Things are heating up here at Eastern Creek and yesterday the teams were given the opportunity to test behind closed doors. Of course, Speedhunters was on hand to see how the various teams fared in the lead up to the main event.

Mark Berry's R34 GT-R, which made the trip down from Queensland, is now wearing new aero.

Check out the enormous rear diffuser! 

Although this was an informal practice session, the teams were taking it very seriously.

The Cyber Evo had some niggling issues but it was apparent that it will be the car to beat this year.

Of course, the Hankook Revolution RX-7 was equally impressive…

…And as the team dial the car in for the Eastern Creek circuit, I'm sure they'll be looking to replicate their stunning performances seen when competing in Japan's time attack events.

From the US is the SSE crew, how famously broke the HKS stranglehold on the Buttonwillow record.

Their Evo has been under the knife recently, receiving a host of improvements for this year's event.

Flying in with the Sierra Sierra team is well known tuner Eric Hsu. I'm sure he's an ace up the sleeve that many teams would like to have.

One of the crowd favourites from last year was the bright yellow FD of Pan Speed, who have once again made the journey all the way from Japan.

Diminuitive Sasaki-san looked quick. Having raced here last year, there was little need for exploratory laps.

The Scorch Racing S15 now wears ADVAN livery, which the team applied to the carbon body the night before practice.

During testing however, the team suffered a transmission failure. In a great testiment to the time attack community, many of their fellow competitors called up their contacts to get the needed replacement parts.

Usually eating at a race track involves deep fried food of questionable origins. The Cyber team's lunch looked quite appealing however!

Being in Sydney, it wasn't surprising to see so many Evos in the various classes. There's quite a diversity amongst the Evo cars, ranging from street driven weekend racers all the way through to all-out TA builds.

Cyber were considering running onikyan to be the most gangster in the pitlane.

But in all seriousness, the team were tweaking the impressive aero hidden underneath the Evo.

Last year Tarzan drove two cars, and this year he'll be doing the same. Yamada-san will split driving duties between the Cyber Evo and Mark Hansen's carbon R35 GT-R.

Tarzan's immediate feedback after steering the Australian-built R35 was that he was impressed with how light the car is compared to the other Japanese-built GT-Rs he's driven. Considering how quick it looked on track, it was surprising to find out the R35 was only running on low boost.

The R35's centre-exit exhaust obviously gets pretty hot. Check out the frayed edges on the diffuser.

The Coote family will be campaigning two cars at this year's event. Their BN Sports kitted 180SX is entered into the Tectaloy International Drift Challenge, and their newly-finished S13 Silvia will be ripping it up in the WTAC. You would've seen our scoop on its build, and it's great to see their creation circling the track.

Considering the team only have a brief shakedown under their belt, they are doing very well. On the straights it's apparent that the aero is working, with the amount of downforce at high speed causing the front splitter to scrape the asphalt. Speaking to Josh yesterday, he advised the team will be doing some small adjustments to the front suspension to try to alleviate this, but they are extremely happy with how the aero has performed thus far.

Yesterday the Speedhunters team caught up with Team Need for Speed driver Mad Mike, who has brought his quad rotor RX-7 to Australia. The local drift community here has been itching to see both MM and the FD, so he'll likely have quite a few fans in the grandstands.

The drifters only had a short session during the test day. As this is the first time many of the international drivers have been to Eastern Creek Raceway, the test session was used to get familiar with the course and to do systems checks on the vehicles.

Lloyd Smith's V8-powered Corolla is a joy to watch. It's so wrong it's right!

Despite a small spin on one of his runs, Kiwi Fanga Dan looked quite comfortable on the high-speed track. The layout for the drifting is the same as that used in the former Drift Australia competitions, with a 3rd gear (or 4th depending on setup) right-left and then a long, sweeping left onto the main straight. The tricky part is likely to be hitting the first two clipping points and then being able to link the final sweeper.

Bra-bra-bra-bra-braaaaaap-bap-bap-bap! Mad Mike's RX-7 is undoubtedly one of the best sounding drift cars in the world.

Jake Jones, the 'Drift Squid', will be one of the many Australian drifters looking to take out the win on home soil.

The Hankook WRX arrived late in the day, with the team doing their final checks at night.

WTAC's creator, Ian Baker, was running around getting the final touches done to the Eastern Creek track in readiness for the gates opening to the public today. Speaking of which, the cars are now rolling out into the pitlane, so it's time for me to grab my camera and join the rest of our Speedhunters team trackside.

Stay tuned for more coverage.

- Charles Kha

Photos by Dino Dalle Carbonare, Matt Malcolm, Casey Dhnaram and Charles Kha