Ten of the fastest sport compact cars on the planet combined with good conditions, a sticky Willowbank track and an awesome crowd to put on a show for the ages as Factory Xtreme set about the business of breaking records – world records!
The new look Jamboree Brisbane is the largest sport compact drag racing meet anywhere with almost 200 entries, dozens of traders, sideshows and thousands of excited spectators taking in the on and off-track action. And they weren’t disappointed with the big guns coming out firing in the very first round of qualifying.
Kiwi Rod Harvey, who dominated the timesheets at the recent Winternationals with a new Australian record of 6.19sec at 237mph, clicked off an easy 6.22 @ 231mph to open his account. Collin Willshire also featured in the opening session with the Jett Racing Eclipse running 6.71 @ 211mph.
The second round of qualifying saw some equally impressive performances with UK driver John Bradshaw putting a solid 6.71 @ 208mph on the board. Mazfix’s Archie Kajewski was back in the swing of things with his 6.93sec run but it was the Mazda 6 from the Pac Performance camp who announced their presence with a 6.39 @ 223mph – eclipsing their own rotary world record for speed. Milos Pavlovic also pulled a PB out of the bag with his 6.50 @ 210mph pass while Smokin’ Joe Signorelli ran a wild, centerline-crossing 6.36 @ 227mph
With the two qualifying runs out of the way it was time for racing and Joe Signorelli, having sorted out his lane-changing issues from the previous run took an early scalp, his 6.49 beating Mark Jacobsen’s 6.79 in the Godzilla Motorsport GT-R. The next pass was a Winternationals final round rematch with George Rehayem nailing Rod Harvey to the tree before driving away from him in a cloud of clutch dust. Both George and Rod lifted early with Rod sneaking through for a win and an incredible 6.16sec pass at ‘only’ 222mph beating the Pac car’s 6.49.
All eyes were on Harvey for the second round of racing and as the sun went down and the track tightened up it was near perfect conditions for the world record to fall. Lining up against the Mazfix car, Rod Harvey left first and brought the Celica home fast – the half-track numbers (4.052 @ 186.74) told the tale but before anyone had time to read them it was all over. The time boards showed 6.123 @ 238.26mph and both ends of the outright sport compact world record had fallen.
It only took until the very next pass for another world record to be smashed, this time the outright four-cylinder sport compact speed mark, with Collin Willshire beating the mark he set in testing earlier in the week by an astonishing 5mph as he ran an Australian four-cylinder ET record to boot with his 6.57 @ 223mph. The session wasn’t over yet with Top RPM steerer Milos Pavlovic laying down a huge PB of 6.36 @ 218mph with the day’s best short time of 0.988sec.
The third round of racing saw Willshire still running hard with a 6.63, Jacobsen a 6.62, George Rehayem 6.71 and Milos Pavlovic 6.39. Harvey had clearly backed his world record holding Celica down for this session, his 6.62sec pass securing him the third round win to put him into the final against Pavlovic, the only other driver to have recorded three wins.
And so it was the two white 2JZ Celicas who would face off in the final – Harvey who had been the man to beat since the first pass of the day and Pavlovic who was running one personal best after another and had dipped into the 6.30 zone twice in two passes. Despite another terrific 6.43 from the Top RPM Motorsport car, Harvey was unstoppable and his 6.28 was enough for the win.
Full event report coming soon.
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