I finally got the Skid Wagon out to another burnout comp. I offered my mate Dazza a co-drive since he'd been helping me out with the car alot. Daz is no stranger to the burnout pad so I knew the car would be in good hands.

The car was pretty much ready to go apart from the diff. I destroyed the last one and haddn't got around to building a decent one. A while ago I put in a bog stock VN wagon diff (factory 28 spline) which i was planning to have a full spool and 4.11 gearset installed into it. I haddn't got around to it and the comp was in a few days so Daz brought around his stick welder and we locked it up. Not a good thing to do if your planning to modify the diff in the future, infact not a good thing to do ever but it got us to the comp.

I took the car out in the first session and it was going pretty well considering the tall 3.08 ratio. I managed to get it up to 3rd gear and I was pulling some nice 360 whips which the crowd seemed to like. Next thing a hose lets go and theres steam pissing everywhere so i shut it off. I got pushed off the pad in style by the fire crew.

I found it pretty strange that it overheated since I was only going for about a minute and a half... Once we got it back to the pits we had a look and found that it spat the bloody belts off again! Last time it only threw off the power steering belt but this time it chucked them both off which obviously stopped the water pump spinning. So once again I leave the pad with tyres still inflated... :(

Luckily I brought a couple of spare belts along since the old onces were now lying on the burnout pad somewhere. Me and Daz fitted up the new belts and tightened the crap out of them this time. The hose that blew for me had only popped off so we were able to just slip it back on and refill the water. Daz took it out on the pad with some fresh tyres and went up to 3rd almost straight off the line. The car was under a fair bit of load but it was smoking like a demon. He managed to blow both tyres and get the whole exhaust red hot. When he stopped and got out of the car a small power steering fire started but then the hose blew off and extinguished the fire!! I'm so jelous!! He had to get towed out of there aswell but atleast the car went the distance this time.

I was glad to give Daz a go in the car since he's a good mate and it kind of makes hauling the car out there a bit more worthwhile since the car gets to go out twice. The CIG locker went the distance although after the second burnout it had 1/4 of a turn of play in the wheels. Despite cutting half the exhaust off since last time, the car's still not loud enough! We've got to do something about that before next time.

Dazza smoking it

The radiator lets go on me

Me doing doughies

Daz's victory wave just before it caught fire. Note the red hot exhaust pipe

My embarrasing departure from the pad

Daz letting it rip

Popped

Awesome guard damage!!

Please Note: Photos in this post are copyright of Badger Photography and Fully Sick Photos where watermarked. More images from this event can be found on their websites.

I decided to make the journey to the mountain on Sunday to see the great race.

It wouldn't be a car event without a police sting operation and another fine for my resumé. I was on my fireblade with Andrea on the back enjoying a nice ride up Bells Line of rd. I was coming out of a 60 zone leaned over through a corner. I saw the 100 speed limit sign about 100m away so I fed on some throttle to get it up to 100. I look up and there's a highway patrol coming at me, he hits the lights so I pull up. I'm now pretty used to this situation so I was pretty relaxed and tried to play it nice and cool. The cop approaches me and lets me know that he just clocked me at 104 in a 60 zone. I explained that I came through the corner at a reasonable speed then saw the 100 sign and sped up, plus its a downhill run to the 100 sign. Luckily the cop was extremely reasonable and decided to let me off with a 15 and over (3pts, $250). I told him that I've been booked a few times recently and I know I've got to watch my speed more. He warned me that there was massive amounts of cops up all the way up to bathurst and to be extremely cautious. 

While stopped on the side of the road, all the cars that I'd overtaken since Richmond went past. I stopped in at Lithgow maccas and they must have all had the same idea. About 15 different people asked me "so what did they get u for?. 

That kind of took the fun out of the day, but atleast we made it up to the mountain. It seems that this year is was massively packed to the point where we hardly got a good look at the cars all day which was pretty dissapointing. I went up a few years back with my dad and I don't remember it being that bad. The best part was having a look in the pits and see all the awesome setups that they have. I hung around and saw a couple of pit stops take place and stopped to get a picture with the inforcer.

On the way back I've never seen more cops in my life, I got followed by a highway patrol all the way to the city limits of bathurst then between bathurst and the lower mountains I would have seen about 12-15 cop cars.

Will I be going up again next year? No.

Me & Russ

Mockup V8 Supercar at Lithgow Maccas

On Friday I got a voicemail from WSID letting me know that they're having a burnout comp on October 4th. Unfortunatley the wagon is still out of action so it'll be sitting this one out. I'll be there watching the carnage from the stands.

For details on the event see WSID's site.

 

The next Sydney Muscle Car Cruise is coming up next month, this time it's being held during the day which will mean that we can expect a huge turnout. I was hoping to tidy up the burnout wagon and take it out since it is registered afer all, but I don't know if we'll have it fixed up in under a month, so I'll have to settle for my commodore assuming that they except it. Here's the event details;

Sydney Muscle Car Cruise #4
Date: Sunday 13th July 2008
Meet: 9am at WSID

For full details check their site musclecarcruise.com and don't forget to pre-register if your planning on attending.

 

 

There's no better way to celebrate our Queen's birthday than to lay down a patch in her honor!

Location: WSID
When: 7th June 2008 (Saturday)
More Info: http://www.wsid.com.au/event.asp?ID=797 

 

We need to pull our fingers out and get the burnout car into this event. We need to change the diff and get some new themros onto it.

We went and checked out the latest Sydney Muscle Car Cruise which started in Parklea Markets and went to Liverpool Megacenter.

It was raining on and off the whole time, but it didn't stop hundreds of cars and spectators from turning up. It was very well organised and the police involved. This is the sort of thing that I've always dreamed of where if you do the right thing you wont get hassled.

I caught up with a few mates, had a feed, took a few pics and cruised home. It was a pretty good night despite the rain.

If you don't know about this event, it is now being held once every three months. More info can be found at - www.musclecarcruise.com 

Powercruise 12 is on at Eastern Creek this weekend! The bad news is it looks like it's going to suffer the same fate as Supernats and get bloody rained out.. I've got a couple of mates who have entered, one in a 355 stroker LH torana and another in a RB25 powered R31 skyline. I'm planning to get down there on Saturday. For more info check out powercruise.net

 

You don't get much more aussie than getting sunburnt watching Holden and Fords drag! So I thats what I did for my Australia Day. Here's a couple of pics that my girlfriend took in the pits.

I went down to Summernats on Friday to check it out. I never miss it, this is the 4th year in a row I've been now. Here's a few pics that I took.

ULEGAL Corolla (now with a blower in place of the snail)

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Blown ute with tripple carbies

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FX Drag Ute

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RHYNOS Burnout Torana

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Tuff Red Capri

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Flat Black '55 Chevy

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Desperate Moles

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Mark Dallaqua's new Escort (850BHP)

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Mark Arblaster's WAR440

As most of us suspected, Supernats was called off on Saturday. According to their website, it will now be held on the 16th of Demember, which is now a Sunday.

Since there was nothing to do on the weekend, it gave me and Dazza the chance to change the gearbox in my girlfriend's Swift. I'd never changed a gearbox on a front wheel drive before, but it turned out to be a pretty easy job.