The Jamboree has witnessed yet another historic sport compact benchmark smashed – the first 13B rotary six second pass in Australia.
It wasn’t so long ago that if someone predicted the ETs sport compact machines are running these days you would be committed to a mental ward – but now these machines are screwing out as much horsepower as V8s and equivalent times.
One of the hottest chases right now in the scene was who would be the first six second 13B rotary in Australia, and there were a few contenders, and have been plenty of oh-so close runs over the past few years.
The leading contenders come from the house of PAC Performance. Andrew “The Dentist” Maratos who had been odds on for sometime to achieve the feat, and newcomer Steven Barnett in his very tidy RX3 Coupe, with both running into the 7.0s.
At the Jamboree on the 27th August – just over nine years since Archie Kajewski achieved the same feat in a 20B rotary – it would be Steven Barnett lighting up the time boards with a 6.998 at 198mph and making history.
Barnett wasn’t done there, he backed it up with a 6.932 at 199.6mph, snatching the title as the fastest RX3 in the world, before hitting a double tonne 200mph pass in the final of Pro Compact.
The journey to becoming the six second man had not been a easy one for Barnett. Since debuting the car a couple of years ago, it has been a steep learning curve in driving the car and controlling the power – at times the results were just downright ugly.
Nevertheless Barnett was not phased and persisted on to be finally rewarded for the effort.
Check out PAC Performance’s superb tribute video.
