Rare Spares Rockynats 4: Stunning Saturday

Saturday of Rockynats kicked off with an epic show and shine down the Quay Street waterfront, with 100s of specially-selected cars lining the street. With the Fitzroy River on one side, cool historic buildings on the other and plenty of trees for shade, the Rockynats show and shine is heaven on earth.

If you crave action, never fear. At one end of the promenade is the Drift Cadet activation, and at the other is Rocky’s now iconic-street drags, which provides killer action all day long.

The no-prep surface is a great leveller and there is an electric atmosphere thanks to the massive crowd bursting out of the pubs! Tomorrow will see 100s of cars hot lapping through brutal eliminations racing, putting batteries and cooling systems to the test! Taking a class win at this event is no mean feat, that’s for sure.

Back at the showgrounds, punters could enjoy the elite show and shine to enjoy, plus action on the dyno, mower racing, pro wrestling, the Hot Wheels drift gymkhana, Mulletfest and plenty more, all capped off with a great show by the Choirboys.

And if burnouts are your thing, we had qualifying all day long on in the burnout precinct, you can check out the results below. For now, let’s have a squiz at some of our favourite cars from Saturday:

PATINA WITH PUNCH

This XB Falcon has been sitting in a open shed in Biggenden for many years before Dean Delinksi acquired it and got it ready for action at Rockynats. While the exterior has plenty of patina, the XB is surprisingly solid and the interior is far better than it has any right to be!

The engine is a built 302 that Dean previously ran in a Galant. The crowning glory is a Denakis Capps 8/71 blower, sitting on an old school Edelbrock manifold. “The blower is a rare piece,” says Dean.

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Being an AU block, there wasn’t a stack of aftermarket parts available to make everything work, so Dean go to work, knocking up his own angle drive dizzy. The blower is underdriven, making 5psi and slurping down E85.

“The car is basically straight out of the paddock,” says Dean. “I went through the brakes, but the rest is as-is. Pretty much everything you here was stuff I had in the shed or from the wreckers. The exhaust is an SS Commodore system that I cut up, the fan is from an Astra.”

And sure enough, the XB kicked butt on Skid Row!

LINA-MINT!

The show and shine on Quay Street was a cracker today and one of our favourites was Kev Stoddart’s HQ Holden wagon. “It is one of 48-odd HQ wagons in green and the only one with chocolate trim,” says Kev. “It was shell this time last year!”

Under the bonnet is a built six-litre LS, topped by a Whipple blower with water/methanol injection and a Terminator X ECU. “The engine ran flat nines in a VS Commodore,” says Kev. Taking the strain is a reverse-pattern TH400 and 3.7:1 nine-inch.

The body is largely stock, aside from a set of mini tubs, relocated fuel filler and a tasteful reverse cowl.

MONSTER MINI

Probably the most-photographed car on the cruise route was Geoff and Kirsten Morgan’s 4×4 Mini, which sits on a Suzuki Sierra chassis and was finished last week!

Geoff’s other Mini on show is a wild custom unit, with suicide doors, roof chop and turbocharged Toyota Starlet driveline.

BOSS VK

The street drags were flat out, with veterans and newbies alike. One such first-timer was Kaylene Gough in BOSSVK. While it was Kaylene’s first time on a drag strip, she is an experienced roll racer. The VK runs a 5.7-litre LS with a 100hp nitrous shot, TH40 and 9in.