GSS Performance

28/04/2025

The end of an era.
It saddens me to say that, after almost 14 years of employment I’ll be leaving GSS Performance early next week. It’s no secret that I have a medical issue that not even Vi**ra can cure (and believe me I’ve tried, but it just makes things harder)….
GSS has been my life for all of that time, I’ve enjoyed dealing with (most of) our customers. I’ve met some great people both through work and through our racing exploits, worked on some amazing vehicles and projects, seen some equally amazing collections, drunk a huge amount of alcohol, shouted a lot of obscenities and hopefully helped a few people along the way.
GSS has always been a fun place to work, and I class Steve amongst my closest friends. Over the years at GSS I’ve spent more time with him than I have my wife! I’ll miss our daily political discussions and sharing our un-PC views, I’ll miss getting him a band-aid when he cuts his fingers on a hundy, I’ll miss strapping him into the race car and reminding him the difference between red and green, and I’ll miss the sense of humour we share. I’m sure Steve and the guys will miss my impeccable dress sense, stunning good looks, cutting wit and my almost compulsive adherence to health and safety rules.
I’ll still be around the car scene and involved with GSS in some way I’m sure.
Thanks for the memories.
Trevor

29/01/2025

Wild Bunch Wars, Masterton Motorplex. January 25th & 26th
It was a very depleted team that set out from Auckland on the long trek to Masterton.
Steve ‘The Glove’ and Sandra, the original (and best) TB drove down leaving Trevor ‘The Legend’ to fly in on one of Air New Zealand’s finest.
Day 1 (Saturday) it was hot. Very hot. So hot that even the chickens were laying ready-fried eggs.
Q1, We paired up next to Dean Scott in his amazingly fast Ute. Two strong burnouts and two straight runs. Dean ran over 200mph and crossed the stripe first, but thanks to an amazing reaction from Steve we weren’t too far behind, taking 7.3 seconds at a slower than usual 180 mph.
Q2, Paired with David Tynan in the massive Impala. Two strong burnouts and a virtually identical 7.3 at 180 for us, with David having problems in the other lane.
Q3 next to Kurt Goodin. Kurt did a ¾ track burnout and just stopped. Apparently a shifter cable broke but we think he was really scared. Chaos did it’s thing all alone and another 7.3. I’d say ‘another 7.3 flashed up on the boards’ but the board in the left lane wasn’t working all weekend making it a bit frustrating for those watching from the start line, and the spectators in general.
Q4 and ‘The Glove’ said there was nothing to lose so he really concentrated on the lights. The timing ticket showed ‘LB3’ (or it could have been LBGT…..) which apparently means he left before the third amber went out. Great concentration there Stevo……..

At the end of the day Wild Bunch put on a great barbecue feed and Ryan entertained us all with a somewhat irreverent overview of the days events and various humorous trophies distributed including a ‘poo’ trophy for his boss........ It was suggested to Steve that he cut Ryan’s wages, but have you ever tried to take a banana from a monkey?

Sunday dawned and the weather forecast wasn’t great. Fortunately for us the car was still running. We’d had one of the MSD ignition boxes fail during qualifying but we’d mounted a ‘spare’ next to it on the dashboard which made swapping them over really easy.
Round 1 saw us in the lane next to Dean Scott again. Was he going to run another 200mph quarter? Would the extra bit of tuning we’d done make Chaos quicker? Would Steve actually wait for the green light? Would Ryan stop pairing us up with one of the quickest cars in the field? Would the weather hold? Unfortunately neither Dean or us would ever know the answers to the above as both of us failed to start with ignition problems. However, as we failed to start first I’m claiming that as a win. Shame no-one else saw it that way……
Back in the pits it was evident that the second MSD box had gone to the great transistor graveyard in the sky. We were out of competition but there was enough time (and weather!) for another run, so ‘The Glove’ was dispatched with his begging bowl to see if he could find another MSD box. Fortunately a couple of the other racers came good and we ended up with one other box and the promise of another.

One last run. The weather was coming in but it was still hot. A 7.5 wasn’t what we were looking for, but at least the car is still in one piece.
Thanks to Ryan and The Wild Bunch for organising this amazing meeting. This was the rain date for the earlier washed out meeting and happened on a weekend that had a load of other car stuff happening so the crowds were down a bit, but even so the reception from the public and the atmosphere in the pits was fantastic.
Thanks to Masterton Motorplex for a good track, and as always to their safety crew for keeping everyone racing safely.

I’m going for a lie down.

12/01/2025

Meremere Dragway 'Wellington Invasion' 11th January

This time Steve 'The Glove' and Trevor 'The Legend' were joined by an unusually large crew: There was Sandra 'TB1', Mallory 'MJ', Carl 'Nacho' and a guest appearance from Memphis 'Randall' Driver on 'chute duty. Even 'Egg with eyes' wandered past and offered his help but the sun's glare reflected from his head was too much to take....

It was hot, and there were literally hundreds of cars in attendance. Our first qualifier came at around midday, and after the fire up and warm-up we pulled to the line for run No1. Unfortunately our MSD box didn't want to play anymore so we were pushed back and Q1 missed. At this time 'The Glove' did a very passable Tasmanian Devil impersonation causing Nisa and Derek to give him a damn good talking to (down boy, bad boy....)

After a sizeable wait, and with 'The Glove' calmed down and a replacement MSD box installed we lined up for Q2. Strong burnout and a straight 7.3. All good. Back to the pits for another couple of chapters of 'War and Peace'.

Eventually round one came around and we wiped the sleep from our eyes and towed out. Paired against 'Mustang' Murray we dialled 7.25 and ran 7.31. Win light in our lane. We didn't realise at the time that Murray had a bad misfire which essentially handed us the win.

As daytime turned to night-time the air started to cool, and the vivid array of colourful team shirts were gradually replaced by a motley collection of coats, jackets, sweatshirts and hoodies making Meremere look like an impromptu op-shop fashion show.

After another chapter, sleep etc, we got a bye in round 2. Just as well as Steve found the pedal on the right and ran 7.24 on a 7.25 dial in.

It was gone 10pm by the time we lined up against Nick Bogart in the final. We ran 7.21 on a 7.20 dial in, but unfortunately a red light replaced the win light in our lane handing Nick the win.

A great day all round, and after the luck we've had recently a second place felt like a win.

Thanks to everyone involved, particularly the safety crew who were kept busy digging people out of the sand pit.

Next time out is the rescheduled Wild Bunch meeting at Masterton in a scant couple of weeks. See you there!

08/12/2024

Masterton Motorplex. Outlaw 71 round. 7th & 8th December.

The Chaos team descended on Masterton Motorplex for the next round of the Outlaw 71 series. Steve ‘The Glove’, Trevor ‘The Legend’ and Mallory ‘MJ’ were still buoyed up from the NPB at Meremere the last time out. For this round ‘MJ’ would change her hat from ‘BUG’ to ‘TB’, and with the absence of ‘Egg with eyes’ The Legend would be the new BUG. Confused? You will be!
A very hot Saturday, there would be one practice and two qualifying rounds, and if time allowed one elimination round.
First run, strong burnout and launch but the car stepped sideways at half-track netting a lacklustre 8+ seconds and allowing Ross Brown in the other lane to gloat. A lot.
Second run and first qualifier was better. 7.4 seconds at 183mph. Ross Brown was in the other lane again and guess what? Yes, Ross (who would go on to win the meeting) got to the line first and subjected us to even more gloatiness.
Q2, again a good, strong 7.4, getting to the stripe a gnats before Gary Stinkinson, but all was not well as ‘old glovefoot’ had snapped the throttle cable.
Despite a handful of throttle cables being offered us, we use an unusual cable with 4 adjustment points so despite The Legend’s best efforts, a bush fix couldn’t be had and it looked like we’d be a now-show for the first eliminator. After a few frantic phone calls a possible solution was available locally so MJ and The Glove were hurriedly dispatched to the depths of Masterton to see if the solution would work. I hear banjo’s…….
An hour or so later, the dynamic duo re-appeared with a new end welded to our old cable and the thrash started to see if we could get it on in time. Fortunately (for us), just as we were being called to the staging lanes and with no chance of making it, there was a massive oil down which effectively curtailed racing for the day.

Overnight accommodation was to ‘The Glove’s usual high standards. He and The Legend would stay in L’otel Remorque De Voiture (look it up) and ‘MJ’ would stay in the penthouse suite at the adjacent Hotel Everest.
Dawn broke, and The Legend was woken by a cold, wet nose being forced between the covers. This wasn’t unusual as his dog always wakes him up at home. But wait a minute – he wasn’t at home!
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARG!

With decorum reinstated, and ‘The Glove’ chastised (“Down boy, bad boy”) it was back to racing. We’d managed to make the repaired cable work, but couldn’t get full throttle so we really weren’t expecting much from Competition Round 1. A very off-pace 8 plus second run was worse than expected, but it transpired that the air system had leaked on the run leaving The Glove with no throttle at all by half track. Round 1 loss.
Fortunately, with the Outlaw 71 Series all racers get to come out on all rounds and can earn points at each round.
Competition round 2. We still did not have full throttle and Steve would have to launch off the foot brake as the trans-brake was in the same circuit as the air system. We hadn’t run faster than 7.4 with everything working so dialling in a 7.4 for round two was a safe bet. At the stripe the scoreboard showed a 7.30. It isn’t called Chaos for nothing…..
Round 3. Last round. Still with nothing working as it should we dialled a 7.28 just in case we could replicate the 7.3 run. Boom – 7.25 break out leaving a slowing Maxxed Out Racing altered to take the win. Bu**er! Still, with the way the points are distributed we actually finished just off the podium in 4th place.

With the racing over it seems we’ve now got a drivetrain problem which will need to be resolved by the next outing.

Thanks as always to the track, the organisers and particularly the safety crew for a great weekend, and thanks to the weather Gods for keeping it dry until after the last cars went down the track, and thanks to Ross Brown for nothing!

24/11/2024

Meremere Dragway 23rd/24th November.
Test & Tune and Outlaw 71 Round 1

Saturday 23rd saw Steve (The Glove) and Trevor (The Legend) wending their weary way to Meremere Dragway for Test & Tune. It was our first outing of the season and due to the amount of changes we’d made since our awful season last year we were understandably apprehensive. Mrs Glove (the original TB) was on towing duty for the day and our latest crew member, Mallory ‘MJ’ Johnson took over back-up duties. Grant ‘Egg With Eyes’ Hannah couldn’t make it on the Saturday as he was washing his hair. 4,000 grit and Farecla G3 we suspect.
Lining the car up for the first run of the day, The Glove was on strict instruction to “Just launch and make sure it goes through the gears,” and for once he listened. The car sounded strong and, pleased to report no issues.
Then the Meremere gremlins attacked. There was Timing computer drop-outs, rain, timing computer, rain, timing computer, oil down, rain. We did manage one more run and everything worked well, but there were no times so nothing learned, but better still, nothing broken.

Sunday dawned, and we were shocked that Steve, a happily married man, had stayed at Meremere overnight and slept with a member of another team 😲. But hey, we’re a progressive team and won’t judge so we’d like to congratulate Steve and Jim Patterson on their upcoming nuptuals…..

Two qualifiers on Saturday morning. The first was a 7.25ET at 190mph which brought us back to where we were the season before last and also gave us top qualifier, the second was a very out of shape 7.7 at 130 with Steve taking in the scenery on both sides of the track….
Round 1 we were paired with Ian Deboo. We ran 7.24 on a 7.20 dial-in, but Ian ran a near perfect 7.051 on a 7.05 dial in.
Fortunately Outlaw 71 gets all of the cars out at every round, so we lined up for round 2. Side-by-side byes with Ian Deboo (again). This time we had the winning ticket with a 7.27 on a 7.2 dial in, Ian running 7.9 on a 7.2 dial in. Why couldn’t he have done that in round 1?
The last run of the day was a bye. Steve looked at Trevor with a steely stare and said ‘Do something’. There was a blur of spanners and ‘something’ was done. That something netted a 7.1 at 193 and those 3 little letters we all want to see: S*M. No, sorry: NPB!
Thanks as always to the guys at Meremere, the track prep was awesome and the safety guys kept everyone safe.
Thanks to the Outlaw 71 organisers and admin, and thanks to the weather Gods for making Sunday the best race day we’ve had in ages.

See you in a few weeks at Masterton!

06/09/2024

Chaos team update. September 2024.

On a cold September morning Steve ‘The Glove’ and Trevor ‘The Legend’ drove to the top secret Chaos base (just off Redoubt Road, Manukau) to piece together the race car, ready for the coming season. Grant ‘Egg With Eyes’ couldn’t make it as he is too busy with his Corvette, and his pink shorts would clash with both the colour of the car and the good taste of the team…..

The engine had been refreshed by the Marsh twins, and the transmission overhauled with new 1st gear and new TC stator so these, along with a heap of other parts and fluids were piled up next to the car ready for the onslaught.
As we arrived there were questions to be answered:
“Where does this bit go?”
-“That’s the engine Steve, that goes in the front of the car.”
-“What about this bit?”
-“That’s the car Steve, that’s the bit the engine goes into.”
-“Ooh.”

So with the preliminaries out of the way and a spanky new pair of gloves stretched onto the hands of… well… The Glove, the dynamic duo set on their assembly mission. After much craning of heavy stuff, thrashing of spanners, applications of hammers, cussing, swearing, bruising and bleeding, by the end of the day the engine and transmission were firmly bolted into place.
The following day, Steve was held up with some business (some business involving eating and drinking I’d wager) so, armed with gallons of sealer and Loctite and a pile of cable ties, Trev was dispatched to the secret hideout to complete the mission on his own.
Without the encumbrance of a driver (if you know what I mean…) the remaining components – blower, mag, fuel tank, headers, hoses etc. – were buttoned up within a few short hours.
We still have a bit of wiring to do as we’ve modified a lot of the systems on the car, but basically it’s ready to go.

Thanks to everyone who enabled us to get this together this early before the season. You know who you are!

07/04/2024

Nostalgia Drags. 6th April. Meremere Dragway.

Deep in the catacombs of GSS Performance all was dark and quiet.
Then, hollow footsteps echoing down the worn stone steps. A bolt being drawn back and an old oak door creaking open on it’s iron hinges allowing a shard of light to illuminate a unmoving body.
-“Legend.”
The body stirred, “Whe, wha, who?”
“Legend, it’s me, The Glove. I want to run the car at the Nostalgias.”
“But you said it was all over. You said I could rest”

So early Saturday the usual suspects; Egg With Eyes (NOT in his usual pink shorts for once), The Glove and The Legend arrived at Meremere ready for Bay Rodders’ Nostalgia Drags. The plan was to have a fun day with no pressure running with some of the Wild Bunch guys in a ‘friendly’ eliminator. Unfortunately The Glove had developed his winter ‘plumage’, but a quick call to Air NZ for one of their seatbelt extenders and all was good. You want to know who ate all of the pies? We have an idea……

Q1. No tune. No timing and the throttle not opening fully gave us 7.5 seconds at 190mph exactly. None of us know where it came from, but it was one of the best, straightest passes we’d done all year.

Q2. Small tune but still not full throttle and another 7.5, this time slightly quicker at just under 191mph.

So we were feeling pretty good going into elimination 1. A bye! Not even The Glove could stuff this one up…… A slower 7.6 at 187 with the chutes pulled early. The Redlight Bandit had thankfully left the building, but ‘Sleepy Steve’ had taken his place.

Elimination 2 against Michael Franklin’s bad black GTO. And……….. No fire. Just as we needed the car to run good the MSD box called a halt so that was the end of our day, leaving Michael to go forward into the final. We certainly named ‘Chaos’ right….

Thanks to all concerned – Bay Rodders for a really good meeting, The guys at Meremere Dragway for giving us all an excellent track, the other competitors for making it a great spectacle on the strip and Deane ‘I’m not sure if I’m drunk from last night or early for tonight’ Wald for stepping into tow bitch duties at the last minute.

07/03/2024

Just got the new uniforms for the GSS Race Team.
Can't wait to try them out!

18/02/2024

Mayhem at Masterton 10th/11th Feb and NZ Nationals, Meremere 17th/18th Feb.
A bunch of c***s and the return of the Red Light Bandit….

First off, we need to apologise for the lack of witty race reports this season. We’d been chasing an elusive oil leak for the previous 4 meetings and the resulting lack of confidence in the car would have made some pretty lame reading.

Anyhoo, after some help from C&M performance and the brilliant silicone application by Marsh Motorsport we eventually located and rectified the oil leak, and with all necessary lubricants staying where they should we were ready to send it at the Wild Bunch / Outlaw 71 ‘Mayhem’ meeting at Masterton Motorplex. Steve ‘The Glove’, Grant ‘Egg With Eyes’, Mallory ‘TB4’ and Trevor ‘The Legend’ made the long haul down-country. There was a team dress-up competition that saw Egg With Eyes abandon his trademark pink lycra shorts for a seemingly more appropriate convict outfit, saw The Legend riding around on a large male chicken, and The Glove…….well he didn’t really dress up but he still looked like a c**k!

Thanks to the enduring oil problem we had never had a chance to actually tune the engine, so were playing catch-up in the tuning department. Racing for the Outlaw 71 team, the first (and losing) run of 7.8 seconds wasn’t impressive, and gave those pesky Wild Bunch guys a win. The second run of 8.1 was even less impressive, but due to the Wild Bunch being far too enthusiastic on the light gave a win to the Outlaw 71 team. The third, and last, run of the day was probably our best thanks to advice from Neil Morgan (thanks Neil!), but due to Steve’s eagerness to beat Dean Scott he elected to leave before the yellow lights even started to burn down so we had no time registered. Another win for Wild Bunch (I’m sure these match ups are fixed in their favour!) and a big cherry illuminating the c**k in our lane.
Unfortunately the second day of racing was rained off, so with the scores at Wild Bunch 21 vs Outlaw 71 20 we hung our heads in shame and made the long haul home.

With a bit of a handle on the tuning we elected to attend the NZ Nationals the following weekend and see if we could improve.
Egg With Eyes was back in his shorts, The Legend had let his big chicken go (but still strangely looked like a c**k!), The Glove was….Well….There, and this meeting saw the welcome return of the original TB1 – Sandra ‘Mrs Glove’.

3 rounds of qualifying on the Saturday saw the car go 8.5 (!), 7.8 and 7.7 with the last run showing The Glove’s premature acceleration problem return with a big red light again.
Into eliminations on the Sunday, and a better 7.6 at 186mph showed that we were getting the tune better, but unfortunately The Glove’s problem was back again and the red light of shame glowed ominously in our lane. We also broke out by 0.2 second but that didn’t matter thanks to the antics of the ‘Red Light Bandit’
Just for fun we ran a grudge against Michael Franklin in his beautiful black GTO. The run was virtually identical to the first run of the day – 7.6 at 186, also leaving another cherry behind! Oh yeah, the ‘Red Light Bandit’ is back with vengeance!
Thanks to Masterton Motorplex and Meremere for great tracks and crew. Thanks to Ryan Sheldon for organising the Mayhem meeting at Masterton which was a fantastic meeting only marred by the inclement Sunday weather.
Both tracks would like to thank Steve for making sure all of the bulbs worked!
Next outing will be the Wild Bunch Challenge at Meremere on the 3rd March. See you there!

Thanks to Grahams Glimpses Photography for use of the great picture.

06/11/2023

Test & Tune 4th November and Comp 1, 5th November.

Despite having the whole off-season to organise parts, thanks to supply and freight issues ‘Chaos’ was still in bits 2 days before the meeting. Steve ‘The Glove’ just locked Trevor ‘The Legend’ into the garage until it was done, and late Thursday the locks were removed to reveal a running car, and a barely walking Trevor…..

So with a new combo throughout (engine, Trans, Electrics etc.) we arrived at Meremere for the test & tune. What turned out to be a failing starter was (predictably) causing starting problems, but eventually it fired and Steve ’The Glove’ was sent on his way up the strip. A huge burnout resulting in a near 90 degree stop showed there was some get-up-and-go to the new combo. Steve staged and the lights burned down. Good launch and then nothing as the car lost power and Steve (wisely) pulled to one side of the track.
Dragging it back to the pits it was a case of, “Is that supposed to be attached?” The top blower pulley shaft had removed itself from the blower snout, taking the drive splines with it. The circlip that should have held it all in place was laying in the snout, and the pulley had embedded itself in the front bodywork. Bu**er! It looked like our weekend was over.

But fortunately we have friends! Al’s Blowers opened up specially to supply us a new blower hub and coupler, and he even fitted the new pulley hub shaft for us as well!

So, to the surprise of most we rocked up at Meremere on Sunday for Comp 1. The Usual team were somewhat depleted, so Steve enrolled the help of an Aussie and a guy from the South Island to help, and, despite their obvious disabilities they were a great help.
Soon the new blower drive and new starter were fitted and we were ready to rock!
Run 1. Straight burnout. Good run. 192mph @ 7.4 seconds.
Wow! The fastest the car had ever been was 192, so the new combo in ‘off the trailer’ mode obviously had some go. 7.4 wasn’t too shabby either.
Quick checkover before run 2. 190mph @ 7.5 seconds.
Nice! Bearing in mind the really gentle tune the speed and consistency were very encouraging, particularly after the Saturday we’d had.
Into eliminations round 1 and we drew Neville in the Cougar Racing altered. He’d dialled in about a second slower than us so Steve needed to keep his cool. After a small bit of advice from the Legend that is ‘The Legend’ he cut a great light, but wheelspin in the second half resulted in an aborted run and a win for Neville. At that stage, rather than testing our luck with racer return we took the clever option and called it a day.

We’d like to thank the Meremere crew – as always, and the weekend team helpers: Bazza, Dazza, Gazza, Shazza, Wazza, Bruce and Nacho, though some of those may have been made up!
See you back at Meremere on the 25th & 26th November for some Outlaw 71 madness.

23/05/2023

Chemz Ltd products now in stock here at GSS, 100% NZ made, come get you some!!

Cheers Nigel Segedin for sorting us out!

05/05/2023