Headed out to the Street Machine Nationals at Rosehill Racecourse this afternoon with number one child.

Brief summary of event:
- Overpriced
- Underwhelming

Relatively few cars, although there were some sweet ones there. There will be a much bigger turn out at Fairfield next weekend for the VW Nationals. Made me realise how good the job done by ClubVeeDub is.

Speaking of VWs, Peter Huckstepp was there representing the breed with the Billet Bug, looking as good as always.

Apart from that the overwhelming majority of cars were either GM or Ford, with a few rice burners, and one Ferrari F430.

The trend in V8s at the moment seems to be superchargers, with relatively few turbos lurking about.

They had a dyno operating, and there was a very nice early Kingswood that put out 566hp, but more impressive was the fact that it sounded like you could actually drive it on the street, whereas half the cars that only put out less than 350hp didn't look like they would behave themselves on the road.

They also had an autocross course, which was very tight, and watching all these mugs in their lumbering V8s try and negotiate it was quite hilarious for a while. All of the boys would stamp on the throttle and then have to jump on the brakes straight away. The couple of ladies having a go had the good sense to maintain constant throttle, and their times showed it. There was one guy in what looked like a drag racing early Corolla who used the throttle to turn corners, but could only give it the beans for 0.0001 seconds each time. Made a lot of noise, but did it in the slowest time. I told my son that the 1600tp in mine would allow me to go around quicker than almost all of the cars (although it would probably have struggled against the Elfin (and aren't they an ugly, ugly car)).

About the only thing that I saw that gave me a sense of longing was the cavernous space they have in their engine bays. It's dead easy to fit a honking great Supercharger or turbo or air con or intercooler or lounge suite or whatever you want when you have that much space.

I also prefer my little IRS Beetle rather than a solid rear axle with leaf springs whose design dates back to the chariots.

Hope you enjoy the photos.

Ciao

Craig

Billet Bug



Sweet Camaro







Chevy Bel Air



Torana



Mazda 626



Suzuki Mighty Boy (with Chevy propulsion)

Hope Peter does well, i was over his house last weekend and people do not realise what effort goes into preparing the car for a show. Basically all the Billett is stripped off and everything painstakingly polished and reattached.

Am also looking forward to next weekends Nationals, I will be going down to Wakefield Park on Saturday to take some photos then off to Fairfield on Sunday

thats a cool Camero

haha that Mighty Boy is crazy
but i love the Camaro