Monday, 25 July 2016
Sunday the 24th of July saw the first ever Haltech Grudge Kings event with over 100 racers converging on Sydney Dragway to battle it out in their respective classes, 'Grudge Kings' #Thelist, 'Pure Grudge' #Callout and 'Sydney Street Outlaws' #Purestreet. The racing kicked off at 9am and fans were already spilling into the grandstands ready for the days action which did not disappoint.
With the Mazda 6 SP unable to attend due to the fact it is on its way to the USA, the PAC stable was well represented with a number of cars competing across the 3 classes. We had 12 of our customers - Grant Henderson in his RX3 Coupe racing in #Thelist, Emmanual Mann aka 'GADGET' & Chris Fakinos in their RX3 Sedan’s racing in #Puregrudge and Andrew Zada in his 20b powered RX3 Sedan 'PAC275', Anthony Capobianco in his RX3 Sedan '10ARX3', Ibby Awad in his RX3 Sedan 'LOW09Z', Rami Gambino in his RX3 Sedan 'CALHLP', Sam Sadek in his RX3 Sedan ‘SADEK2’, Shane Eberhart in his RX7 "TRY12A', Jay Sadek in his RX4 Sedan 'SAD3K', Ray in his RX3 Sedan ‘BOWDWN’, Ivan Hajjar in his RX7 ‘HECTYK’ & Rodney Rehayem in George’s RX3 Sedan 'TO90OD' racing in ‘Purestreet. Unfortunately time wasn’t on the side of Steve Barnett, Sam Sadek, Elia Hajjar and Kevin Awad with their cars not being quite ready for the event.
The first of our customers to run a new pb was Shane Eberhart running a 9.490 @142 in his ‘TRY12A’ RX7. There was a lot of movement in our
#PACSTREETKINGS leader board on the day with Shane still holding down the gatekeeper position. The
Sydney Street Outlaws Leaderboard still needs to be compiled after the weekends racing but Shane should see his beast high in the ranks.
Next to run a number was Ibby Awad with a very impressive 9.159 @148 in his ‘LOW09Z’ RX3 Sedan. This moves Ibby into 5
th place on our
#PACSTREETKINGS leader board. Ibby then backed up his run with another 9.1 late in the day.
Rami Gambino was next to bust out a new pb with his ‘CALHLP’ RX3 passing the finish line with a 9.389 @142 then backing it up with another high 9.3 straight after. Rami now moves straight into 9th place on our
#PACSTREETKINGS leader board.
To help secure his place on our leader board Ray ran a new pb of 9.339 late in the day in his beautifully presented ‘BOWDWN’ RX3, retaining 8th position.
Emmanuel Mann aka ‘GADGET’ turned it up in his 13b powered RX3 Sedan running a new pb of 8.25 @164. Next round GADGET then lined up against Daniel Ruggier aka ‘Rotorgeek’ for a grudge match after Daniel called him out on the Grudge Kings Facebook page. Daniel got the hole shot on Emmanuel from the line pulling around 5 to 6 car lengths but GADGET didn’t give up running his car right to the end of the track just beating out Rotorgeek with what looked to be a photo finish. Go Go Gadget RX3!!
Representing us in the Grudge Kings class was Grant Henderson in his 13b powered RX3 Coupe looking to make it on to the top 20 list.
Unlike the other Grudge Kings classes #Thelist is 1/8th mile with no time boards, so its first to the finish line wins. Grant took out his first 2 rounds against Michael Baghdadi and John Beckingham and was matched up against Frank Cannistra aka Mr Heli in the 3rd round. It was a close race but Frank just beat him out to the finish line. The list was then established using et’s of the last round with Grant placing 5th on the top 20 list of some very tough cars.
Next round of call outs, Grant wanted to line up Mr Heli again for some redemption on the timed quarter mile. Frank got the holeshot but unfortunately red lit giving the automatic win to Grant, Grant however was still on a mission running his little RX3 out the back door to a new pb of 7.588 @181 earning him the title of Australia’s fastest rotary powered 28x9 car and moving into 4th place overall on the 28x9 national leader board.
Andrew Zada in his 20B powered RX3 Sedan ‘PAC275’ ran a number of 8 second passes before dropping a best of the day of 8.350 @163 which was just shy of his current pb of 8.320 @164 proving this car isn’t just a one hit wonder. Of course in true Zada style he drove his beast home from the track stopping at Macca’s on the way.
Jay was back behind the wheel of his RX4 Sedan ‘SAD3K’ for this event after testing his new red RX3 ‘SADEK2’ through the week. With his dads drag car ‘BOSS 20B’ not quite ready for the event, Sam had a steer of 'SADEK2' instead.
With his old man in a street car, Jay saw the opportunity to call him out again and the stage was set for another father vs son match up.
It was all Jay’s race with his RX4 launching hard, leaving his dad sleeping on the start line racing down the track to a 9.362 @143 this would be his best pass of the day. That is now 3 – 0 to Jay. When will 'The Godfather' stage a come back??
Returning to the race track for the first time in almost 6 years was our very own Rodney Rehayem driving the ‘TO90OD’ RX3. Rodney has not raced since a major accident at Sydney Dragway back in 2010, so as you can imagine he was quite nervous. But being a true racer, when the light dropped Rodney’s nerves left him and he got down the track to run a respectable 9.98 @136. Rodney is now preparing to race at the QLD Jamboree, where he will be back behind the wheel of his old 7 second RX3 Sedan.
Anthony Capobianco was hoping to better his current pb of 9.79 @137 in his '10ARX3' Sedan but fell short with a best of 9.91 @132. He turned it up a notch in the last run of the day but the RX3 launched hard with a huge wheelie unsettling the car so Anthony aborted the run.
We would like to thank all of the PACsters and fans who stopped by our merchandise trailer to say hello and pick up some Pac gear. Be sure to send in photo's of you or your family wearing our gear and we will make sure we add it to our
PACster Fan Album Check out our compilation video here
So that's a wrap up for the first ever running of Grudge Kings and what an event it was. Founder Po Tung and all of his crew did an amazing job of putting it all together on the day and the Sydney Dragway staff gave us an amazing track. We had an awesome weekend and now look forward to our next major event, the QLD Jamboree which will be held @ Willowbank Raceway on the 27th of August. See you there!!!
Published 26-07-16
