Much like America has the world Street Nationals at Orlando in Florida, Australia has had the Supernats in Sydney. More than a drag race it offers a number of different disciplines including a burnout competition, a Go-Whoa contest and a range of different drag racing brackets to name a few. Along with a show and shine, a sound off and the introduction of a wheel-standing championships, the 2008 Supernats saw an all encompassing high horsepower event as Jon Van Daal found out.
The 2008 Supernats was held at Western Sydney International Dragway for the second time, but prior to that it was mainly run at motor racing venues like Sydney’s Eastern Creek and Oran Park raceways. The 2007 event was originally rained out and then the re-run also fell victim to the wet stuff, so hopes were high for a rain free event this time around. The day had dawned with thick black clouds overhead and despite the odd spit of rain now and then it didn’t rain heavily until some 20 minutes after the event was finished.
The day didn’t start on a bright note though when the track’s timers went on the fritz. Almost three hours were spent trying to find the gremlin, and this finally saw racing begin in the late morning. Despite the timers working at the previous Wednesday night street meet and a full check through the day before, it turned out to be a software compatibility problem that also saw the scoreboards not working at all throughout the event.
Even with a rough start, the event shaped up to be a good package as the go-whoa was run on the track with the show and shine going on in the pits. Despite not having a marked finish-line some the go-whoa entrants cut some excellent times and in the end Victorian racer Craig Gerdes in a blown 572 Chevy powered HK Holden was the big winner on the day with a stout 4.537 time.
Qualifying for the drag racing was to start at 9.30 am, but it was around noon that the first cars hit the track and they went through until the late afternoon. The burnout competition started a bit late as well, but certainly made up for it with a large number of entrants thrashing the living hell out of their tyres. With $2000 on offer for the top prize, many an entrant ran his car into the ground – some with radiators boiling and/or tyre carcasses exploding. This saw destroyed side panels and rear bars while steel belts clawed at once pristine paint jobs across doors and rear fenders. In the end Joe Pagano in his Commodore went that step above.
Over fifty trophies were on offer to a large range of show and shiners consisting of hot rods, muscle cars, street machines, import cars and show bikes. With awards for everything from Top Standard Paint through to the Supernats Show and Shine champion all types of cars and bikes were on display. The $1500 on offer for the top spot was taken by the ‘33 Ford Tudor of Steven Rich.
The drag racing portion of the show was topped by an Outlaws bracket that saw a number of cars fall by the wayside. The rest of the program consisted of brackets for Pro Outlaw Eliminator (0 - 8.50 DYO) with $1500 for the champion, while the same prize money was on offer for winners in the Pro Street Blown and Pro Street Unblown brackets. Good money was also being paid for the Modified Street Blown and Unblown categories while it trickled down when you got to the True Street and Quick Street brackets. We have posted copies of the elimination brackets herewith.
Lastly Australia’s first wheel-stand competition was on offer and the officials were so worried that one of the entrants might topple over that they removed the tree and ran the event as the last thing on the roster. Being a Sunday night there were but a couple of hundred fans left and after initially receiving 28 entries only a handful were left after breakage and other attrition. Aaron Betts in his blown 400 Ford Cortina was an easy winner.