Chris O'Brien leads setup development at Shockworks, and the S13 is his own build. This September Andrew Price takes the #59(Chris O'Brien's S13 Silvia #59 in Clubsprint) seat for Clubsprint at WTAC, and what the car tells him on every lap lands back on the bench that valves every customer kit.
A battle lasts under a minute; the shocks never even get warm. The hard part is everything else: full lock one way, then full lock the other, the whole car thrown across inside a car length, kerbs taken flat because the judges pay for commitment. The chase driver does all of that in the lead car's smoke, a bonnet off their door, steering by feel. A pair locked together through the last corner looks telepathic. It isn't. It's valving.
#221991
Scott Roberts
Silvia S13.4
#311990
Jason Ferron
Skyline R31
#342000
Sam Tabbouch
Skyline
#761998
Warwick Hill
E46
The rest of the meeting
21
Cars at Sydney Motorsport Park on our dampers
08 Drifting Cup/12 time attack/01 #59(Chris O'Brien's S13 Silvia #59 in Clubsprint)
Another twelve run in the time attack classes across the weekend. None of it was arranged. They rang up, one at a time, over years.
#33
John Boston
Silvia S14
#341995
Ben Henrys
Silvia
#372000
Justin Gaujenieks
MR-S
#462022
Massimiliano Cassoni
BRZ
From the fence
The smoke doesn't clear between battles
The Drifting Cup takes the last corners of the circuit after dark. Sixteen cars drawn blind into pools, no qualifying, battles from the first run: the lead car writes the line, the chase car's scored on how little air it leaves, and a pair the judges can't split goes again, sudden death, until they can. Smoke from each battle hangs in the night air for the next pair to drive into at full lock. From the fence you're close enough to watch the bodywork, and the bodywork is where the valving shows.
You can pick the sorted cars without knowing a thing about suspension. One lands its angle and stays flat all the way through; the next arrives shivering over its front wheels and never settles. The crowd reacts before the judges do. Our eight are there to be the first kind.
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Every damper we've improved got there the same way: somebody drove it, told us what it did, and we changed the valving. The telling is where the weeks go. At WTAC there are no weeks. Andrew Price comes in off a run and says what the car did, and the bloke who valved it is standing there with the trace already open. A loop that short is how you build the best grip suspension in the country.
The seat
A professional in it
Andrew Price drives it for race week. He coaches for a living, so his trade is reading a car at the limit and saying exactly what it did, which is what the bench runs on.
The car
It's Chris's own
The S13 is Chris's own, built and paid for by him, so a wrong guess costs him a session and nobody else a weekend.
The arbiter
Timed and witnessed
Clubsprint runs the deepest grid at WTAC, and an officiated lap makes no allowance for who built the car. That's what makes the number worth chasing.
In the seat · 4 and 5 September
Andrew Price
Semi-pro racing driver and motorsport coach, out of the Gold Coast. Lead driving instructor at Norwell Motorplex, a regular in the Queensland Racing Drivers Championship, and holder of the FWD lap record at Queensland Raceway, set in the i30 Sedan N that carries Shockworks and Neotech on its doors. For the first weekend of September, the S13 is his.
A year of test days and open pit lane, then one last Friday at Winton with the full aero on. The reel runs that day in order.
The name goes on
The week before
Gold along the sill, the same week the car got a job.
So the loop stays short: feel it, change it, prove it, without the car leaving the hands that built it. The entry is official: #59(Chris O'Brien's S13 Silvia #59 in Clubsprint) on the 2026 entry list, in the same class the car ran last year. Andrew Price drives it. We're not promising a result. We're chasing the best grip suspension this shop has ever built, and the lap time is the receipt.
The whole shop goes
Andrew Price gets the seat, and the shop packs for Sydney around the car. Aaron's spanners live in the pit, Tim's on the radio between the car and race control, Chris is on the laptop between runs, Brett runs prep and strategy, and Belinda holds the merch stall.
Rhys and the boys run the service stand, and that one isn't about our car at all. A fair few cars at WTAC are on our dampers, and for the weekend their setup problems are ours. Wheel it over, whether the kit came from us or came with the car. And if you just want to talk suspension, the merch stall is where we're easiest to find.
The dampers were under race cars from the first years; 2013 is just where the written record picks up. From Targa stages to time attack, the community wrote most of it down before we did, and it reads back from this year's entry to the Targa car that opened the account.
“SHOCK VALUE. The Shockworks S13 time attack shop car is chock-full of the best gear, gearing up for World Time Attack 2026.”
Specced, valved and developed in Monbulk. Andrew Price takes the seat at Sydney Motorsport Park.
Andrew Price, S13 Silvia · 2026 ClubsprintEntered
Andrew Price, i30 Sedan N · TimeAttack.com.au R1, Queensland Raceway1st, FWD lap record
2025
Fourteen days, one hole
The S13 went from bare shell to the gate in fourteen days, fabrication, geometry and valving all done in Monbulk by the people who would have to live with them. John Boston had it going properly in Clubsprint before a mechanical ended the weekend early. The car had answered its question. The loop still had a hole in it, and Chris spent that weekend reading his own car through somebody else's hands.
John Boston, S13 Silvia · 2025 Clubsprint, 33 cars1:40.799
14 days out
Wide body on, engine in. No bonnet, no livery, 14 days to the gate.
13 days out
Acostal rear end, shock inverted so damper changes don't need the wing off.
12 days out
MT Performance billet VE, just under 650kw, Emtron on traction control.
36 hours to dyno
Twenty renders to land the design, applied on bare prep. It came out right.
“The goal turned from trying to run a 1:28 to getting onto the podium for the very first time.”
JET200, on the coilovers Chris designed and built for it, takes third in Open Class at WTAC 2025 at 1:30.523. John Boston drives it, the same weekend he runs our S13 in Clubsprint.
“1300hp, 1250kg, E85 fuel, BSC Performance, Cage Kits Aus, and Shockworks.”
The Garrett International Drifting Cup build sheets keep turning up Shockworks, and Jason Ferron's Barrawagz, on Shockworks coilovers and the full Acostal front end since its build, finishes the weekend on the cup podium.
“Equally modified are the bouncy bits which, with input from local outfit Shockworks, emerge with a fully adjustable arrangement that smells pretty track-oriented if the truth be told.”
The MM-R727 wins the inaugural Ford Mustang Hot Tuner at Winton, Shockworks under it.
2013-18
The Targa years
Somebody else's car, our valving: the Mustang Motorsport Targa Mustang put the dampers on the board almost immediately, and kept them there for five seasons.
2013 Targa High Country1st outright
2014 Great Tarmac Rally3rd outright, 1st in class
2014 Targa Tasmania3rd in class
2015 Australian Tarmac Rally Championship1st outright
2015 Great Tarmac Rally1st outright
2015 Snowy River Sprint1st outright
2015 Mt Baw Baw Sprint1st in class
2015 Lake Mountain Sprint3rd outright, 1st in class
Shockworks backing at the gate: headline naming rights on a beach matsuri two years running, sponsored trackside support at VicDrift's Summer Matsuri, and a presented grand final day at Sandown.
“The weekend saw plenty of revalves and services for the guys running our gear.”
Sponsored support for the matsuri: free Saturday setup for entrants and the ride van up for damper changes, through a weekend that ran hot, then wet, then out of power. Video by Jordy Scott.
Headline naming rights on a beach drift matsuri at Port MacDonnell, two years running. The 2019 poster: Shockworks on top, an S-chassis smoking down Surfers Way.
The S13 campaign is the one with the pit pass, but everyone in the workshop races something, and all of it feeds back into how we valve customer kits. Open a card to see the car properly.
Everything on this page runs the same suspension we sell over the counter, specced the way we spec our own. Tell us the chassis and how you use it, and yours gets the race car's treatment.
Clubsprint, car #59, on the official 2026 entry list. It's the same class the car ran with John Boston driving in 2025, and this year Andrew Price is in the seat, in the car Chris and the team at Shockworks built from the ground up. Competition runs Friday 4 and Saturday 5 September at Sydney Motorsport Park, with practice the Thursday before.
02Is the suspension on the race car the same as what customers buy?+
Same damper, same build process. The S13 runs a Shockworks kit valved for its corner weights and for a timed lap at Sydney Motorsport Park. There is no separate race product on the shelf, because every kit is valved for the car it goes on. You get the same monotube with a spec written for your car instead of ours.
03What happened at WTAC 2025?+
The S13 came together in a fourteen-day build push and ran Clubsprint at Sydney Motorsport Park with John Boston driving. A mechanical ended the weekend early. The car is back in Clubsprint as #59 for 2026 after another year of development, with Andrew Price in the seat.
04Do I need a race car to buy a kit?+
No. Most of what we build goes on road cars. The program exists because a timed, officiated lap tells us things a dyno sheet and a street drive cannot, and what comes out of it feeds back into how we valve customer kits. Benchmark is the street setup, Track is for the car that has to do both.
05Can Shockworks support my car at a track day or an event?+
Trackside setup work is part of what we do, making damper and chassis changes at the circuit rather than back at the workshop. It comes with the Bespoke tier and is arranged case by case, interstate and overseas included. Ask on the consultation and we'll tell you what's workable for your event.
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