Day Four – SUNDAY 8 JANUARY

THE Saturday of Summernats 35 may have been the first sold-out day in the festival’s history, but we didn’t have to wait long for the feat to be repeated. Yep, tickets for Sunday’s last hurrah ended up completely exhausted, too. Sunday is game day for Grand Champion contenders, Haltech Horsepower Heroes hopefuls and burnout competitors alike, so there is always plenty of action to be observed. But Sunday morning at Summernats tends to be nice and chilled, and one of my favourite things to do is grab a cuppa and go for a wander through the PPG Supreme Entrant display.

Here, outstanding cars are handpicked by the judges to represent a whole cross-section of the event – Street, Tuff Street and Elite. What you end up with is a Whitman’s Sampler box of awesomeness to peruse. The past two SMOTY winners made the cut, as did Carolyn Hayes’s freshly unveiled drag-and-drive Torana and the gorgeous Mercury Comet we recently featured, built and driven by Phil Kerjean. But the winner by popular vote was declared to be Frank Marciano’s awe-inspiring ’32 Ford coupe.

Over on the Rod Shop burnout pad, those in the running for Grand Champion glory were limbering up for the driving events. Driving a high-end, mega-buck show car in anger in a confined space is an intimidating prospect – those concrete walls are unforgiving. The GC sword is bestowed upon the Elite entrant who scores best across judging, People’s Choice and driving events, and with two of the big hitters – Matt Mcintosh’s Top Judged Elite HQ Statesman and Peter Lewis’s People’s Choice-winning XC Falcon – sitting out the driving events, it was anyone’s race. Impressively, blown beasties like Luke Mitchell’s EVIL LJ, Nigel Warr’s HQ ute and Simon Mokdassi’s XYKING were driven with aggression, with throttle, tyre smoke and opposite lock aplenty as they vied for the title.

But soon after Livi Krevatin dropped the hammer in his epic Real Steel-built Porsche 911 SC, it became apparent that there was a cat among the pigeons. The little Porka was nimble, composed and blisteringly quick point-to-point, and Livi steered it with surgical precision. Coupled with a deserved Top 10 finish in the Elite judging, the Porsche’s prowess in the driving events – particularly the slalom – had it in good stead.

Sure enough, when the top three contenders were presented to the crowd, Nigel Warr’s HQ ute, Livi’s Porsche and Frank Darmanin’s killer VH SL/E were it. After building the requisite level of hype and anticipation, the announcer broke the news to the crowd that a Porsche had indeed won Grand Champion at Summernats 35 – a result that seemed somewhat polarising.

“I’m stoked; I can’t believe it,” said Livi. “Twelve years of hard work have gone into this car from the guys at Real Steel; so much innovation and thought. In Europe they call these cars Outlaws; it’s their version of hot rods and street machines. I’ve tried to bring that back into the Australian scene, and hopefully you’ll start to see more and more of these types of cars.”

The Summernats Grand Champion sword is firmly among the most coveted prizes in Aussie street machining, and from ’Nats 35 onward it will be known as the Chic Henry Memorial Grand Champion Sword. Fittingly, Chic’s granddaughter Lauren was there to present the sword to Livi, while her proud mum Angie looked on.

Other major awards handed out at the ceremony included the Drivers Champion, which went to Keith Miller in his rad little Moke, and the Street Champion award, which was snared by Phil Kerjean in his customer Matt Hourigan’s amazing Mercury Comet GT. It was a bittersweet moment for Phil, as he’d not long learned of the passing of his close mate Sam Fenech in a drag racing accident at Willowbank the night before.

Sam was such a widely known, well-respected and invariably well-liked figure in the Australian racing and performance scene. As the proprietor of Westend Performance, he had a hand in countless cars at Summernats, and his passing was felt deeply by many at the event. A minute’s silence was observed at the conclusion of the presentation to remember both Sam and Chic, before the burnout finals got underway.

As always, there was action aplenty in the finals of the skids. You can read about it in greater detail from page 84, but Jake Myers claiming his second Burnout Masters crown in this issue’s cover car is quite the storyline. Jake’s Mustang was of course made famous by his dad Gary and is arguably the most iconic and recognisable modified car in Australia. To celebrate the 35th anniversary of the car’s debut at the inaugural Summernats, Jake painstakingly returned the car to its OG look for the event, then promptly went out and won the biggest burnout comp on earth with it, on that anniversary.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, rounds out the story of the biggest Summernats in history, and perhaps the wildest in recent memory. Entries and tickets for ’Nats 36 are on sale already, and if this instalment was anything to go by, you’d best book yours early to avoid disappointment.

A MINUTE’S SILENCE WAS OBSERVED AT THE GRAND CHAMPION PRESENTATION FOR BOTH SAM FENECH AND CHIC HENRY, BEFORE THE BURNOUT FINALS GOT UNDERWAY