O AMOUNT of bad weather over the recent Easter long weekend was going to stop the 2002 Easternats from becoming the show of the century at Melbourne’s Sandown International Raceway.
Easternats has snowballed to a point where more than 700 entrants from all over Oz flocked to the famous raceway for three days of tyre-shredding, high-speed action. And, with close to $40,000 in cold, hard cash being given away, everyone was playing for keeps.
   Unlike previous years, a half-day on Friday had been added to the show to get through the huge numbers of burnout qualifiers and event promoter Jon Davison figured entrants would appreciate the additional cruising as well. With the sun poking its head through the rain clouds for a few hours Friday afternoon, the track was opened for cruising and controlled mayhem.
   The massive front and back straights were permanently filled with the high-octane induction howl of bent eights and superchargers screaming for redline throughout the weekend through rivers of tyre smoke. Unlike other shows, Easternats’ entrants are actively encouraged to write their names all over the track with their back tyres and reports of entrants destroying 20 to 30 tyres over the three days was not uncommon.
   Victorians take their burnouts very seriously and Friday’s qualifying session was proof that the $10,000 up for grabs in the burnout comp was going to be fought for long and hard. In the burnout stakes all the big boys were there from near and far. A whole swag of cars had come down from Sydney for the skids including Tony DeOliveria with his Chev-powered Corolla, Mark and Rosemarie Dall’Acqua with the duelling Escorts, Brett Woods with his blown white HG Holden, Mark Yardie with his blown, injected, big-block YUMMIE ute and a mountain of other tough rides. Gary Myers had decided to compete in the burnouts and had the Muzzy singing all weekend.
   By Saturday the rain had stopped, the crowd had already surpassed  previous years’ numbers and Sandown was alive with the sound of sizzling rubber and people having fun. No matter where you looked there were babes, tough cars and crowds of young people soaking up the atmosphere.
   And the cars, oh so many beautiful cars from ’57 Chevs, V8-powered rotaries, supercharged Holdens, Chevs, Fords and Chryslers, T-buckets, hot rods and muscle cars lapping up the action, hour after hour. There were even a couple of V8 Supercars to take spectators for a thrash around the track. Wandering around the pits there were free giveaways and all manner of entertainment for kids and adults alike.
   Behind the scenes and tucked away under the grandstand the number crunchers battled it out in the Horsepower Heroes dyno cell where Rob Vickery had once again strapped his twin turbo machine to the rollers and reports of 760.80 ponies at the tyres had been in the wind.
His closest competitor was some 360 horsepower behind with 394.60 from the rear wheels of Zoran Letunica’s 968 Porsche turbo, while Andrew Patchell held down third spot with 369.40 at the bags out of his VX SS Commodore.
Some 35,000 spectators graced the track over three days and it’s reported to be the biggest crowd since the Sandown 500 back in 1997 when Peter Brock drove his last race. By Sunday morning the crowd figures were up 20 per cent on last year and entrants up 10 per cent meaning that the show has grown by 120 per cent in the last two years.
   Sunday brought the first signs of some real sunshine and come 9am the track was chockas with entrants wanting to make the most of the last few hours of cruising before the finals started. The slalom and time trials started mid-morning and it was all down to the same three cars in both events.
Last year’s trophy-winner John Kennedy absolutely blitzed the field in his 1992 Mitsubishi GTO coupe in the go-to-whoa with a time of 23.31secs, just 0.6sec ahead of John Frampton’s 1986 RX7 and a second ahead of Norm Bradshaw in his immaculate 1968 Ford Mustang Coupe. Rumour has it that Bradshaw’s coupe laps just three seconds slower than a V8 touring car around the Sandown circuit.
   In the time trials the same three dominated with Bradshaw claiming bronze again, Kennedy half a second quicker with a 22.09 and gold, gold, gold for Frampton with a 21.84, just 0.2sec ahead of Kennedy.
   By midday it seemed every car was once again out on the track for the street drags, which are run under very simple rules: the cars must be registered, one form of boosting only, run what ya brung and hope you brung enough.
   The track is totally unprepared – in regards to traction compound – and as close as you get to street racing. Those who had the foresight to fit soft tyres excelled and most drivers who had their brain in gear before they put the car in gear did very well.
   At the end of hundreds of challenges there remained two lone warriors; Graeme McPherson in his 1974, Mazda 808 sedan complete with 20B triple-rotor and about 440hp at the tyres and Sead Ali in his head-turning Chev- powered Mazda RX7 that is rumoured to run into the nines over the quarter mile.
   They had already run the final once and Ali had come up winner but there was speculation that he had crossed the centreline so the final was to be re-run.
   Both cars had been running on-song all weekend and when the lights changed there seemed to be nothing in it. Ali’s RX7 was smoking the tyres trying to hook-up, McPherson was having similar problems but towards mid-track the 808 started to forge ahead with its big horsepower and lightweight shell, an obvious advantage, to give McPherson the win.
   It was then time for the burnout final, the premier event of the weekend and one that over 15,000 had come to watch. In the left corner was the local council with their noise meters and Davison had been warning entrants about the 95db noise limit placed on entrants. Those who went over the limit in qualifying had been warned and with noise one of the issues threatening the future of the show, officials weren’t taking any chances.
   Like all burnout finals the carnage was severe but in an effort to reduce the amount of damage to cars Davison reduced the final to just two minutes instead of the usual three. And, like so many burnout finals the results were not quite black and white and ruffled a few feathers.
   There were some awesome displays on the skid pan from Woods, the Dall’Acquas, DeOliveria, Myers, Dennis Maloney in his 1973 Dodge Challenger and a handful of Victorians, but nobody could have predicted the end result.
   Mark Dall’Acqua and Gary Myers finished equal third on 37 points, DeOliveria and Debbie Gray finished in equal second with 37.5 points and, to the surprise of many, judges Tony Morrissey and Pinkie deemed the winner to be Peter Gray with 38 points.
   In a gesture of unbridled generosity Davison offered to pay equal prizemoney for the shared equal second and third placegetters thus concluding one of the best weekends this scribe can ever remember having with a car. If you couldn’t make it this year then start making plans for next year ’cause I guarantee once you’ve been once, you will be hooked for life.