Revhead Rubber Fest - Heathcote Park 15-16/03/03

A typical (hot) Heathcote weekend, with temperatures in the high 20-degree mark and clear skies greeted the crowd for the Revhead Rubber Fest. There was a large turnout for the event with a lot of V8's present on the day along with the usual smaller turnout of fours, sixes and rotors.

However the quality of the fours, sixes and rotors was quite high, with a number of competitors making the trek down from New South Wales to compete at the event. The event was held over two days, with Saturday involving a test session along and first qualifying, with a second qualifying session and eliminations held on Sunday.

There were a few Sydney cars down for the weekend, including Tony Khoury's RX-7, a couple of South Coast Rotary cars, some V & E Rigoli cars as well as a few others.

Tony Khoury's RX-7 runs a 20B with twin turbos and had a few troubles early on in the event when it hit the wall again (it was down at Heathcote a few weeks previously and had the same problem) which explains all the tape across the front of the car. The RX-7 has run a flat 8-second pass before, however he had a few problems and ended up running several mid to high 8 second passes in the 160mph region, the car was sounding very strong in the top end of the track, so once things are sorted it will be one to watch.

The tubbed yellow 'NOS-100' R100 from South Coast Rotary, was very neat, running a 13B Turbo and ran a best time for the weekend of 9.42 @ 146mph, the other South Coast car, the 'GAZ-13B' RX-3, ran into the high ten second zone.

Robert's yellow 323, uses a 13B with a T04 and was launching with the front wheels in the air, however the car had problems with the clutch and ran a best time for the weekend of 10.0 @ 136mph.

Another well known Sydney car present was the Datsun 1200 ute 'MRHELI' (no pics available unfortunately), using a 13B Turbo, the ute reportedly ran several 9.60s at 140mph.

There were several cars down from the V & E Rigoli workshop, including Vince Rigoli's Datsun 1200 ute, Michael Sherringham's FJ20 Turbo Gemini and the 'DBRONX' Subaru Impreza WRX. However the team was only down for Saturday and didn't stay for Sunday's eliminations. mazdarotary.net didn't get to see all of the V & E Rigoli cars run however reported times for the three cars were an 8.8 in the mid 130mph region for the ute, the Gemini ran 9.7 at just under 130mph and the WRX did a 10.3 at around 120mph.

With the interstate cars out of the way, there were a number of tough Victorian cars present as well.

Regular competitors at Heathcote meets are the 'FREKNU' first-gen RX-7 and the 'EZYTEN' 1300 from Rotorworx. Simon in the RX-7 ended up running a best time for the meeting of 10.35 @ 140mph, on one pass the car was moving around quite a lot in the top end. Matt in the 1300 was entertaining the crowd with a series of huge launches, and in one case, scraping the bumper on the ground! The car lifted the wheels effortlessly in first and second gear, and ran a 10.4 in the mid 130mph area.

Anthony in his yellow 13B Turbo 1300 wagon was also launching nicely, lifting the left front wheel for ages and running consistent mid 11s with a best of 11.6 @ 115mph.

The 'DFECTV' Mazda 1000 ute from Promaz, was also launching hard all weekend.

The white RX-7 'RXTION' ran low 12s, while the red Series 5 RX-7 also ran in the low 12s with both cars recording speeds around 115mph.

The stock looking 808 turned up on Sunday and ran mid 11s at just over 120mph, the car was also moving around a bit off the line.

Chris Dalton in his Series 6 RX-7 also arrived late on Sunday and only completed a couple of testing passes.

There were a couple of significant non-rotors competing as well, two of Melbourne's fastest VL's were present at the event, with the Rajab brothers competing in their new drag spec VL Calais, the car is fully stripped inside, and reportedly ran in the low 10s on Saturday.

The JPC prepared VL of Vas Stojanovski was also up at Heathcote, and certainly impressed onlookers on Sunday when the car ran a 8.93 @ 152mph after several low 9-second passes, then went on to record an 8.83 @ 150mph run, with the car launching a lot straighter than at Adelaide and sounding strong all the way down the track.

The V-8 powered white Mitsubishi van was back out again, this time with pipes on the roof(!) and recorded a 10.9 second pass at just over 120mph.

Burnout champ, Gary Myers also had his impressive supercharged V-8 Mustang out and performed some smoky burnouts as you would expect, he ran in the mid 12s.

Overall the event was quite busy, with a lot of nice cars, but unfortunately most rotors were knocked out in the early rounds of eliminations, although Tony Khoury did make it through to the final, but was defeated.

Note: Unfortunately other commitments on Saturday and a few camera difficulties prevented more pictures being taken of cars present at the event, apologies for this.

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