PRO/RACE Performance Products is an Australian Company owned by Graham Withers, who was Top Fuel Champion in 1966, 1967 and 1968 driving a “front engine 392 blown Hemi slingshot” which he designed and built himself.  After 5 Years of dominating Top Fuel Drag Racing in Australia, Graham retired to establish “Graham Withers Speed Shop” on the main Highway leading south out of the City of Melbourne in 1972.

As a result of his racing experience and engine building success, the business expanded rapidly to become one of Australia’s largest hi-performance Speed Shops. In 1974 he was also responsible for bringing “Down-Under” another famous drag racing champion of the era, none other than “Big Daddy” Don Garlits.

As his Speed Shop became much more successful, Graham diversified into manufacturing his own line of performance gear ranging from oil pans to shifters to valve covers, while also importing all the major performance lines from the US. During the early 80’s while building high performance engine packages for the local hot rod and drag race scene he recognized the need for a high performance crankshaft damper.

This led to him to design and develop a patented high performance “All Steel” crankshaft damper for the locally produced GM V8 engine - the “Holden 308”, replacing the stock cast iron dampers which were poorly suited for high performance and racing applications. Following the success of the initial application other models were designed and produced for the Chev and Ford V8 engines.

Around this time there was incident in the US where a mechanic was tragically killed when the stock OEM crankshaft damper exploded while tuning a high performance engine during a drag race meet. To prevent such a recurrence, the SFI Foundation created safety specification #18.1, for crankshaft dampers, to ensure that any high performance race engine must have a damper that met this strict safety standard.

 

Hon. John Howard, Prime Minister of Australia presenting an International Peace Award to Graham Withers.

PRO/RACE Performance Products was one of the first specialist manufacturers of SFI Specification #18.1 dampers in the USA market back in 1987. Now widely distributed in USA through a Californian based warehouse, the tried and tested design of PRO/RACE SFI dampers have stood the test of time and have been factory dyno tested and proved to withstand over 18,000 rpm at the SFI test lab.   To cater for market needs, several variations have been introduced including the PRO/STREET range of quality “Nodular Iron” bonded OE Style dampers, as well as the NEW PRO/SPORT SFI range for street racers who require an SFI damper at a very competitive price tag.   Proud to boast 20 years of damper manufacturing experience, a wide range of distributors and many thousands of satisfied customers, the second-to-none quality of the entire range of PRO/RACE, PRO/SPORT and PRO/STREET dampers are sure to tame the vibration in your engine.