Barry Hall's Twin-Turbo VH Commodore Runs 200 MPH and Tops Drag Challenge's Speed Charts

Less than two weeks before Street Machine Drag Challenge 2026, former AFL star Barry Hall told Street Machine that his VH Commodore would run a six at some stage. It did not quite get there. On the last day at Victorian Motorsports Park it ran a 7.045 at 200.51 mph, and Street Machine's results headline put it plainly: Barry Hall, quickest and fastest.

Brandon Zito's LC Torana won the event outright on combined time. Hall finished third overall, 0.017 second behind second place, and topped his class table. For a car that started life as one of the most famous drag-and-drive Holdens in Australia, that is a fitting new chapter.

A famous car, third owner

Hall's VH has history. It is Brenden "Bubba" Medlyn's old Commodore, the car that won Drag Challenge outright under Medlyn. Street Machine's 2024 report describes it as arguably one of the most famous Aussie drag-and-drive cars.

The car changed hands a few times after the pandemic, and in 2024 John Ricca, co-owner of Victorian Motorsports Park, revived it for Drag Challenge 2024. Street Machine reported at the time that Ricca's crew at Race Parts Melbourne overhauled it from front to back, fitted fresh Turbosmart 7880 turbos and, on a lazy 30 psi with little timing, saw 1,684 hp at the wheels. Rajab Customs changed the color from black over silver to light blue and silver, Instyle Custom Trim redid the interior to match, and it got all-new wiring. Ricca told the magazine his goal was a six.

Not just another LS

Hall had been project-managing a custom VL Commodore for the Castlemaine Rod Shop, he told Street Machine, but that project stalled while a few Drag Challenges went by. So he asked Ricca if he knew of anything suitable. Ricca had the VH, 95 percent ready. Hall bought it about 18 months before this year's event, with the build and paint done.

He told the magazine he never sat in it before buying, but he knew how Ricca builds cars: money spent in the right places. Under the hood is a Torque Power Little Paw-based Holden V8, not an LS, and Hall likes it for exactly that reason. "It's not just another LS," Hall told Street Machine. The methanol-fueled twin-turbo combination, as Street Machine described it in 2024, makes the car look like nothing else in the staging lanes.

Five days, four tracks

Drag Challenge, presented by VPW, ran Oct. 27 to 31, starting and finishing at Victorian Motorsports Park with racing at Portland, Tailem Bend and Mildura in between. Competitors drive between venues and keep their cars alive all week, which is why Hall told Street Machine that a small part can stop an otherwise expensive build.

The VH stayed together. Street Machine's results show a 7.154 at 198.57 mph on day one, then 7.234 at 197.81 at Tailem Bend and the 7.045 at 200.51 to close it out. Its combined 33.668 seconds put it third in the overall top ten, behind Zito's 32.231 and Luke Foley's VH Commodore at 33.651.

The gap behind him in his own class was big. Juan Kudnig's HT Holden was next in the ITF Hire Outlaw Blown table at 35.247 seconds combined, more than 1.5 seconds back. Overall, Zito's winning LC Torana ran as quick as a 7.241 at 197.53 mph at Tailem Bend, and the top ten was all Holdens except one, Ben Neal's Toyota Cresta from the six-cylinder class, according to Street Machine's results.

One wrinkle for anyone reading the tables: before the event, Hall told Street Machine he had moved the car from 315 tires to a 275 radial setup to run in the Speed Pro Radial Blown class, aiming for a top-five finish. Street Machine's final class tables list the VH at the top of the ITF Hire Outlaw Blown class instead.

The hard way

Hall's preview interview is full of the attitude that makes the event work. He grew up in a family of mechanics and told Street Machine cars were always the one passion that stayed. Hall likes problem solving and earning a personal best rather than bolting on parts, and he told the magazine, "I like the hard way around rather than the easy way." He ran with a four-person crew, with help from Andy at Automotions.

He also has four young sons, each of whom he has bought a car to hand over at 18. His one request, he joked to Street Machine, is that they do not sell them and buy a Tesla. Having kids, he said, has made him more willing to back out of a pass if the car gets out of shape. "We've all got to go home," Hall told the magazine.

The VH went home with the quickest and fastest passes of the week. The six-second run Hall believes is in it will have to wait for another day.