2nd Extreme Machine Show – Boronia Primary School

The Extreme Machine Show has been and gone once again. In it’s 2nd year, it was great to see another huge turnout of club cars waving the Eastside banner. It’s good to support these local events, so we were stoked with the enthusiasm and support shown. It was an early start, as display cars had to be on-site by 8am, before the crowd began to shuffle through around 10am. So we met up in the morning at Club Kilsyth with the EH Holden Car Club of Vic who bought along some extremely nice examples. Some of our members were running late, so just before 8am we got on the road anyway in a big convoy for the huge 5 minute drive to Boronia Primary School! Along the way a couple of our cars caught up with the cruise and we all managed to arrive together.

We immediately got to work setting up our display. With around 17 cars it was decided to put them in 2 rows, with Gordz’ Ute being a centre-piece up on ramps. The Torana BBQ trailer was also there getting lots of attention, and came in very handy as I saw just about everyone having a turn at sitting in it throughout the day. I would like to say an extra big thank-you to Gary from the club with “SOTUFF” (the black big block powered HJ Monaro), as he went to a lot of effort getting the car there super early, before leaving to go and work all day! The car looked fantastic mate (and got plenty of attention!). Thanks for going out of your way to get it in the display.

The show itself this year was down on actual entrants since last time, however there was a bit more variety. Heaps of demo trail-bike riding (and of course the guy doing the burnout and popping his tyre after we thought it was never going to go! I reckon he fried that engine nicely too), 4WD’s, kids rides, food stalls, rock bands etc. It was a pity there weren’t really any hotrods (due to the Ballarat Swap Meet), boats, or hovercrafts. But still a couple of drags cars, plus plenty of other tough and classic cars to have a good look over. It was good to see so many car clubs in attendance this year too.

Sometime during the day I managed to get a ride up in the cherry-picker for a birds-eye view of the entire show. Awesome, what a top view! I had a good chat with the operator and snapped off a few shots with the digi cam before coming back down to ground again. Then I checked out the small handful of trade displays – particularly the air brushing crew, and also the guys with all the funky lights who had some pretty neat gear.

Various prizes were raffled off at the end of the day before we all packed up and headed off. Well done to Les for organizing the day so well once again – I know he went to a lot of effort. A very successful day though, with huge crowd numbers – there was a constant stream of people coming through all day long. The best part of the day in my eyes - and this is what several different people told me - was that it was the perfect chance to really have a close-up look at other members cars, and get to have a good old chat to everyone.

The word is that the Extreme Machine Show will now only be run every second year, so hopefully I’ll catch you all there next time!

- Brett Schubert (LXCHEV)