2003 Easternats at Sandown Raceway

Easternats at Sandown Raceway - 19/20-04-2003

Roaring V8's, buzzing rotaries, whistling turbos and gorgeous young women... Yes it must be Easternats time again.

Held at Sandown Raceway near Dandenong, the Easternats has enjoyed massive popularity over the last couple of years with a growing number of entrants and a wide variety of cars ranging from the incredibly popular old Holdens such as the Toranas and Monaros, along with their Ford counterparts, the GT Falcons and Cortinas, to the small but potent rotary models and through to the latest Japanese imports such as Skyline GT-R's.

With Melbourne's clouds clearing over the Easter weekend, the event bloomed. Driving events included a Go to Whoa competition, track cruising, drag racing, and most peoples favourite, the burnout competition.

While V8's dominated the event, mazdarotary.net was more interested in the rotaries and other performance cars present. There were several more rotaries attending this year, and even though the numbers were small, the quality was very high.

Regular competitors at the event were the MADRX-2 and BUZBYU RX-2 sedans. Owned by Simon, MADRX-2, sports a T60 turbo hanging off a 13B motor, and looked impressive as it flew down the main straight in the drag racing event. Keith's BUZBYU sedan, uses a 12A Bridgeport motor and buzzed its way around the circuit. There were also a couple of other RX-2's, with the matt black coupe looking very tough, while in the Show 'n' Shine area, there was a completely original Capella sedan on display, it still had the plastic on the doortrims, original brochures and books and a can of factory touch up paint! It was good to see this kind of originality on display.

The RX-3 sedan, CG-911 had a great looking interior and looked very neat rolling on the chrome Simmons wheels. While the MPC 808 Coupe, used a 13B Turbo motor to blitz most of the opposition in the drag racing on Sunday, but was unfortunately knocked out in final eliminations.

The white Rotorworx RX-3 BUZURK was also present, and proved entertaining to watch as it fried the rear tyres all the way down the length of the straight during the drag racing competition, struggling to put its near-400kw worth of power to the ground.

While there were quite a number of very tough looking RX-4 coupes present, the majority of them housed V8 engines! However we'll respect their decision to use an inferior powerplant ;)

There was one tough 13B Turbo powered example however, complete with a massive intercooler hanging out front under the grille. A neat RX-4 sedan was also in the pits on Sunday.

A number of first-gen RX-7s were also present, the black Series 3 with white wheels housed a 13BT conversion, while Daniel's white Series 3 retained the 12A motor, however the engine is equipped with a TA45 turbocharger, and as you would imagine, Daniel spent most of the weekend spinning the rear tyres :)

There were also a couple of sleek Series 6 RX-7's present as well, one was RRRRX7, looking great with the gold wheels really matching the black paint.

There were a growing number of Jap imports this year, the variety included a couple of tough GT-R's, such as the white V-Spec R34 and the red R32 model ONBAIL. Obviously using a larger turbo in place of the factory twin setup, the car was great to watch as it came on boost driving up the main straight, seeming to have no problems lighting up the tyres.

While in the pits on Sunday sat a white MY03 WRX sedan sitting on 20-inch wheels, it certainly looked different, and the number plate said it all really... INDEBT.

Apart from that, there was also an assortment of the ever-popular VL Turbo Commodores, including one example which used a larger turbo and RB26-head combination, along with a couple of later model Falcon turbos.

While the majority of the entertainment was on track, on Saturday afternoon a wet t-shirt competition took place (see pics on page two), and although the number of entrants was very low, it certainly seemed to entertain the large male crowd that gathered around to watch. While trackside, the stunning Easternats girls encouraged the crowd during the burnout competition.

Overall it was an extremely popular event, that combined a great variety of cars with a number of different driving events and was very entertaining to watch. Bring on Easternats 2004...

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