palm Springs.

- Our budget's that low.

- This is long, you want
us to do it all over?

Why don't we end it with, next time

on RoadKill, we jump a cat with bus.

Next time on RoadKill,
we jump a cat with a bus!

- And the bus only gets this much air.

(laughing)

- Poor kitty.

See, now it's his fault. (spits)

- Oh, that was a fly on the tooth!

Right on the tooth! (laughs)

Chew that up and call it protein.

- Your country's kind of buggy.

The race tracks in
Australia are very scenic.

Still, no freaking kangaroos.

- [David] Dude, this is YouTube.

You're supposed to shut the video

off the second the credits roll.

But if you didn't, here's your bonus,

four minutes of insane burnout action.

(engines roaring and tires squealing)