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Vehicle: Mitsubishi Galant VR-4, 2 litre turbo, 4WD, 4WS, standard road car.

Lap times: about 68 seconds

Entry speed: ~ 180km/h

Brake lights on at 100 meters.

Vehicle does not seam to slow down, due to overheated brakes.

I turn towards the apex, but the heavy car has too much speed.

In my defence, famous race engineer Carrol Smith once told off his driver for not crashing when his brakes failed. He saw this as evidence that the driver was not driving at ten tenths.

But the owner of this car may have appreciated some room for error.

A Promise

A blog reader e-mailed me and wrote: "God has given me a promise that He has someone out there for me". She is after a male partner that is of the opposite sex, and she has been waiting for some time. Why did she e-mail me? I'm not much of a match maker.

But I am wondering how God promised her a partner. It brings up the question, how does God talk to us? Through what is written in the Bible I guess. That, and a sense of awe and mystery when we inspect the universe. I don't remember seeing anything in the Bible that promises us a partner, although various other promises are made. So then, does God speak to individuals and give them messages more specific than that in the Bible?

Part 3: TopGear edition

Today we arrive at a tiny disused racetrack outside the village of Old Beach, somewhere in Australia. The mission? To get a lap time of 70 seconds in a car worth £1200.

One lap of the track is 1.24 miles, so to do it in 70 seconds you would need an average speed of say... 64 miles per hour. But obviously you need to go much faster than that, as you have to slow down for the corners.

In Brittan, we had the Vauxhall Carlton. In 1986, Holden shoved a Nissan Skyline motor in it and called it the Commodore. And quite cheap these days. This one was picked up for £970 on ebay.

Some say, he has a full set of car parts in his bedroom... bla bla bla...

The first recorded lap is 74 seconds, but some smoke is seen to rise from the S bend in the track. Oh dear. Dave the caretaker is coming over in his little truck, this can't be good.

Aarons turbo charged Corolla Levin on race tyres.

With a bit more care taken not to drift this time, we went out again. The clutch slipped and the rear tyres spun but the lap times came down, then a 70 second lap time!

**Persons pictured may not actually be the real stig, or even the driver in this test.

Jonny is a Bogan: Part 2

Only one day to prepare the VL for the track! The bonnet ornament, monster tacho with shift light, temp gauge, boost gauge, speaker cables etc all got taken out fairly quickly. Window tint on the drivers window was ripped off.

With the car on the hoist, it checked out sort of ok. It was a disappointment I didn't have a Berlina, just a everyday Executive. This meant drum brakes on the back, and normal windy windows. But I did have the Berlina tacho, even if it wasn't screwed in properly.

The suspension bushes, steering and shocks were left alone, but the springs had been cut too low. They were not captive, and fell out. I rushed over to Repco and bought new Kings Superlow springs for the VL. The front brake pads were down to nothing, so I got Bendex Ultimate pads (not cheap) hoping they would hold up to some hot laps. The tyres were not too good either, rears were bald from burnouts, fronts were uneven due to toe-out. I had almost spent my budget so I only got new front tyres, Fedral 235/45/17. Had I mentioned the big 17" wheels? They are a good thing in this instance. And the new tyres are what the Fedral drift team run.

In changing the front springs I took the opportunity to swing the strut tops around for maximum negative camber. For the final "wheel alignment" before hitting the track I closed one eye and agreed that there was indeed a lot of toe-out that had worn the last set of tyres, but I couldn't be bothered changing it. Some people like toe-out on the track anyway, although I don't especially. I just couldn't be bothered anymore.

I swapped the steering wheel for my own leather one I had, and got the horn working while I was as it. The car already had "Monza" race seats, which are cheap and shameful, but I decided they would do the job. It was easy to find new brake and clutch pedal rubbers at the local for only $6 each.

More could have been done to tidy the car up, but I went to the movies to see Get Smart. It was OK, but could have been better.

Jonny is a Bogan: Part 1

It's a VL Commodore, I know, I'm a massive bogan. But how did I come to acquire this potent street fighting machine?

Some friends were planing a practice day at Baskerville racetrack, with Corollas and things like that. Not wanting to miss out, I needed to buy a car within a few days. I wanted to spend only $2500 or less. I am thinking lap times from a standard car. What is the best Baskerville lap time I can get for $2500 with only a day to prepare a standard car? If I could get a similar time to friends that have spent thousands that would be a bonus. The car you choose for “bang for buck” may not be the same as the one you chose 10 years ago. Cars are getting older, and some are cheaper. I am aiming for maybe 73 second lap times.

I considered a FWD Corolla with the 4A-GE engine, but they are holding their value. Thinking power to weight, RWD, and cost, I chose the VL Commodore with the RB30E. In theory about 114kw, and 1250kg, and currently $2000 or less. I quickly found one on e-bay for 2 grand and clicked the buttons to buy. I found a manual Berlina!

Being “time poor” is the new self respecting term we proudly use to mean “I can't be bothered”. Either way, I didn't bother to check out the Commodore before committing to purchase. Only one small picture on e-bay is what I went on.

To retrieve my new race car we went deep beyond the flannel certain into suburbs I wasn't familiar with. I just wanted to pay the money and get out of there. I found it had a cracked windscreen and the tow-bar was half missing. Expecting to see rear disks since it was a Berlina, I found drum brakes. I actually doubt it was originally a Berlina now.

But there were some extra surprises. Navigating my first right turn a found visibility a bit hard past the A pillar due to... a boost gauge? A nice AutoMeter boost gauge... on a non turbo car. Nice. Along with the monster tacho with shift light, that wasn't hooked up either. Another extra was the bonnet scoop/vent thing. There was no actual hole in the bonnet, lucky for me.

In short, it's a total shit box. What had I done! Everything rattles. The dash is held in with 1 screw. Various lights flash on and off over bumps. The interior is sprayed back with a can. There is nothing I own that seams so old. My 1970s Corollas had better quality.

Adam could not stop laughing as we drove back through the suburbs with my VL. So bogan.