“I think I can smell exhaust fumes and I feel like the heater is on,” I said to Michael (The Sultan) McMichael, my Adelaide Rally co-driver and author of the new bestseller Sex In the Afterlife, where you will learn how to work with sexual energy for a richer and more fulfilled life, balance your masculine and feminine energies and improve the quality of your love with those you meet after you have shaken off your mortal coils but hopefully not your private parts.
“Yes, I put a new exhaust system on to make the car go faster”, Mick replied. Of course, he was referring to the Weekend Australian Racing Team’s 1990 BMW 3 Series, which, for newer readers, is a supercar hidden away from prying eyes and criminal gangs currently using powerful scanners to copy the signal from the owners’ keyless fobs to steal high-value vehicles (more on this exclusive story below) in a shed in the Adelaide Hills which Brownie, the very large common brown snake and second most venomous land snake in the world, also calls home.
When your heroic duo go to pick up our rally car we yell “Brownie” through the shed door, leave the door open, run away to the nearby Cudlee Creek Restaurant, Tavern and Caravan Park for a few Coopers ales and hope he has left by our return. Readers, you can’t drop in to Mirazur in Menton, the pearl of France or the White Rabbit in Smolenskaya Square, Moscow (try the swan liver pâté with torched marshmallow) for another year or so, but you can go to the Cudlee Creek Restaurant, Tavern and Caravan Park next Thursday from 6pm when the CCRT&CP “all you can eat” Schnity Night returns!
This all happened last Wednesday at the start of the Adelaide Rally, a four-day event held within the Adelaide Hills, Fleurieu Peninsula and what passes for a CBD. Despite a distinct lack of support from the Steve Marshall-led fascist state government, which violently opposes motor sport, cars and hydrogen plants, the rally brings hundreds of millions of dollars, wealthy competitors, their families, friends and servants for 34 closed-off road stages, massive spending in bushfire and COVID-affected towns and businesses in what is the largest event of its type in the southern hemisphere and the afterlife. My guess is that it is also the largest collection of Feezers, Astons, Lambos, McLarens, Mazers and Porkers in action you’ll see anywhere.
“But Sultan, isn’t this the gas that makes you go sleepy, lose control of the car and drive like an SA Liberal minister?” I naively asked Baron BMW. “Just wind the window down and you won’t notice a thing.” “But it’s raining.” “Person up. The rain will keep you awake.”
Ironically, the first stage on the first day was up Scott’s Bottom. Just west of Dorset Vale, the road snakes up 4.5km letting drivers and navigators warm up for later sections that saw some Porkers and Evo hit 220km/h. Quite a few competitors found new ways to park their cars during the faster parts of the rally: high up embankments, wedged in trees and in the dead cockroach pose position. Now you can see the value of my advice to those wanting to take up motorsport: only rally or race what you can afford to write off.
A fuller, even more boring report next Saturday, but can I just report on the success of our Weekend Australian readers night last Monday. A capacity crowd of South Australian men, women and others discussed matters of importance to all citizens such as the just released Grodno Medical State University research demonstrating that Coopers Sparkling Ale is more effective in preventing COVID and acne than the Pfizer/BioNTech and Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccines as long at the bottle is rolled before administration. Naturally Adelaide rally chief medical officer, petrol head and honorary Hippocratic adviser to the WART, Dr Alvin Chua, called this breakthrough the biggest piece of fake news since the Trumpster patented and bottled the bleach and UV cure.
Not that we ever self-promote but would you like John and the Sultan to speak at your next dinner, retreat, bat or bar mitzvah, smoko, AGM, conference, workshop, assembly, church meeting or royal commission? Send an email with a cheque (cash is preferable) to the address at the bottom of this column. A boring event more boring or most of your money back.
Meanwhile a problem for wealthy soapdodgers is already an issue here in the colonies. English plodsters arrested a gender-balanced (nine men and women) crime gang who allegedly knicked 70 Range Rovers worth over $2m by relay attack. These days the villains use scanners rather than coat hangers to steal cars. They pinch the security signal from your keys, march into the car port and march off with your Toorak Taxi.
Next weekend 62 cars and 150 drivers including Shane van Gisbergen, Tim Slade and cousins Ben and Jude Bargwanna spend six hours driving around the Bathurst Hills. Can I shout out to Ryan Gilroy and Brianna Wilson in our own Phil Alexander’s Raceway Track Time MX-5. Brianna started karting at eight, won a few national titles, moved to sedans at 15, was unbeaten in her class at several rounds of The Australian Production Car Series, raced the Bathurst 6 Hour in 2018 before a year out for HSC studies. Returned to motor sport last year. A big talent who deserves a big sponsor
Finally, I’m told Mick may have copied his new book from US author David Staume’s follow-up to his Beginner’s Guide for the Recently Deceased.
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