Collie icon Chris Collie was recently invited by his neighbour to go and see the Aeroflow Outlaw Nitro Funny Cars at the Perth Motorplex.
On Saturday, January 5, local Gary Flatt took Mr Collie to watch the biggest drag racing show in Western Australia.
Roughly 10 Nitro Funny Cars hit the track in a bid to get the quickest time possible.
Mr Collie said the night was fantastic.
“We watched the funny cars race on a 400 metre track in roughly 5.4 seconds. My favourite car was the Beach Bomb driven by Andrew Katavatis,” he said.
Mr Flatt, who races motorbikes, decided to take Mr Collie to the drag racing after he asked if he could watch him race one day.
“I said to Chris I would take him one day to watch me race, but I just blew my motorbike up and I thought it would actually be better to take him when I’ve got time to show him around,” he said.
“That way I could show him around as I know a lot of the racers, but as it turned out he knew more people there than me.
“He’s been to the speedway and loves the speedway and I love the drags and I received discounted tickets because I am a member of Australian National Drag Racing Association so I thought I’d ask if he wanted to come along with me.
”We had a really good night. I took him down to the pits where he got a stack of posters and some autographs off some of the drivers, which he was thrilled about.”
Mr Flatt was born in Collie but moved away when he was 12 before he moved back almost two years ago.
”Roughly 18 months ago when I bought my house in Wittenoom Street I Iooked across and I said ‘that’s Chris Collie’ to the real estate agent and she asked ‘oh, do you know him?’ and I said ‘everyone knows Chris Collie’,” he said.
“Now every morning on the back veranda we say good morning to each other.”
Mr Flatt said he was hoping Mr Collie would come down to the Perth track to watch him race in the future.
