Dean Crossley

Growing up, Dean and younger brother Paul developed a passion for fast things whilst racing a go kart and building a speedway oval and a circuit track out the back of the family property. Once older and licensed, the brothers built a mix of turboed 4’s and V8’s. Some were pure race car and some street-registered with the result ending with a stout Mk1 ’66 Cortina that was built initially for street sprints and hill climbs and general fun.

Slowly morphing into a drag car, the Mk1 ’66 Cortina ended up a 9 second 140+mph registered jet. With ith a Jerico dog box (the same gearbox now in the Trans Am Sprint) and a sheet metal 9”, the Cortina did hot laps at QR and Lakeside and was an absolute ball (and mostly out of control) when it came on boost with the Nissan SR20 in it with over 600hp available. After many breakages and crazy hours of rebuilds it got moved on for a street-regoed 10 sec ’67 XR Falcon cruiser - which Dean still has.

Around 2018, Dean jumped into a go kart again but, this time competitively. Starting out running at Club level, Dean quickly moved into the growing 4SS classes. This class had sealed engines to prohibit cost and those with the biggest wallets from buying race winning engines (which was the very same reason as to why Dean was drawn to the Australian Trans Am category). This culminated in taking the title in 2020 with a few pole awards and many podiums and wins for that season around Queensland.

He stopped karting in 2021 to focus on finding a car to build to run in the Australian Trans Am. The ’66 Falcon Sprint was completed around Easter of this year, 2022, just missing the first round of the series. The aim is to develop the car and its’ set up to be competitive with the seasoned campaigners already established within the series. Things are looking like they’re heading in the right direction for Dean with a round win and a pole award in only the second round of racing for the 5L class.