COUNTDOWN UNTIL THE NEXT MEETING:

The First Weekend in Australia The plan was to go to Australia, run the Parramatta and Toowoomba shows and fly home with a great result. That was not the case for a variety of reasons. I had gone early to Sydney to work on the 29 car which was the car Brad is to drive in these events over the next month or so. The both cars were at Barry Graham's Workshop which is about an hour south of Sydney. Having a couple of days working on the car gave me the opportunity to get it serviced and set for the race meetings over there. I picked up the drivers and the team from Jack Berry Racing on the Friday night and we headed off to Parramatta to settle in. Saturday all went to plan with the Race Truck heading up to the track and we met them there. We worked on he cars over the afternoon in preparation for the meeting there, knowing that immediately after it finished we had to load the gear and cars back into the truck as it was leaving to drive through the night to Toowoomba which was a 15-16 hour drive without stopping. The weather forecast was a 90% chance of rain, and it was right. After a fairly heavy shower we got the cars out onto the track to wheel pack it. I have not seen a Midget car return from a wheel pack with as much mud on it as these were. We spent an hour getting the cars back ready to run and down the rain came again. This was the end of this meeting, so we loaded up with everything wet and covered in mud to head to Toowoomba. We flew into Brisbane early Sunday and drove out to Toowoomba to meet the truck and clean the cars. The weather was good and the spirits were high. The boys were pretty keen to get some racing under their belts so we setup ready to go. Good to catch up with both Jimmy Quinn and Michael Kendall. Brad was in the first heat and started off the back, I missed the gear set so he struggled home in 7th place. Michael was next up and he flipped his car on about lap 3. This is when the work load started to wind up. Brad went out for his second heat whilst the team repaired Michaels car. Brad almost missed three cars in a crash, he ended up bending the front axle on the right hand side and limped home in 7th place again. We started working on replacing the front end in his car, Michael headed out for his heat and he went over again trying to miss a crash and bent everything in the rear. So, while they replaced bits in his car we prepared for the Feature. Brad was to start off the back as his transponder hadn't worked and they don't manually lap score there so as far as they were concerned he hadn't completed a lap. Minutes before we dropped the car onto the ground the brakes decided they wouldn't work, when 15 minutes earlier they did. I quickly disconnected the front brake line to give him a brake pedal and out they both went. Brads front brake built pressure in the line and jammed the front brakes on, his front left wheel was glowing orange before the race even started. He did manage to get passed 6 cars in two laps howevereventually decided he couldn't hold it any longer as the brake was jammed and was pulling the car left. With Brad out all attentions went to Michael who was still stiing further back, on about lap 6 he sailed into a big pile up in Turn 2 and he went in square on. The result was this car sustained considerable damage including the frame. The good news was Kendall went on to win the Feature which was great for the Kiwi showing. We now have a massive amount of work to do prior to next weekend which has the first meeting on the Friday night and then straight into Saturday night for the 50 Lapper. The team is all good, plenty of energy and looking forward to a great weekends racing in Sydney.