2023 Jun 3rd
GT-R Festival 2023
On Saturday June 3rd 2023, the 6th annual GT-R Festival and Nismo Meet returned to the Sydney Dragway for an epic and record-breaking day both on and off the track. The event itself is a labour of love for its host and organizer Andrew Hawkins and his team at Motive Video, who work tirelessly to make the event an unforgettable one.
This event is special at its core, as it specifically celebrates the GT-R badged Nissan Skyline and the lifestyle that goes with it. The Festival includes a variety of events from a “Hail Mary Derby” in Drag Racing (which are pure solo passes to set new records), to a show & shine event, a special edition collector cars event, and even a Motorkhana event. In addition, there were also “GT-R Invaders” in attendance at the event to mix things up. Some notable cars included the Pac Performance Factory Extreme Drag Car, a few 8 second Evolution Lancers and a whole host of high-end supercars!
This year’s event saw over 7000 spectators in attendance, with over 500 cars on display. Additionally, this year’s festival included some notable and high calibre international guests, such as the renowned Larry Chen, Micky from Throtl and Sakamoto-San from Garage Active in Japan.
The event had an early morning start for exhibitors, and as the sun rose off the eastern creek, a thick fog rolled in to greet the 500 plus cars setting up for the day ahead. However, the fog didn’t last long, and once it cleared up Sydney turned on its best conditions for the event!
This event was a fantastic opportunity for the team at Vibrant to show up and show off our extensive range of products, as the event caters to all types of motorsport enthusiasts, including those who have helped to solidify the GT-R badge as the most revered and sought after in the Southern Hemisphere. People in attendance ranged in age from youngsters to those in their 80’s, all enjoying everything that the event had to offer. With the focus of the event being a celebration of all things GT-R, there were plenty of opportunities for people to walk around the paddock area and come by the Vibrant booth to check out the line-up of products now available down under.
The Show and Shine area was a hit with attendees, as this area housed the Nismo meet, which was open to all Nissan and Datsun badged vehicles. This area provided attendees with the opportunity to see a wide variety of vehicles, including Frank Cannistras insane R35 GT-R powered Datsun 1200 UTE and the OG of AutoSalon’s Legendary Green Ghost S14 200SX. Visitors also had the opportunity to take in one of the single most impressive collections of N1 GT-R’s in the world, with Andrew Hannason’s extraordinary collection, which includes an R32 V-spec II N1, an R33 V-spec N1 S1 (which he’s decked out to mirror a 400R), an R34 V-Spec N1, an R34 V-spec II N1, and the tremendously rare R33 V-spec N1 Series 3.
In addition to the abundance of beautiful GT-Rs, an event of this calibre is nothing without the highly anticipated racing, and this portion of the event definitely did not disappoint! Notable runs include Roumanos in his B2R Motorsports prepped RHM R34 GTR, who laid down an incredible time of 8.2 seconds, with a top speed of 177 mph on his only pass of the day. To make this feat even more incredible, his run was completed with full street trim, on pump E85 and on 18 inch drag radials. However, the quickest GTR at the event, was David’s THOR R32 GTR by Croydon Racing Development.
David ran a string of 7.6 second passes, hitting speeds over 175mph throughout the day, with him taking home the overall event win.
This event was definitely one for the books, and the team at Vibrant cannot wait to see how the GT-R Festival continues to grow in the years to come!