Last Saturday we left your correspondent just about to get into the mighty Weekend Australian Racing Team MX-5 for warm-up and qualifying for the Wakefield 300, not surprisingly a 300km race, which is not surprisingly held at Wakefield Park race track, which is surprisingly at the Paris end of Goulburn, about 195km southwest of Sydney, 90km northeast of Canberra and 7km as the jailbird flies, from the Goulburn Government Hilton, or what the locals call the SuperMax for males.
Our story opens last Saturday at 6am as the black SSV ute pulls into the Pheasant's Nest servo for a fill of Vortex Premium 98 unleaded, a ham, cheese and tomato toastie and the $2 all-you-can-drink coffee. The driver narrates the scene: "There were no toasties at the servo where I am such a regular, Beth the manager of the toastie department calls me John (because that's my name)".
"Hullo John no toasties yet … the bastards from Caltex haven't delivered them … things have gone to shit since they took over … but there's some sandwiches from yesterday in the fridge … why don't I heat one up for you while you get the $2 all-you-can-drink coffee?" "Beauty Deb."
So, I'm back on my way down the world's most boring highway (the 840km Hume) while eating my day-old ham cheese and tomato toastie and spilling, boiling hot, all-you-can-drink coffee on my lap where it penetrated down to what's left of my private parts causing the kind of language usually only heard in the toughest sections of the GGH (Goulburn Government Hilton).
In a super start on the track, I did the first practice on old tyres and only spun three times and recorded a super time of 4 minutes (real amateurs do it in 1:50). Soon after that we all stood around and watched the engine catch fire.
The race got off to a rolling start, the 38 cars, 76 drivers, 380 pit crew and three spectators all going off like a frog in a sock. It only took 1½ laps to work out that the Lewis Hamilton of Australian enduro racing, Todd Herring (and co-driver Verne Johnson), were going to win (again) in their MX-5, Benny Tran's Honda was second with Jason Herring third. I know you're not interested but Phil and I took third in our division.