|
Well Easter has come and gone for another year, and like usual left the bank account nice and empty!!! (Brett’s not mine, lol). We headed out to Easternats this year for a bit of fun. Friday saw Brett and Jason get up early and go join the huge queues at Sandown to get the cars through scrutineering. Saturday we all cruised out together in a convoy, Jason with “HYPED” sporting a new black air brushed bonnet, it had people looking and taking pics all weekend. Brett drove in his “SHUBES” hatchback as a support vehicle while I got the keys to the good car “LXCHEV”. Other Eastsider’s entered over the weekend were Bryan in his VN commodore, Adam with his XE Ute, Marco with his fully sick stereo cranking car, making some noise in the sound off, and a late entry of none-other than Mackie with his drift machine. We had got up nice and early so we could make it out for the first cruising session. But I guess that thought was on everyone’s mind, cos when we arrived, the queues were already banked right back. But to make matters worse the weather wasn’t helping, rain all morning and the previous night meant the track was wet, and they weren’t letting anyone out till it dried up partially or stopped raining in general. This meant cruzing time was put back an hour and a half, and for the rest of the day things were running behind. I let Brett drive the first cruising session, so I could keep an eye out for what looney drivers were out and about. I later stole the keys and took Brett for a cruze, I was nice and gentle on the first lap, then after gaining some confidence I was yelling out to Brett, “ I want to kick it out sideways” but he told me not to do it on one certain corner, (I was told later on, this was probably because there were lots of guard rails and walls, lol) so I tried and tried to kick it out a bit, each lap saw me try a little harder. It was fine and dandy kicking it out, it was the fact everytime I did this, I would end up on Brett’s lap cos I’d get so flung around. The one corner I was warned not to do anything, I accidentally booted it when I came around the corner, WHOOPSIE, car went sideways alright, I don’t know if I was laughing or shaking the most. Jason was lucky enough to be following me and said this was my best sideways action for the weekend, pity I wasn’t trying that time. Hehe. Brett got the keys back for all other events, however I think I should have kept them at the rate his luck was going. Because of delayed times on the Sat, we didn’t even make it out for the whole of Stampede, they cut the line short. So that was a wasted effort. Sunday saw more cruzing time in the morning and in the early arvo, Time Trials and Go To Whoa commenced. Once again Brett’s luck ran out, we made it out on the track, amongst all the other 800 odd cars. It was a lengthy time starting the car up moving a few spaces at a time in the queue. We made it right down to about 10 cars back from the Time Trial start line, and he started the car one last time and I yelled out “Something fell off the car” hearing a ting ting, he went around to see if it was any part of his, and to his shock found a very familiar looking alternator bracket bolt. Popped the hood and yep sure enough it was Brett’s, sheared in half and of course it had to be a vital bolt. This now meant we sat on the side of the track for close to 2 hours or more, because we couldn’t be towed back till it was all finished. Brett nearly lost his voice from telling every passer by why his Rana was sitting on the sidelines and not competing. One good thing about being sidelined was we didn’t have much fuel so I’m not sure we would have made it round the track too many more times. The Time Trials and Go To Whoa were finally over when we saw the tow truck heading our way. We kinda looked at each other and thought, hmm this Torrie is soo not going up on that tow truck, so after a few words to some marshals we were flat towed back to the pits. And the comical thing was, Brett had it all fixed within 15 mins of being back. What a way to waste a day!!! Now Sunday night we decided to leave the car in the lock up section at Sandown cos the police were having there little blitz outside. Monday was it, the last day, and this just had to be a better day for our luck had to change at some point. We were all prepared this time, we brought jerry cans in of fuel, so we wouldn’t run out at any stage. (I think Brett worked it out that he spent close to $200 for the 3 days). After cruzing finished we got the car ready nice and early for the drags. We headed out and as we went around the track, we couldn’t help but wonder what car we would be up against. There were heaps of cars rocking up soley for this event, big tuff drag cars, cars with NOS, slicks, everything possible to knock the street cars out. The whole weekend we were keeping in touch with Jason (HYPED) via two-ways, so as the queues moved up, we heard a very excited Jason yelling thru the two ways, that he had just beaten a 5 litre Commodore. Pretty awesome result for Ja and his 6 cylinder beasty!! Well we were up next, we went thru the cars next to us, VL turbo’s, drag Torana’s, big bad ass HQ’s and then we just smiled as we finally saw we would be up against a little Corolla. One of the guys in the Corolla had a Mohawk and was holding off ruining that with his helmet, and the driver was casually having a cigarette right up to nearly green light time. So yes we absolutely blitzed him. So Brett was rapt, he made it thru to 2nd round. 2nd round came around and Jason was wiped out by some fast car, and as I watched the slower cars driving by on the infield, all that was getting left behind were those dam cars on NOS, or fully drag racing cars. So we went up against a little LC/LJ called BERKO!! I can’t believe we had him off the line, then he was next to us, and then whoosh, he just flew on by. To my dismay, we later passed him on the back straight only to see he had broken down, he never even made it back to round 3 so we could have made it thru another round if he had of broken down a tad earlier. DOH!!! Well now all that was left was the burnout comp to watch. Some pretty average cars there this year, average skids. But still a few stand outs, and a few of our own boys giving it a crack. Bryan was out there in his Commodore giving it a good go over the weekend making a heap of smoke, and the other man out there this year was Adam from Wonthaggi in his sick blue XE Ford Ute. He made it into the burnout finals and put on an awesome smoke show!! Good on ya mate!! Overall the weekend was awesome, entrant numbers were exceedingly high, 800 mark. So apart from the chaos everything else ran pretty good. Hopefully they can cut the numbers a little by the next time we head out there. Two years to wait for me and Brett, cos next year it’s all about EH’s up at Penrith for the All-State weekend!! You can check out all the official Easternats photos at: www.easternatsphotos.com - EHGIRL (Deb) |