Tough cars, awesome venue and need for speed made    
the 2008 Repco Easternats a cracker!    
 

After finishing fifth last year, Victorian Michael Taranto looked like a big contender in the street drags in his 10sec 1932 Ford roadster
 

Dave Rickard's Commodore makes 250rwkW thanks to a bigger intercooler, injector upgrade, more boost through the M90 Eaton blower, and a GEN III throttlebody
 

IT’S been five years since I last packed up WAR440 and trucked the old girl down the Hume for the Repco Easternats and as soon as we arrived, I knew it had been way too long! Perfect weather, an awesome track, clean and classy cars, great pits and spectator viewing areas, big prize money and bulk action were all ingredients for yet another ripper event at Sandown Raceway.
 With competitor numbers hitting the high 600s and the event reduced to just two days from the traditional three, event promoter Jon Davison was all smiles as record crowds packed the grounds.
 The Easternats phenomenon is based on one principal - people having lots of fun in tough cars - and Davo runs a tight ship. The grounds were immaculate, officials plentiful and the event schedule ran like a well-oiled machine.
 Although there were close to 700 cars entered everyone got a fair crack at running amok on the track. What are the rules? Well, they're pretty simple: no drink-driving and no helis during cruising sessions. Apart from that, wear your seatbelts and have fun.
 With such an open invitation to go ballistic, garages were bulging with tyres, drums of fuel, nitrous bottles, rattle guns and all the machinery to keep burnout cars running 12 hours a day.
 Saturday was ‘let off steam' day and the grandstands were packed from noon onwards. The burnout pad at the Easternats is about as big as they get and drivers love it. But with so many entries, the competition format had to change. Instead of the traditional one-minute qualifier on Saturday followed by a two-minute performance on Sunday, Davo allowed each competitor just one minute to make themself famous - you could run an either day.
 Sunday was all action. The show 'n' shine cars were moved to under the grandstand and the collection of cars on display was magnificent. Peter Oliver’s gorgeous red 1932 Ford roadster cleaned up a swag of trophies, though for anyone but the judges it would have been impossible to split the difference between the '32 and Peter Vannutini's beautiful 1934 Ford coupe; both cars were truly in a league of their own.

Other show 'n' shine standouts included Scott Briant's V8 Corolla wagon (Speed Camera, April '08) that regularly receives a serious thrashing on the track at drifting, burnouts and even at the drags where it's run low 10s, And let's not forget Shaun Horton's blown and injected 1960 FB wagon (SM, March '08) that pulls as hard on the track as in the elite hall.
 With $2500 up for grabs in the drags, every man and his car was out on the track in the ultimate heads-up, street race conditions. The only drawback was that the right-hand lane had been used for burnouts for two days so any high-powered cars were going to struggle in it.
 The standard was high; if you had regular street tyres, you could forget it. If you couldn't control your right foot, forget it. If you didn't have a car that ran at least 10s, forget it.
 I had the Val on ET Streets and still managed 160mph, with a variety of different mates riding shotgun. It seemed to take forever to get through 400 cars down to the final four but I won eight rounds in the process.
 In the semi-final I struck the rubber-coated right-hand lane and the Val went up in smoke against Chris Kurmolla's hard-charging, nitrous-fed XD. This left the ultimate Ford versus Holden battle in the final, when Chris met Steve Ventura in his nitrous-powered LJ Torana, Ventura walked away with the win and the cash after Kurmolla jumped the start.
 With the drags over, it was down to the nitty-gritty with the best 100-odd cars competing in the burnout finals. Big hitter after big hitter lay down their challenges but by the end of the mayhem nobody could deny local Richard Harrison the win. Awesome car control, revs, attitude, massive smoke and breathtaking wheel-work were all part of not just the best burnout of the weekend but what many believe to be one of the best burnouts of all time. All judges gave him full points in all categories, which does kinda makes it impossible to beat.