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Archive for the ‘Car Stuff’ Category

Folks, please wake up. Stop doing this nonsense. Driving is not to be taken for granted.  Needless carnage. I see this here in Australia and now my good buddy Sean Brown @ProtruckR in Canada shares these real photographs direct from the scene there.  If there’s anything I can say or do to stop this, I’ll do it.  I am aware the issue is not that simple.  As a professional driver, endorsed & licensed by the Confederation of Australian Motorsport and having operated transport businesses for years, I’m aware of the hazards of driving at speed. It’s what we do – in the appropriate arena.  This incident occurred on a public road, on a public holiday.  Heard of that before?

What is even more horrific is that the truck involved was travelling at no more than 30km/h – on an incline (uphill) in the slow lane – and the passenger vehicle, in this case a Volks Wagon Jetta (an ordinarily very safe vehicle) was likely travelling in excess of 150km/h.  Do the math yourselves.

The following images are not for the faint of heart, but they are real and really did just today occur. The firefighter leaning in the rear window of the sedan is supporting the neck of the passenger as paramedics secure them.

Sean spoke on the telephone with me tonight of the screaming that could be heard as he approached the accident as the first on scene.  The fate of those involved is as yet unknown, but needless to say those that survive this will bear scars that cannot be seen, and worse still cannot be undone.

- Greg

Motoring journalist and TV presenter Jeremy Clarkson makes me laugh. Describing the Audi Q7 as second in its class, he said:

Who wants second? It’d be like driving around in Buzz Aldrin.

Naturally the Volvo XC90 was first

- Greg

Surfers Paradise

Being trackside for the Gold Coast Super GP this year was once again full of excitement, thrills and of course spills.  I arrived Saturday at the end of the V8 Supercars race 1 with Garth Tander taking line honours.

Even the Mini cup racing was captivating with an accident on the 1st lap right where I was standing at the fence. Then some on-track entertainment in the form of some V8 ute drifting, Victor Bray and his legendary burnouts and some more drifting from local rising stars.

A real highlight every year for the fans is the F-111 fly-by and fuel dump & burn, and this year although the last for the aging F-111 was no disappointment.

F-111 dump & burn

I did my best to capture as much of this action as possible using my Canon digital still camera and a new Flipcam. I have to say the Flipcam is the easiest HD video camera on Earth with built-in usb plug (no cables) and software that will automatically install on any PC. Trimming and uploading videos to Youtube is a breeze and with 2 hours of HD video & audio capacity this small, light and inexpensive camera is ideal for anyone who doesn’t need all the bells and whistles of dearer models.

The weather was superb and over 200,000 people flocked to the streets of Surfers Paradise for what was a truly home-grown motorsport spectacular. Mark Winterbottom (affectionately known as “Frosty”) won 2 of the 4 races in the round and is currently 5th in the V8 Supercar Championship series