Well it wasn't exactly the one that got away but it was an eventful meeting for the Real Deal Lexus Piranha Hot Rod team. To set the scene we found out that we had a bent diff and our Romac floaters/discs etc. had crapped themselves again, this being the second time in six years and I was not wishing to go for a third. So we sent the whole diff to Ray Bernard c/o Western Suburb Diffs and the diagnosis was - build a new one. Ray forwarded it down to Terry Cartwright at "Terry's Diffs" and what we have now is probably the best sheet metal diff built by the best sheet metal diff maker in Australia. It certainly is a work of art strong, accurate, line bored and thanks Terry for doing a magnificent job. As always you run out of time and we had to ship the old diff housing back to Rockhampton so we could put the floaters back on, to put the hubs on, to get the wheels on, to get the Hot Rod into the trailer.

Whilst Terry shipped the completed diff housing off to Ray who had it powder coated by Tuckers "Advanced Sheet Metal & Marine". We drove down Thursday night and got to Cannuli's "House of Funny Cars" at 3.00am Friday morning and left Ray Bernard's at about 4.45pm Friday with the new diff fitted. We could not have done it without Ray and we are all thankful for the use of his facilities, his help, his tools and his great knowledge. It never ceases to amaze me how people willing share their knowledge, it a good thing and I for one am very grateful and hope it continues. As a result of the new diff we missed the first qualifier but again with the help of Proforce and Wayne using Ray's scales we were down the scrutineering sheds scaling the car up and sorting out the four link.

The first qualifier - A dreaded oil leak and what can you do, it's in your best interest for them to shut you down but mind you we did have quite a bit of fun with Ralph who quite often camps in our trailer. We may have maliciously advised him that, as he was the one who shut us down he may have to find somewhere else to camp for rest of his drag racing days.

Moving on to the last chance qualifier, the car had been pulling to the right so Nathan expected it to go right but what did it do, it went hard left. He did a great driving job and got into the field with a lazy 7.95. We went back to Wayne and with a tweak of the four link again, we were able to win the first round after Darren Fry got out of shape and crossed the centreline. We managed to run a backing off 7.75 on our 7.68 dial in. Now there's another story, Sunday morning about to have a nice warm shower (you may only have one shower but at least at Willowbank you can count on it being warm, better than having 6 cold ones like WSID) I had a bit of trouble breathing and Bettsy & Lauren were concerned even Listy was concerned and believe me I was very concerned as I was choking. I ended up in the ambulance and a trip to Ipswich along with my next door neighbour and Head Man, Allan Croft.

To cut the story short a couple of hours latter I escaped by discharging myself and we were back at the track just in time for the second round where we unfortunately went down to our good friends the Marsden Family team. You might not know but trust me I do now, there is a little dangly thing that hangs down the back of your throat and it got infected and swelled to about 5 or 6 times its usual size causing a blockage in my throat. It ended up taking about 4 days for the antibiotics to finally start reducing the swelling in my throat and feel normal again. My thanks to all the people who rang me with their concern but for some reason it ended up on the internet that I had a heart attack. I would especially like to thank my fellow drag racing friends for their genuine concern in particular Paul Shackleton, John & Sharon Ward, Dave "Quick Draw" McGaw and Anton the Ear Nose & Throat specialist at the out patients at Ipswich Hospital.

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