The Brisbane Jamboree has always been one of the premier Sport Compact events in the world, but suffice to say has been a little lacklustre over the past few years, however organiser Ray Box delivered a revamped show stopper this year that had the eyes of the world on Willowbank Raceway.
Returning to a single day format and a re-jig of the race classes certainly breathed new life into the Jamboree which saw a great crowd witness world beating performances.
Factory Xtreme was the headlining bracket populated by ten of the world’s quickest and fastest Sport Compact machines. At his last outing Kiwi Rod Harvey served notice to the Sport Compact universe with a 6.19 at a World Record 237mph from his 2JZ Celica, Harvey opened business in the first qualifying session with a 6.22 at 231mph. The rest of the first session was a little quiet in comparison as the teams build on a tune up for the day, the PAC Performance Mazda6 was in a new livery and carded a 6.60 off the trailer with Collin Willshire the only other racer in the sixes with a 6.71 at 211 from the four pot Eclipse.
The second session of qualifying started to hint what was to come, PAC Performance blasted 223.25mph on a 6.39 resetting their own speed World Record for a Rotary. Joe Signorelli went quickest for the session with a 6.36 but crossed the centreline in the Celica, Milos Pavlovic in another Celica clicked off a PB with a 6.50 at 210mph and fly in import racer from the UK, John Bradshaw steering Scott Porter’s new Nissan Infiniti was on the board with a 6.71. Rounding out the session was Willshire 6.87, Scott Porter 6.93, Archie Kajewski 6.96, the other cars in the sixes.
With qualifying dusted it was time to get serious and Rod Harvey had brought his A game, a 6.16 drove around Rehayem’s much better reacting 6.49. Eyes around the world began logging into to result pages, not only was it Australia’s quickest Sport Compact pass, the meagre 222mph added the question as to how quick it could of been. Signorelli kept it in his lane this time, and a 6.49 beat Mark Jacobsen’s 6.79, Bradshaw 7.11 took a gigantic holeshot win over Kajewski’s 7.01 and both Pavlovic (6.76) and Porter (6.63) had solo’s over breaking opponents.
Running a Chicago Shootout format means everyone would come back for a total of three racing rounds and round two shook the world. First pairing saw Harvey taking on Kajewski and the moment that was building happened, 4.052 and 186mph half track numbers from the Harvey Celica forecast something special was about to take place, and boom there it was, 6.123 at 238.26mph, new Sport Compact World Record for both ET and speed.
The world record setting didn’t stop there, very next pass saw Collin Willshire smash the outright World Speed Record for a four cylinder at 223mph and set the Australian ET record at 6.57, ironically it was not enough to defeat opponent Porter’s 6.51 in the six cylinder Infiniti. Jacobsen picked up a ugly win over Bradshaw, Jerry Kehl soloed to a 7.37 and Pavlovic wrapped up the session with another huge leap in personal best performance with a 6.36 over a red lighting Rehayem.
Final round of racing kicked off with Signorelli’s 6.62 taking down Porter, Willshire’s 6.63 had it over the Mazda6 of Kajewski, Harvey would take three from three with a 6.64 holeshot over Jacobsen’s 6.62 ensuring a final berth for the Kiwi. Rehayem threw away a 6.71 with another red light over Porter this time and Pavlovic was perfect in wins as well with a 6.39 win against Kehl.
The final would be two duelling 2JZ Celica’s, Harvey left Pavlovic at the tree and drove off into the night capping a amazing event with a 6.28 to the Top RPM Celica’s 6.42.
Pro Turbo saw the rise of Loues Consentino and his RX7, this is a new ride for Consentino with only a handful passes in the book, the 2JZ machine (yes it is not a Rotary) just kept on going quicker as qualifying progressed, finishing off with a 7.54.
Jason Payne in his brand new Skyline was on the money with a 7.61, a 7.65 had Careem Amhaz RX3 a early charger in qualifying but ended up third followed by a 7.76 from Justin Cook in the ex Pro Stock truck the only other racer in the sevens.
In eliminations Payne’s Skyline was showing great consistency in the seven second range for three round wins and a finals birth. Dion Amato struggled with his Falcon ute in qualifying and sneaked past Amhaz in round one, Amato though laid down the numbers in subsequent rounds 7.87 and 7.86 to face Payne in the final.
Amato left Payne in his tracks at the tree in the final and was not headed, a 7.92 to the Skyline’s off pace 8.56.
Pro Compact suffered some mechanical mayhem throughout the day, Kelly Corbett was not headed in qualifying after her off the trailer 7.22. Lee Docherty in the Rotary powered MX5 was next best with a 7.53.
With the field further deteriorating through the racing rounds, Bettes continued to take wins and smash out 7.20’s with a final round 7.21 defeat of Chris Tait.
After some amazing numbers coming out of Sydney from the three Outlaw Extreme entrants, Australia’s first side by side five second turbo pass was on the table as Rob Campisi, Zoran Gajic and the countries newest five second turbo racer Steve Petrovski looked set to kill.
Unfortunately no one could hook up their machines in qualifying and moving ahead to racing Campo’s 6.32 in round one was the first six second run of the day. The Campisi 4000hp Hemi powered Muzzy went quicker again in round two with a 6.24 followed by a 6.18 in the third round to reach the final.
Opponent Gajic has issues in the final as Campo blasted a 6.05 at 253mph for the win, his best number with the new combination.
Petrovski took the Camaro out for a final exhibition pass clocking 6.06 at 232mph.
Outlaw 10.5 were also in the house, the Jamboree accommodating these classes because new generation technology and the fact they are just blindingly fast and awesome to watch.
Sam Fenech owned qualifying in the Steve Sarkis blown Grand Am with a 6.28, nearest rival was Michelle Davies in her blown Torana with a 6.75.
PJ Todarello ran a 7.22 PB in round one but was no match for Davies 6.68, Fenech the other top performer in the round one match ups with a 6.42 win over a red lighting James Horan.
Mr Outlaw 10.5 Frank Mamone was having a drama plagued event but bounced back in round two with a 6.47 taking down Nikki Hepburn’s 8.41, Davies went quicker again with a 6.61. But it was Sam Fenech that dropped every ones jaw, a 6.11 at 234mph the quickest blown Outlaw 10.5 pass in Australia by the proverbial country mile.
Fenech backed up in the third round for a 6.24 defeating Michael Haimandos’ 7.03 and would move into the final with three wins to face Davies.
The all blown final saw another 6.24 from Fenech easily accounting for Davies’ 7.87.
Extreme was all Ben Diggles in qualifying with three passes in the 6.80’s from the four cylinder dragster, and well over a second ahead of anyone else.
But that does not matter when it came to eliminations which is DYO in Extreme, the turbo charged big block Valiant of Jed Sladden was there in the final to face off against Fabian Romanin in the twin turbo V8 Capella. Romanin scored a huge holeshot launch and crossed the line with a 9.13 (9.09) the handicap was too much for the hard charging Val to chase down, succumbing with a 8.80 (8.50) pass.
The Street 289 class is always hotly contested with big fields, Po Tung’s 7.63 the quickest qualifier.
After qualifying Street 289 is then split up into two eliminators, a heads up pro tree class and a dial your own class depending on ET.
The veteran “Bush Pig” Cortina took a tumble in the braking area after locking up the brakes while trying to stop after a chute malfunction, the Cortina turned into the wall and flipped on to its lid. Long time Sport Compact campaigner Tim Kreis was unhurt, but the little Corty will need extensive repairs.
In Pro Street 289 Po Tung looked unstoppable especially after a world class 7.09 second pass in the final round of racing to secure three from three round wins. Tung would face Nathan Hagenson in the final, where the Celica faulted allowing Hagenson to claim victory in his 2JZ RX2 with a 7.59.
The DYO Street 289 saw the final throw down between Andrew Robinson and Chris Adams. Robinson in the little Mazda punched out a huge advantage off the line, a 9.08 (8.85) easily ran down the Datsun Ute of Adams’ 9.79 (9.20).
Qualifying was tight in Modified 10.5, Barry Turner in the V&E Rigoli Dato ute edged out Blacktrack Performance’s Brendan Markham with a 8.052 to a 8.059 from potent Skyline.
Shane Cricton’s Cressida also prepped by Blacktrack was third with a equally impressive 8.15.
James Thomas was unlucky not to make the final with three wins in the round robin format, David McLeaish and Justin Wilkinson would go head to head in the final. Both cars had similar reactions on the pro tree, Wilkinson’s 8.30 with the VL too good for Mcleaish slowing 10.36 in the Supra.
The quickest GTR in the world on radials was the class of qualifying in Modified Compact with a 8.01.
The dial your own format though saw a final between Joad Fardell and Daniel Ruggier. Both drivers left the line with virtually identical reaction times, the R31 Skyline of Fardell stopped the timers with a 9.75 (9.80), the more experienced Ruggier in the RX3 would not him down with a 9.08 (8.82).
No one was going to touch the freshly imported RX7 of Alf Axiak during All Motor qualifying, the screaming 20B pumped out a 8.83, the quickest naturally aspirated Rotary in the land.
Ben Cavanagh in the little Suzuki would prove the strongest in eliminations, taking the win in the final with a 12.65 (12.70) over the VW of Morgan Smith 12.56 (12.70) as both racers pushed each other to break outs.
In the Street Compact class Daniel Harding took the honours over Ryan Feekan, 12.44 (11.90) to a 12.26 (11.50).
As usual with Jamboree there is plenty or extra curricular activities happening around the venue.
Images by www.blacktrack.com.au & www.dragphotos.com.au
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