2002 Christmas Challenge - Heathcote Park 28/12/02

Held during the busy Christmas period, there were a lot of V8's present on the day however there was a small turnout of fours, sixes and rotors at this event. It was a typical Heathcote day with temperatures in the mid 30's.

However there were some quality Mazda's out in force, including 'EZYTEN' and 'JET100' from Rotorworx, Craig Dyson's Series 4 RX-7 and Daniel's 12A Turbo RX-7 from Dyson Rotary, 'DRAGRX' from Dalton Automotive, and a nice RX-3 13B Turbo which turned up later in the day. More importantly was the debut of Tony Khoury's new car, the ex-Grant Williams Series 4 RX-7. The car now runs a 20B Turbo motor and features a unique colour scheme (it is actually a special type of sticker which covers the whole car).

Unfortunately there were a couple of breakages with the cars early on in the day, 'EZYTEN' had a new front-mounted intercooler replacing the old top-mounted unit but suffered from a nut coming loose on the compressor, and subsequently packed up early for the day. 'DRAGRX' ran a couple of times including a 9.93 @ 142.5mph before leaving early in the afternoon. The RX-3 sedan had mechanical troubles and could only run a mid 13-second pass.

Daniel's white Series 3 RX-7 runs a 12A Turbo motor with a Series 5 RX-7 Turbocharger on it and with the help of a line locker performed some great burnouts before breaking a uni-joint on the tail-shaft. It did however run a best time of 12.7 seconds before the breakage.

Craig Dyson had his RX-7 out for some testing before the upcoming 4, 6 and Rotor Shootout in Adelaide in February, and ran several mid-8 second passes before running a best time for the day of 8.44 @ 164.6mph later in the night, still short of its 8.10 second best. He made the semi-finals of the top 8 shootout but couldn't advance any further after having to back off on the semi-final run.

Tony Khoury's Series 4 RX-7 certainly looked impressive (the car used to belong to Grant Williams, who is now building a Ford Probe drag car), and its good to see another Pro-Street rotary out in competition. Running a 20B, with a huge turbo, the car launched with both front wheels well into the air, but could only manage a best time of 9.34 @ 149.5mph. The car is regarded as one of the best chassis' in Australia, so with some more tuning, the car should be one to watch in the future.

Overall it was a still a good event, with a lot of nice cars, but it just lacked the 4, 6 and rotary cars, however Heathcote Raceway is planning a number of events for these cars in 2003. You can see the calendar here...

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