If you’re a fan of the burnout scene, then you’ve probably been looking at the back of Peter Flint’s head – usually protected under a wide-brimmed straw hat – for a number of years. He’s probably covered every burnout competition at some point over the last 10 years and his YouTube channel and website are a treasure trove and historical archive of the sport.
Your first car that really got noticed was your tough-as-nails XW, but these days it’s your XC ute OLDHOON that gets all the attention.
I bought the ute in 2008 or 2009, I still had the XW at that point, but it was sitting in a mate’s shed with no engine in it. The big-block from the XW went into the ute after I rodded the Boss 302 engine that was originally in the ute when I purchased it, I ended up selling that combo because I did a deal for the XW – before the prices all went up, of course. I got the whole driveline that’s in the ute at the moment, plus heaps of spares and cash my way as well, and I’ve never seen the car since.
Tell us a bit about that combo.
It’s a 532-cube big-block Ford. It’s a standard block, so it’s at it limits but it’s had a lot of work done to the bottom-end. It’s grout-filled, converted to 4-bolt mains, not a big dollar bottom-end, but it’s got a cast steel crank and decent rods, it’s all in the top-end. It’s got a set of Ford Motorsport C460 heads on it which are big dollar. It’s had a sheet metal manifold made to suit that engine. [The heads have raised intake and exhaust ports as well as 2.450in intake and 1.900in exhaust ports!] It actually came out of a Wild Bunch car from Queensland, I believe it was a pink XY.
How much grunt is it making?
When it was dyno’d with the help of BYE and Performance Carb Tuning it made 904hp at the tyres at only 8lb of boost and 20 degrees of timing, so it’s not working at all.
What’s the rest of the driveline?
It’s got a built ‘Glide that’s looked after by Gonzo [Simon Travaglini] at Allfast, he did a converter for it as well and it’s been brilliant. I went a season and a half without even having to change the oil in it. I just changed all the rear-end, from the cab back it’s basically all brand new, as well as a new trans tunnel – new skins, new tubs, new four-link and the exhaust from the collectors back was redone to fit the 20×15” rims. There’s a new water tank and new fuel tank in the back as well, that was all done by Russell Woods from Rollin Industries, it’s a completely different car under there now.
Russell’s done work on the car before, hasn’t he?
When I initially put the blown big-block combo he notched the towers, set up the engine plate and built a decent set of pipes for it. He did all the initial set up including the gearbox mount and other bits and pieces.
You’re also well known for covering the burnout scene with your Flinty460 YouTube channel. When did that start up?
The channel started in early 2008, I was filming earlier than that, I’ve even got footage on VHS tape from when Motorvation was at Burswood. I started filming from the stands [at the Motorplex] when the Wild Boyz were around and shooting footage for a few of the guys. Wild Mick got me down on the track because he knew Peter Pike really well and it just sort of snowballed from there with media access. Street Machine have got me over for the last six Summernats, it’s just a hobby that’s out of control now.
How many views and followers have you got on your channel?
I’ve just hit 60,000 subscribers and we’ve just ticked over 34,000,000 views. On average, it does about 500,000 views a month. It peaks around Motorvation and Summernats, the last two years it’s peaked over 1,000,000 views in January and February.
Which videos get the most views?
Every now and then you’ll get a video that YouTube will grab and start promoting for you – I’ve got no control over it – and all of a sudden it will get a spike of 2,000 – 4,000 views an hour for a week or so. If one of the US channels like 1320Video or Speed Society posts one of my videos on their page it can get some traction from there as well. At the moment it’s consistently doing 600-1000 views an hour.
People are pretty impatient these days and want to see stuff straight away as well, don’t they?
I generally get the winner up and at least get a couple more ready, so the next morning I’ve got the runner up, or the big fire or the wall hit ready to go.
How do you battle all the live feeds and the fact that most people have already seen it all?
I don’t know, people still watch it on YouTube because it’s high quality and multiple angles as opposed to being a live feed from 40 rows back.
I’m amazed how you find the time to do it, having a family and running a business.
I still do all my own editing. It used to be, if I wasn’t busy at work I’d churn a couple out before lunch, but now I’ll finish work, and if I have meetings at night, they take priority. Some nights I’ll churn out three or four videos, but straight after the event is the busy time. I’ll normally get home at 11pm or later and usually don’t go to bed until 3am. I’ve worked it out, if I’ve got three camera angles, from start to finish, I can turn out two videos in an hour.
You can find all of Flinty’s stuff right here:
https://www.facebook.com/BurnoutVideos/
https://burnoutvideos.com.au/?fbclid=IwAR0rW_C15MB50QV6KEYpxfBmX2hZ2HY4ZIxH9TG8ZBPQ1OJvTHBfQsgtQfQ
https://www.youtube.com/user/Flinty460
Words // Boris Viskovic
jordanleist.com 