warps

^^ fkn This!! ^^

Cause Weber will be holding a lot of Vettel's challengers back from 18th position on the grid. Unless he lassoos the cars in front to get a bit of a run up the straights.

Very good race analysis. Check out all the comments from the F1 nerds though. Some people seriously need to get a life.

Good prices at Hare and Forbes (note these prices don't include GST, so you'll need to add it) Hare and Forbes If you're working with imperial measurements a lot then go that way, otherwise stick to metric. At any rate, make sure you're good at doing the conversions. Make sure that all your gear is the same though. Nothing harder than trying to compare metric and imperial measurements from 2 different sets of measuring equipment (eg measuring end float with an imperial dial gauge, then making up a shim pack with a metric micrometer - even for a maths whiz the chances of making a mistake are high).

Yes. Mitutoyo are very good. I have a Mitutoyo vernier that's 20 years old and still like new. I asked for some micrometers for Xmas a few years ago (yes, I'm a sad nut) from the Hare and Forbes catalogue (where most of my presents come from), as they sell some good quality gear. Unfortunately they talked my wife into the "equally good, but much cheaper" Measurmax. Do not touch this stuff - it is absolute shit. Fair enough it seems to work OK, but it is in a completely different league to the Mitutoyo. Remember, you're buying precision measuring gear that's meant to be accurate to a thou or better. Don't skimp out. If you can't afford a full set, then buy one item at a time and build up over a few years. You won't be sorry. If treated well, it will be with you for 50 years.

Actually, given he had no KERS, managed to drop to 10th at the start and did an extra pit stop, I thought Weber drove well to get 4th. He was carving them up at the end - set fastest lap time and picked up a few places for his 4th. Got oh so close to Heidfeld in the dying stages, but not quire enough (my excuse is lack of KERS - Heidfeld walked away from him in the straights) I was expecting much worse from Webs, so was pleased with his effort. Petrov's WRC yump was impressive, but his steering wheel coming off in his hands was scary!!

From what they're saying, it's clear that they don't want to finance the car. Instead of just saying so (that's bad for business) they just keep throwing hurdles at you. Trust me - they won't give you finance no matter how many hoops you jump through. We had the same when we were trying to purchase a commercial property through an investment group. Initially the bank was happy to loan us the money, but then started asking for more and more ridiculous things from us. We kept dutifully complying till they told us they needed a 90% deposit, otherwise the risk to them was too high. We politely told the bank manager to go and f**k himself (those exact words)

Both? I think I might have to do this sprint. Hope the rain stays away - they don't like running them in the wet

Yeh My 1995 Honda Civic (see avatar to the left) has a genuine 24,000km. Only driven on weekends, honest.

That's a very good question. It harks back to primitive man, when we were not only the hunter, but also the hunted. As you all know, eating carrots improves your eyesight. Well, carrots were not readily available tens of thousands of years ago, so man evolved to synthesize carrot in the pancreas. This gave us better night vision to enable us to hunt at night, thus avoiding the apex predator: the sabre tooth tiger. (It also allowed us to hunt wooly mammoth much more effectively) Of course, the prduction of carrot must be very well regulated in the body, and excess carrot must be discarded, otherwise it can cause other complications (ever seen someone who's taken too many tanning pills? It's a derivative of the same chemical that gives us night vision). In order to rid the body of excess carrot, the body would periodically purge this excess (as well as other toxins). As manking evolved, he learnt that these toxins could be expelled from the body by ingesting other chemicals which they brewed from fermented vegetable matter. This also had side effects, such as making said men do strange dances, and engage in group hugs with members of other tribes they had never before met. Unfortunately, excessive exposure to these self made chemicals had the effect of diminishing their night vision to such an extent that they almost lost all vision entirely. This was later termed as "being blind drunk", and fortunately is only a temporary affliction. Of course the meaning is still with us to this day, and so are the carrots. Even if one has never eaten a carrot, those pieces of carrot still manifest themselves whenever the body has to rid itself of harmful chemicals and toxins. Hope this clears things up a bit.

They know. I don't know how they know, but they know. Sorry Yes, only slightly warmer, and maybe not so crunchy - except for the diced carrot which it now contains. That's always crunchy.

Fook Me, that's a serious bit of kit!! Just watch that last step - looks like the Winfiled might need a bit of buffing on the front spoiler after driving off those ramps

Kellogg's are running a promotion at the moment - every 1000th box of Coco Pops has a full comprehensive insurance policy in it for whatever vehicle you nominate.. I suggest you go out and keep buying boxes of Coco pops until you find that elusive insurance policy. Now here is the important bit - you must take out the policy on the OTHER car, but name yourself as the beneficiary. This way you can claim any damage to your car that this taxi has caused. If anyone else ever hits your car, then you have to go through the same procedure, and nominate the other car on the policy. Rinse and repeat HTH

Thanks, Baron. I was a bit worried abut the window closing too, but DOTARS have just built a 6 foot thick, 20m high reinforced brick wall in front of said window. Normally not a problem, but someone's stolen the keys to my D11T dozer, so I'm having to chip away at the wall with my blunt leatherman

The Willowbank dirt sprint this weekend (20th) has been cancelled due to the weather. Just in case anyone was planning on heading down (up) there.

Guys. You win the Fezza 2007 when your bobs complete all of the endurance races

It appears that the new regs are being rolled out early. Just got word from an approved inspector that his 12 month renewal states that he must use the new national code, which stipulates LH8 for roll cages. No warning, just got it in his renewal. Currently in the process of arranging C plates for the Civic but that is taking a bit of running around.

Are the brakes on your trailer up to scratch and properly set up? If they are, then this shouldn't be putting any significant extra load on your car's brakes under normal driving. Towing a GTR means you're likely over 2 tonnes ATM, meaning you need to have brakes on all trailer wheels. Do you have this? Not sure how good / bad the brakes on the Falcon are - I remember I was mightily impressed by the brakes on my XR6 ute many years ago, even when towing an unbraked car trailer with a S4 RX7 on the back (the trailer had electric brakes and at that stage I didn't have my car set up for it. Didn't know about it till I lobbed up in the morning to pick up the rally car / trailer to tow to a rally I was servicing at - yes stupid I know). Can't say I've ever had brake fade while towing - even with the PAthfinder's squishy confidence inspiring brake package. HAving said all that, at least you have the right approach to towing. Don't do it unless you're confident that the tow vehicle is up to the task in every way. As I said earlier, if you have to use a family sedan, I'd rate the Falcons above just about anything else.

Must admit I have a few When I was learning to drive, my brother and I took a trailer load of scrap metal to Simsmetal. On the way home, he got me to drive. We were driving down a dirt road and he told me to have some fun (the beauty of getting 19 year olds to teach 17 year olds to drive). I did a couple of fishtails, and then heard this funny skipping / grating sound behind. Looked in the mirror to see the trailer at 90 deg to the car, skipping sideways. We stopped and noticed that the spare tyre had hit the back of the car, bending the mount. When we got home dad noticed the damage and asked what heppened. "er - we jack knifed the trailer while trying to reverse it. Sorry, dad". Another time we hooked up a friend's trailer (with rally escort on the back) onto the back of my ute. Didn't lower the quick release coupling all the way down though (got distracted). Drove off down the road towards his place, and all was fine till I was slowing down for a set of lights. Going downhill, just as I was slowing to stop, we went over a bump and that let the hitch come off the towbar. hitch slammed into the back bumper, and hit the end of the exhaust as well, damaging the muffler. Only superficial damage to the plastic bumper, and I got a new straight through muffler out of it. Could have been a lot worse. Just a few months ago, I was about to load the rally car onto the trailer. Hooked up the empty trailer and proceeded to drive it out of the garage onto the street. Just as I was entering the road I thought "shit, did I lock down the quick release handle? The bang in the back of the car gave me the answer. FARK!!! Again, I'd been distracted just as I was hooking up the trailer .The last thing I normally do is lower the handle and lock it in, but for some reason (short attention span) I neglected to do this. A few scratches on the back of the car (which I'd managed to keep pristine for the last 3.5 years) Only little ones, but enough to piss you off. I saw a badly overloaded car trailer roll over in front of me in traffic a couple of years ago. A couple of guys in an old hilux ute were towing a Falcon wagon on an old rusty car trailer. Got the speed wobbles going down a small hill and ended up witht he trailer on top of the upside down falcon on top of a crushed bus stop. Lucky nobody was waiting for the bus at thet time.

One of my B spec drivers is at 40, yet my overall B spec is still 39. I should have a B spec of 40 after I finish a couple omore Lemans 24h races (20 min to go on the current one). So doing the Nurburgring 24h won't achieve any more XP then? My own XP is firmly at 30 at the moment, and I can't see it going any higher for a VERY long time. I've finished all the races except the longer enduros and the stupid FGT races. I only do the seasonal events for a bit of variety. What happened to all the manufacturer races and other races that were available in GT4? Why do none of the races still have any more than 12 drivers? Lemans 24h race with only 12 cars? Yeh, really believable Mr Polyphony.

Out of all the family sedans out there, it would have to be among the best (provided it's rated to 2300kg or whatever the Ford rating at the time was). If you're going to be towing a dozen times a year, then there's no reason it won't handle it OK. They were still built on a fairly decent, solid chassis. If you're going to be towing every week, or multiple times a week, then I'd suggedt springing for a good 4WD tow vehicle. These are always a nice to have, but not essential, specially if money is tight.

I recall the time that the AU XR8's were running out, Ford were doing some interesting stuff with them. One of the car magazines put one on the dyno and it nearly made the flywheel ppower figure at the wheels. Apparently they were using roller rockers and other goodies in these engines to try and catch the 5.7 Holdens, even though the marketing department never made a lot of noise about it. As others have said, they are pretty rugged, no nonsense cars that are generally good value for money. They'll never impress euro or jap import snobs, but you do get a fair bit of car for the money. The unreliable electrics seems to be common in Falcons. Mine had to have the following replaced under warranty: ECU, Central locking computer, power mirrors and power door lock actuators (twice). Each time I took it in for a complaint, the response was "yeh, they all do that"

Pretty sure there might be one or two floating about

Does anybody know whether anything happens if you keep driving the car without doing an engine rebuild or oil change, or does it just get slower? My poor minolta is now on its 4th consecutive Le Mans 24 hr race without so much as an oil change. It's lost about 140bhp and is down about 15-20 km/h on the straights, but still winning easily enough. Might have to give it a birthday after this race to spend some excess cash, and keep it winning. Has anyone else noticed that towards the end of the 24h Le Mans race the other drivers run out of puff and have to change drivers every lap? For the last hour of the race, 4 of the top drivers were pitting on every lap to change drivers. The TDi Audi managed to sneak into second becasue it was able to go 4 laps between driver changes. Funny stuff I noticed that certain cars appear in races after you've bought one for yourself. I bought the Art Mooney (or whatever it's called - Ford Fairlane fans will get it) 1960 Corvette for shits and giggles (fun car to drive and pretty quick). After that it appeared in the Nurburgring 4h and Tsubaka 9h races every time. didn't finish any better than 8th, but still there whereas I hadn't seen it before. Makes a nice change from all those bloody Nissans in the races (I counted 9 Nissans in one of the races)

Put the wheel on the balancing machine and slowly rotate it using a dial gauge to measure radial runout. Then do the same for face runout. Video both of these (including showing the crack clearly in both videos so they can't accuse you of faking the vid) and send to Nissan proving that the wheel is within factory specs. Note this may also prove that the wheel is bent (if it actually is). At least you'll know either way, and if the wheel is OK, you'll have some proof that Nissan will be hard pressed to refute.