Wednesday, 29 August 2018
What a weekend of racing at the Honeywell Garrett Brisbane Jamboree! Even though rain cancelled the proceedings on the second day our team had a great few days testing and qualifying for what is Australia’s premier Sports Compact event.
From the Pac stables we had 9 cars across 6 classes competing, Brett Blandin De Chalain in his ‘03BDC’ RX3 racing in Street Compact. Damien McKern in the ‘GRUMPY2’ RX2 racing in Street 289, Jimmy Cannavo in his ‘TRYNC’ R33 Skyline. In Pro Turbo Jay Sadek was entered in his Dad’s 20B RX3 coupe while in Pro compact Elia Hajjar debuted his new RX8 along with Steven Barnett in his freshly rebuilt Mazda 6 SB and Mario Rehayem in his little red Starlet. In Factory Xtreme we had Jason Both in his #BilletbyPAC 20B powered RX7 and George driving our Mazda 6 SP.
Returning to his first Brisbane Jamboree as a competitor for quite some time was Damien McKern in his 20B powered RX2. During qualifying Damien was easing back in to racing and managed a best of 8.58 @160. No doubt Damien will be out again soon feeding his beast more boost.
Attending his first ever Brisbane Jamboree event was Brett in his RX3 Coupe ‘03BDC’. With no cage installed in his car Brett ran in Street Compact which is a dial in bracket for cars slower than 10.00.
In qualifying Brett ran a best of 10.4 @114 which would be his dial in for his first round. The first heat of Street Compact was run on the Saturday with Brett running a faster et of 10.32 @131 and new pb for the car.
A piston powered car infiltrated the Pac Camp in the form of Jimmy Cannavo’s RB powered R33 Skyline. With a new upgraded Garrett GTX55 turbo and some engine mods Jimmy is looking to run into the 7’s on radials. On a soft launch in qualifying Jimmy managed a best of 8.46 @175 surpassing his previous pb of 8.61 @163.
After winning the billet J last year in Modified Compact with his RX3 street car Jay Sadek was back but this time in his Dad’s 20B powered RX3 Coupe. Jay debuted in the car in the month leading up to the event running a blistering 6.93 @193 on his first full pass.
Testing well the day before the event where he would be competing in the hotly contested Pro Turbo class for the first time, Jay ran a best of 6.96 @191 backed up by a couple of 7.0 second passes.
During Saturday’s qualifying Jay continued his consistency running a 7.07 @192 in the first qualifier, 6.94 @197 in the second and finished with a 7.03 @194 in the third qualifier. Within a tough field of racers in the Pro Turbo class Jay came out on top as number 1 qualifier with his 6.94 second pass. Congratulations Jay!
In the months leading up to the Brisbane Jamboree our team worked tirelessly to get Elia Hajjar’s brand new RX8 ready with it all coming together in the final hour.
Being a brand new car and with Elia having not been behind the wheel of a race car for over 2 years we took the opportunity to test the car and let Elia settle back in to the drivers seat.
All of the passes Elia made during testing and qualifying were run to around half track where Rocky gained valuable data. Coming in to day 2 we were ready for Elia to lay down his first full pass but unfortunately the weather had other ideas.
Another brand new car debuting at the event was Steven Barnett’s Mazda 6 SB. Running a new untested set up in his car for the first time, Steve’s only focus was getting off the start line managing a few good half track passes in testing.
During Saturdays qualifying Steve was unable to make a pass at all with the car cutting out when getting on the converter. Back in the pits the team were able to iron out a few small issues and Steve was ready to go for the next day of racing and attempt a full pass.
Mario Rehayem was Mr consistency in his 13B powered Toyota Starlet running a 7.34 @183 off the trailer in testing, then during Saturdays qualifying, Mario blasted off a 7.28 @185, 7.21 @186 and 7.3 @184.
Keen to better his current pb of 7.19 @186, Mario was looking forward to running rounds and chasing that elusive 6 second pass.
In Factory Xtreme Jason Both qualified well earning himself a $1000 prize for the most consistent qualifier thanks to PWR. Jason ran a best of 7.14 @184 during his qualifying passes which is his best pass since changing over to a quickdrive.
Also racing in Factory Xtreme was George in our Mazda 6 SP. After testing went well on the Thursday and Friday with the car running a best of 6.47 @212 the team were looking to push the car even harder during qualifying.
That would be the quickest recorded pass of the weekend though with George managing a lazy 6.87 @195 after the car crept off the line on the 2-step, qualifying in 6th place.
With rain setting in overnight after day 1's qualifying and the forecast not looking good the difficult decision was made by the Jamboree team to cancel the rest of the event. The team are now back home keen to go out testing in the coming weeks to hopefully pick up where they left off, stay tuned for updates.
We would like to thank Ray Box, Collin Wilshire and the whole Jamboree team for putting on another great event and the Willowbank Raceway staff for preparing yet again a killer surface for racing.
We would also like to thank all of our fans from here and overseas who came to see us race and to all of our PACsters that tuned in to the Live Feeds both on the Pac facebook page and OVO mobile, OVO play app.
To our sponsors, Penrith Mazda, Turbosmart, MicroTech and Honeywell Garrett - Thank you, without your continued support we could not do what we do and for that we are very grateful.
Last but not least we would like to give the biggest thank you to our staff in the workshop and crew at the race track for their tireless efforts in preparing for this event. Debuting 2 new cars, repairing our Mazda 6 after a minor crash the month before and preparing 10 other cars for racing, on top of their day to day work in the workshop was nothing short of incredible. A week out from the event it looked like we wouldn't have the 2 new cars or our Mazda 6 ready but the team pushed through and pulled off the unthinkable. There is a reason we call them the A-team!!
With the Brisbane Jamboree now behind us for another year we now look forward to the Sydney Jamboree which will be held on the 16th of March 2019. See you there!!
Check out our full gallery below and our highlight video here.
