It was big, it was crowded and the air was alive with the stench of burning rubber and high-octane fuel. Tipped to be one of the biggest days on the Sydney motorsport calendar the 2002 Street Machine Supernats was scheduled to be nothing short of mechanical madness. And it was.
First published in the December 2002 issue of Street Machine
Victor Bray and the Castrol ’57 Chev headed up the big names in a horsepower feast with burnouts, drags, Go-to-whoa, sound-off and show’n’shine making up the standard showtime menu. And our four-cylinder cousins were there in force as well, making for a good-natured blend of performance car cultures.
In fact, the four-cylinder brigade dominated the show’n’shine and caused veteran hod rodder and auto artist Mario Colallilo to remark, “Their paint and air-brush work would generally put the V8 and hot rod scene to shame.” Strong words, but credit where it’s due.
However, big skids are what everyone wants to see and Bray provided, tossing around the big methanol-fuelled, watercooled, blown, Keith Black-powered ’57 Chev burnout car and deafening the crowd with brute 9000rpm horsepower.
Street machine legend Gary Myers was there, too, making huge smoke in his 2001 Street Machine of the Year Mustang, and the four-banger boys had their honour satisfied by Rabih Habib in his Honda CRX whose front-wheel-drive skid even had the V8 faithful sitting up and taking notice.
However, overall the burnout comp was a fairly tame affair with new insurance regulations and ARDC rules meaning that bonnets stayed on and that the cars could not spill a drop of fluid onto the pad, which was situated in the centre of the drag track. This meant a large portion of competitors were red-flagged as soon as engines started to boil and not one tyre was burst – perhaps a first in Australian burnout competition.
On the drag strip Daniel Callahan, reunited with CAL400, showed the mighty Torana still has plenty on offer and slid his way to an all-conquering 7.92@176mph on the slippery Eastern Creek quarter. Many complained they were having difficulty getting traction and there were many unscheduled excursions toward the Armco, but fortunately there were no major incidents.
In all it was a fantastic festival of modified machine fun and the thousands who thronged to see it were not disappointed.
Burnouts
Offering the biggest first-place prizemoney of any show in Australia, the Supernats drew a mixed crowd of heavy hitters and showmen. Victor kicked off the action with a display that had everyone within 100m covering their ears and rubbing their eyes as the massive 17”-wide rear bags painted the Creek black.
Brett Thomas’s blown, injected XY was the first real big hitter and was looking like a serious threat until an over-ambitious heli saw him slam the rear of the Falcon into the Armco, stoving in the driver’s-side rear quarter.
The Deno’s Cranes entry of Dennis Brijeski, a 10-second, 355-cube LH with twin four barrels on a sheet-metal intake, had the crowd on their feet early and was by far one of the best burnouts of the day.
Glen Griffiths in his blue, six-cylinder Torana justly earned his first place trophy with a ballsy skid, then to the surprise of many John Desisto ripped up a set of 18-inch bags in his immaculate Top 20 Summernats EH panelvan.
Best use of the pad and driving skills went to Weil Clark in the maroon HZ Monaro. Though the car didn’t have buckets of grunt to make smoke early in the piece, that boy pedalled hard.
After some dickhead in the crowd lobbed a bottle of Coke at his car, Rabih Habib produced one of the best front-wheel-drive burnouts ever seen in his Honda CRX with smoke filling the engine bay and cockpit. It’s hard to recall ever hearing an engine stay glued to the rev-limiter for so long and he was a deserved winner of the four-cylinder class.
Tony DeOliveria suffered the embarrassment of losing his steering part-way through the burnout and he pulled his car off the pad before he and the Armco came together … but aren’t all those Blacktown boys right-foot-steerers?
Seems you can always count on the regular burnout boys to do it right and this year Matt Abood took the crown as Burnout Grand Champion in his 1957 Chev Belair 454. Gary Myers won the top spot in the V8 Burnout category with Mark Yardie spearing the YUMMIE ute into second place and Brett Thomas taking third in his XY Falcon.
Supernats Burnout Grand Champion
Matt Abood 1957 Chev Belair 454
- Best V8 Burnout
Gary Myers Mustang 302 Windsor/Supercharged - Mark Yardie HJ ute 454 Chev/Supercharged
- Brett Thomas XY Falcon 400 Windsor/Supercharged
Drags
Speculation was rife that the 7.65-second elapsed time set at last year’s event could be smashed by any number of contenders, and with $1000 up for grabs there were plenty prepared to have a go. However, getting the power to the ground on the less than ideal track surface proved too much for everyone.
Daniel Callahan in his GOTAGO Torana, with its new Mark Brew-built Santos engine, shone through recording a 7.9-second pass at 176mph after getting on and off the gas a number of times.
He had pretty stiff competition with Melbourne’s Craig Gerdes in his Chev-powered, 572-cube, blown and injected HK racer, and Craig Thompson who had his crew working overtime to finish his new twin-turbo Noyzworx-sponsored, 468-cubic-inch LJ Torana that had run an 8.20 with just 13lbs of boost on its second pass ever. Gerdes put together an 8.06@170mph to finish second ahead of Thompson’s 8.36/157mph.
Con and Vic from C&V Performance were stoked with the 9.8 from their WRX which narrowly beat the Rigoli-prepared DBRONX (also running 9.80s) but have since backed-up with a [email protected] to make it the fastest 4WD in Australia and fastest WRX in the world.
It was a night of surprises and it was good to see veteran Chic Henry in his 502 Camaro door-handle-to-door-handle with Tony DeOliveria’s 400 Chev-powered Corolla, both crossing the line with 12.7s.
It was also good to see the return of Mark Hayes’ LC Torana after an eight-year absence. Hayes recently fitted a new 502-cube Chev engine that made 1200hp and an astonishing 1100ft/lbs of torque at a recent dyno session. With a best of 9.1 over the quarter with the old engine, his dreams of smashing into the eights were brought to halt when he blew the transmission early in the evening.
Supernats Grand Champion Fastest ET
Daniel Callahan LC Torana 372ci/Supercharged 7.96/176mph
Fastest V8 elapsed times
Daniel Callahan LC Torana 372ci/Supercharged 7.92/174mph
Craig Gerdes HK Holden 572ci/Supercharged 8.06/170mph
Craig Thompson LC Torana 468ci/Twin Turbo 8.36/157mph
Fastest six-cylinder elapsed times
Anthony Briggs Ford Cortina 11.10/113mph
Mark Hinson Holden Torana 11.43/125mph
Matthew Grover Nissan Skyline R33 13.02/105mph
Fastest four-cylinder elapsed times
Vince Rigoli Datsun 1200 ute 9.16/141mph
Michael Sherringham Holden Gemini 9.76/130mph
Geoff Newton Ford Escort 9.85/141mph
Show ’n’ shine
Strolling around the show’n’shine area was like a Sunday morning swap meet, but the biggest challenge seemed to be getting a good look at each car as a sea of people poured continuously through the area and swamped the many vehicles on display.
The Street Machine-sponsored Show ’n’ Go Grand Champion trophy went to John Desisto and his gorgeous EH van (SM, Jun-Jul ’00), edging out Myers’s Mustang. Putting his super-sanitary panno through the burount comp torture test earned John major respect from all present.
The Street Machine Show ’n’ shine Grand Champion gong was scooped by Ken Buckland’s Mustang, with Peter Fitzpatrick’s FC and John Coulits’s FJ ute collecting the silver and bronze.
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