By Trav Stanley.

Those that read the t-blog regularly know that I live in a small mining town in the desert and I don’t drive my hatch enough. I have recently made a concerted effort to drive my car allot more. Driving my car any more than once a month used to be an anomaly. Reasons for not driving the car are related to road condition and layout. I.e. they are extremely crappy and way too straight. My sump and header used to regularly eat gravel, potholes and the road in general. My fenders and inner guards commonly dined on the hatch’s sticky tyres. The removal of a camber adjustment kit, spacers and a slight lift in ride height has thankfully alleviated these problems. So I am back rolling on crap roads that are straight, REALLY straight. Not ideal ill admit, but least I am rolling again.

The car is still too loud, hot and rough but hey, I can deal with that. So the other day, my good mate decided to go for a ‘cruise’ in the hatch. The town is tiny so you literally have to drive around town 1000 times or jump on the highway and travel to a neighbouring town to go for a decent drive. We did a quick lap of town and then jumped on the highway and headed east to the next town over. We got there, did a lap and actually found a sweet remote road with a couple of nice sweeping turns, rad. We then left town and headed west again. Once back close to town we took another remote road not previously driven. Again, we found another remote road with some nice corners and a hairpin tighter than a church going pre-teen, more radness. After that we continued toward the other side of town, even further west for a poke around. We then round a town favourite, another deadly hairpin. This one however is tighter still and comes off a road signed 100kmph so legal entry speed can be, and is, way higher. The corner is cut up to poo because of heavy vehicle traffic but that just makes it more interesting. My tyres were nice and warm by that point anyways. Rad.

After a bit more cruise/driving, we head back to town for lunch at our local hang spot. Surprisingly there is a place in town that serves nice coffee and sandwiches, plus has some cute employees. That’s why we always go there. After lunch we head home but before then my mate spots a crazy bushfire on the edge of town and suggests we check it out. Bushfires are cool, right Earle? Anyways, we head down this cul-de-sac and look who we find, the po po. Damn, I do an emergency u-turn to get out of there and guess what? Lights and sirens, game over.  Damn. We WERE having a pretty cool day. So I pull over, the cop takes forever to come to me. We spot that it could be the cop we vaguely know from the gym. There is a glimmer of hope. Oh, nope. It wasn’t, damn again. It was some semi hot early 20s blonde chick we both hadn’t seen before. She tells me it’s purely a RBT and licence check. The combination of my super low fixed back and less than standard ride height has her eyeing the car like crazy. Plus I struggled to reach high enough out of the window to blow in the bag she was holding. I blow a zero reading, as always, and then she takes my licence back to the patrol car to check. As she walks off she asks “Is it (my car) registered and who lowered your suspension?” I felt like saying; “…Soichiro Honda did baby, this whip is stock as a rock. You can’t ping me for anything!” LOL. I didn’t, I just BS’d saying that I purchased it years ago like this and someone on the Sunshine Coast did it. Definitely not true as Earle and I had only been dialling the suspension less than a week ago.

She checks my licence and then lets us go without further comment. THANK GOD. I am not sure if she thought I was a P plater or what but thank god she didn’t look harder. I am sure I would have been older than her. Nothing on my car is engineered and it’s too loud and low, plus I have no wipers and no OEM emission controls whatsoever, the list goes on. LOL. We pull away and head straight home. Earle apologies and counts his lucky stars. If he did get me defected I would of popped a cap in his arse. Guns are easy to come by out here, that’s for damn sure. He shares with me that the story would have made a good blog entry and here it is. We drove around for a good hour or so, we did over 130kms and we were less that 5kms from home when I got pulled over. What are the chances?

The motto of this story escapes me. I’m not sure wether it’s telling me not to be a sticky beak or to make my car less inconspicuous and stock it out a bit. Either way, I think I am going to stick to driving on lonely remote roads and staying the hell out of dead end cul-de-sacs. Oh and one other thing I am definitely not going to do anymore, that’s listen to Earle.

Douchebag.

Belong to a customer of mine

Latest product page has been added into the website

By Trav Stanley.

When is the last time you sat back and really observed a bunch of people who are all passionate about one thing talk, converse or debate that one thing? I love my wife to death; she’s the best but 99% of her close friends are teachers, just like her. There have been many occasions where I am ‘stuck’ amidst an animated group of teachers talking, usually loudly about kids, the P&C and other random teacher crap. My usual response is that of a possum when faced with a predator…. ACT DEAD. Once their attention on me has fades, I slowly remove myself from the immediate area to find a bloke to scratch my nuts with and/or to enjoy a spot of BS talking.

It’s fine for me to comment on what’s its like when a bunch of passionate teachers are together socialising and carrying on but it’s the same for ANY bunch of passionate people. Say a bunch of Honda heads. We all get into group conversations with other like minded enthusiasts and go nuts. Does anyone actually listen to themselves? Like, REALLY listen? Usual topics include; plans for future mods, new parts out and general scene gossip. Sound about right? Well a topic that my close mates seem always to cover is the ‘next’ car. The ‘next’ car is like your second wife; a newer, younger model with more ‘potential’ and it’s usually a bit newer. I think this seems to happen to us because the majority of my mates have had their Hondas for 5 years or longer which is an eternity for usual gen Y and I’s (read: you and me).

After 5 years, the honeymoon is well and truly over, it’s merely a distant memory, the real car has shown itself. You have had 5 long years to discover all of the dodgy things the previous owner did to the car that you didn’t know about when you first purchased it. You’ve rolled many different setups or combos, done some racing, done some parking and probably got a ticket or two. Like milk, has the car/project gone…..off? Was it always destined to happen or is it your own for fault for not be able to stay ‘faithful’?

So at this stage, you look for a new project, maybe sell off your current whip, part it out or commit some dodgy insurance fraud. This consideration of other projects comes up in the convo’s you have with your mates. Most sentences’ start with; “You know what would be cool?” or “You know what I have always wanted to build?”

So what do you do when you start thinking like this and even worse, talking like this? God only knows but recently that’s been me. A bit dodgy I know, especially if you remember my previous blog entry. For me it has allot to do with what my mates are doing with their cars. One mates ride gets more hardcore every time I talk to him. Its ridiculous, this thing is a straight up track monster, its sick to death, I love it. I am so jealous. Another mate, has got a pretty sick ride that is both track worthy but still doable (just) on the street. More jealousy. Another has his ride prepped for a super neat lil JDM swap that’ll really round the car off as really fun street car, plus it looks clean as hell with a bunch of J’s Racing parts on it. Even more jealousy. Finally, the last mate has gone pretty much back to stock. Back to comfy. Back to quiet. Back to fuel efficient. There is also a tiny bit of me that is also jealous of him.

So I guess you’re wondering what will be my second wife? The next project. A track monster? A stocker? Or something in between? I don’t know what you’d call it but I have always wanted to build an Accord Wagon. A 94-ish CD Accord Wagon or Aerodeck as it’s also known. See photo.

Tonnes of potential, plus its definitely different and I could probably fit a baby seat in the back. Lol. Imagine it lowered on some SSR’s, sticky tyres, F20B 5spd under hood and a pair of fixed back buckets. Rad.

So where does this leave me? Am I on the look for an Aerodeck, heading for the for sale forums with some photos of my car? Nah. Like all good urges they come and go. When I sit in my EG at the lights, ill just stick to dreaming every time I see an Aerodeck roll past. Like a good husband, you can’t just jump on the next ride when you get tired, bored or disgruntled. However when that does eventually happen, just click the JDMC banner up top, order some new parts and freshen’ up wifey number 1 with some tasty ‘bolt ons’ ;o)

Postscript: This entry made me remember I had a super old photo of myself and my EG when I first got it back in the day. The photo was actually taken an actual film camera Lol. I searched high and low for it but couldn’t find it. It’ll be a hoot if I can find it. Ill keep looking, stay tuned peeps!

Sound file can be heard from fujitsubo website

http://www.fujitsubo.co.jp/prods/detail/000000000000001868/00000000000000004238/00001286