Import Jamboree at Sydney Dragway

Words and photos by Jon Van Daal

Sydney Dragway’s biggest import race for the year, the Sydney Jamboree had everything going for it, but, although having the largest competitor entry ever, the best cars available in the country and for once a rain-free day, it seems that the race fell flat. Despite the best efforts that promoter Ray Box could throw at it, an extremely tricky track, ongoing oil downs, and some bad crashes robbed the event of all it could be.

The track surface could be summed up in one word – diabolical. This saw a lot of entries simply overpower it with wheel spin and/or smoking tyres or cars literally bogged down on the green and had to get off it. A motorcross event on the weekend probably didn’t help and the track took its toll on the cars too with numerous oil downs. Fortunately however there were quite a number of other off-track activities including bikini competitions, a Show & Shine, live entertainment, trade stands and a drifting display.

I went down to the braking area in the late afternoon to take some parachute shots and out of the twelve entries in Outlaw Extreme and Factory Extreme only half actually put in a representative time. It seemed a lot of cars got on to the two step and then just died off the line; a lot of cars simply idled down to the finish-line gate and turned off early.

Joe Signorelli

Of note, however, were the incredible performances by the Gas Motorsports stable of cars that saw five team members make the final. Owner, Joe Signorelli who faced off for the Factory Extreme final but fell to winner, Mark Jacobsen in a Nissan G35 when his 2004 2JZ powered Toyota Scion had gearbox problems down track. In the Outlaw Extreme final Zoran Gagic in his 2004 Mustang suffered horrendous tyre shake off the line and had to watch Frank Mamone’s Nova click the win light.

The third runner up of the night was the 2JZ-powered Celica of customer Loues Cosentino who fell in a squeaker of a race - 7.427 to 7.437. On the plus side, Pro Tung cranked out 1740 horsepower on the dyno in the lead up to the event and took out the Pro 289 title on the night while lastly Scott Cousins also took home the gold in the final of the Modified Compact bracket with his little Datsun 1200 coupe.