NITRO FEVER

than they ever had before. Climbing out from the car, I had no idea who had won and had that anxious wait for the tow car to come and get me. It’s a kind of weird minute or two while you wait for the tow car to come down and to hear what you have run, especially when you feel it was a good run, although I thought Begs may have got me on the finish line. One of the cool things at Perth Motorplex is that every time you get out of the car at the finish line, a member of the track staff is waiting for you with a glass of water — which, in the Perth heat, was a very nice surprise. Anyway, when the boys turned up they were cheering out the window — we had smashed our PB and run a 5.76 at 404kph; then they said Begs had red-lit and run a 5.85. Remember that cheesy grin? Well, there it was again! Towing back to the pits was just absolutely awesome —the crowd was cheering and waving as we went past. But what was really humbling was that all the guys from Cowin Family Racing were just as stoked as the One Bad Kiwi team, and they all came over, cheering, to say “good job”. To top it off, the car was in good condition, allowing us to push it hard in the last round. With the points format used in AONFC, there were only two cars that had two wins from two, one of which had broken and wouldn’t make the final round. That left Justin Walshe in Let’s Boogie with a bye run for the win, and six other cars in contention for the last two spots on the podium. As we were the fastest of those six cars, we would be the second-to-last pairing of the night, and a win with a quick ET would see us on the podium. There was only one issue: we had to race our tuner, Aaron Hambridge, who was driving The Bandit. Now, not only can Aaron tune, but he can drive, and he has taken The Bandit to some of the fastest passes in AONFC history, so it was going to be difficult, but we were still confident. One of the coolest things about the event in Perth was the packed crowd, and, come the third and final round of the night, the place was still absolutely packed. Aaron had given me the instruction that, if it started to tyre shake, just to drive it as far as I could before shifting gear or pedalling. Once again, we left hard, with a 0.063 reaction this time. At about two seconds into the run, I could feel the car starting to shimmer like it wanted to go into tyre shake, but, under instruction from Aaron, I just held it for as long as I could. Just before half-track, I still couldn’t see Aaron, so I shifted into top gear, at which point it struck the tyres loose and turned right on me. With a quick slap on the pedal, the car settled down and started pulling hard again, but, by this time, Aaron had pulled in front, and we followed him over the finish line by 0.150 of a second. I was pretty disappointed, as I figured that not only had we lost, but the pedal had also cost us any chance of ending the night with another five-second pass. Well, I was wrong on both counts. Aaron had red-lit, and, even with the pedal, we had run a 5.83 at 394kph. Now, it took me a few minutes to digest this, as it had put us second equal on points with three other teams. As with all the AONFC events, a tie in points is decided on a count back — and, unfortunately, we had missed out on the podium by less than a tenth of a second. Although it certainly sucked to get so close yet miss out on an Aeroflow bulletshaped trophy, we were still very stoked even to be competing. It was one of those bittersweet moments. To say that we have raced, and now beaten, Aaron Hambridge and Anthony Begley is something that I never thought would be possible and will not forget. Once again, I can’t thank Graeme and Wendy Cowin enough for that opportunity — to be honest, I’m still pinching myself! What’s next? Well, on April 30, the AONFC series will make its second visit to Willowbank Raceway, and One Bad Kiwi will be there. I am absolutely hanging out to drive again; years ago, someone made a joke about getting nitro fever, and I can confirm that it’s not a joke — nitro fever is real!