The Legend , The Hogster , The Ride Part 1

It was a dark and stormy night, the wind was whistling and the rain was coming down heavy , we pulled up at the hotel, an old English styled place , as well pulled up i thought, we are not going to be sleeping much here, as we checked in and walked into the room, oh crumbs , this is going to be a long night, well on cue every hours or so, we got woken up, after what seem like forever the alarm went off and i dragged my tired body out of bed, it felt like we did not sleep at all, at the air port and everyone is grumpy ( people can not do morning's ) so after an hour and a bit waiting we are on the plan, sitting there waiting as they do there check's and stuff, we get out onto the runway and i think .... will this take off be anything like sitting in a V8 Supercar???? ,will the G force be more or less, what will it be like, , I started to wake up more, thinking about this and that , what about this , what will that be like , will i get to chat to him ??? all these thoughts running around in my head, I wqas buzzing a little bit, ( well ok, alot )

We landed at the Gold Coast, Wow , it was warm, about 20 deg's , no wind, no clouds, simply beautiful, hmmm nice.

We got picked up by some old family friend's ( they meet me before i new which way way up , Man thts a few years ago now ) so after the re union and getting stuff sorted we hit the Gold Coast and had a look around, What a really nice place, I could see myself living there no problem, ( well if i did not have what i have inside of me )
So that was Saturday , on Sunday we went to Dreamworld, ( Hello, this is my kind of place ) we had so much fun and was good to feel like kid's again , letting our hair down and getting the adrenalin flowing again.

Monday ..... The day I have been waiting for. i woke up and tried to keep my excitement at controllable level.
After breakfast and finding how to get there , We got on our way, about an hour or so later we got to Ipswich , now, I was getting excited ( to put it into comparison for some people who can not comprehend it , Me meeting Craig Lowndes is like a rugby fan meeting there favorite rugby star, like a soccer fan meeting Beckham , like a fisherman getting the big black marlin , this for me , is big as huge can get )

We turned up at the Queensland Raceway, driving down the driveway , I noticed,other race teams there , 3 teams, 2 other Ford tream and one Holden tem, ( poor bugger's )

So I signed in, and got my race gear to put on, ( there were alot of people there , all in the same race gear as I was given, I asked the lady behind the desk , this is a sponsor's and fan day, they had Both drivers driving 2 cars and the flow of people was steady , One car # 888 was just sitting in pit lane, no one in it, just a few pit crew doing some stuff around it, Car #1 was coming down pit lane, Crackling , backfiring and rumbling and it comes to a stop , a Very happy person jumps out of the pas angers seat, with a Big cheesy grin on his face, Jamie Whincup gave this guy a ride of his life, another person jumps in and they are off again .
I noticed a guy walking in the general direction, big smile on his face, saying hello to everyone he passed, The Legend him self, Craig Lowndes . ( about now i felt like i was dreaming , These wicked race machine's , the current V8 Supercar Champ , and then , the guy who has one everything there is to win in the V8 Supercar's , The Guy who has won Bathurst 4 times, and that is just to start with,

I started to feel a lump in my throat, and I felt nervous, ( to be honest , since i was told about this melanoma lung cancer thing, I have not been nervous, not even with the skydiving, or putting the Team Huka Honda Ford Falcon into the kitty litter)but now ,I was,
The person inline in front of me jumped into the #888 Team Vodafone Falcon, the car started and they took off. I started to think, what is going through that guy's mind, hmmmm, stuff that , what is going through my mind, my pulse was increased and i felt a bit uncomfortable because of the heat,
The Crackling of the 635 Horse Powered Ford coming down the pit lane, Back firing, spitting and just rumbling, Awesome, The car come's to a stop, the engine switched off, and the door's open, Out come's a guy with a look of amazement on his face,
The Race engineer called my name and I moved to the car, Looking at the spiderweb type roll cage to weave the body through and then getting into the seat, So i just jumped in, leg's in first then slid the body in,Pushing my self back into the seat and finding the harness. as the crew started to strap me in , the Person next to me spoke up and said, Heya Going, ( Holy Smoke , I thought to my self, He just spoke to me, lol ) I told him who i was, and i was here for the ride of my life, With that , he said, I hope your hanging on, The doors closed and he started the mighty powerful racing engine, We cruised down pit lane at the speed limit of 40 km/h , then all of a sudden, His foot slam's the accelerator, 2nd gear 3rd gear, then started to turn for the first corner, 4 gear then 5th , aiming for turn 2 , down to 4th gear, powering through the corner and slightly drifting out of the corner, Plucking 5th gear and foot still flat , hitting 6th gear and getting up to about 230 km/h then Hard on the breaks , down to 75km/h and 2nd gear for turn 3, foot hard on the gas again and 3rd gear, then into 4th, putting the car into turn 4, getting the whole car to slide and hit a little bit of curb at the apex, the car still sliding and so in control Craig kept the flow going and out of turn 5. Then hard on the gas again up to turn 6. The hard on the breaks and slow in to this one , the gradually on the gas to get fast out, 2nd , 3rd , 4th, 5th gear up to turn 1, back into 4th gear , bumpy on the breaks and then more gas, and up to 5th gear, , dab the break's again and down to 4th, aiming for a late Apex on turn 2 and hoping the nervous rear end dose not step out.Hard on the gas, picking each gear with speed and precision as we hit the back striate and climbing up to our max speed of 248 KM/h ,

Holy smoke, what a rush, The G force when he hit the gas for the first time was INSANE , the smooth driving and the talent of the Legend behind the wheel made that one Lap I will Never Never Forget