First race since returning home.

I've just got home from a full day's worth of motorsport and I'm worn out!.
I had a few concerns about whether I would be fit enough to man-handle my 550 horse power Mitsubishi Evolution around the streets of Seaview in my first outing in over six months. I needn't have worried.

The very first run in the car, a warm-up run, was fast enough to win the event out-right. I then did another faster run later in the day that consolidated the win. So all my fears about loosing my edge and not being up to the level of competition I'd previously been at before treatment have been laid to rest.

I only had one "moment" during the day. I had decided to not do my 4th and final run of the day as it was raining and it would be impossible to go faster in the wet than my earlier runs in the dry.
But then I bumped into my friend Alf and his son Daniel, and Daniel asked if I would take him with me on my final run of the day.
So we strapped him into the passengers seat and proceeded to do what I had promised to be a fairly sedate run around the tight street circuit on a very wet road. Amazingly the car had heaps more grip than I expected so I drove faster and faster as I found the limits of adhesion. Then as we completed the last tricky turn on what was now becoming a blindingly fast run, the engine threw off it's power-steering belt.
This left me mid corner with incredibly heavy steering and me facing a concrete kerb.

There is no way I could return the steering to where it needed to be in time to avoid colliding with the kerb, so I took my foot off the brake as we went up it, and re-applied it once we were on the footpath. There we were, parked perfectly on the footpath directly in front of a crowd of spectators. None of whom would have had any idea why I suddenly decided mid race to leave the road and park my car in such a bizarre place for no apparent reason. No damage was done, we drove very slowly back to the pits, fitted a replacement belt, packed up and went back the clubrooms to pick up my trophies.

A great day! (If you want to get an idea of what it is like to do a run of the Port Rd Street Sprint in my car. Check out this footage from a previous year.) >>Click here<<

PS: Still no night sweats now for three nights in a row.