After waking up roughly 6 or 7 times in the space of an hour, I got up and found that there was a cruise & LAN suggested for today. I agreed, and off we went to Beechworth, but not without some dramas beforehand. After leaving the IGA carpark in Jindera and making a left, I hit some gravel and got 4 wheel drift through it, but thanks to the FTO’s handling, came out at a slightly wrong, but okay angle in my lane. Anyway, my friend following behind wasn’t so lucky, and after skidding through the gravel, his front right tyre re-gained grip, and couldn’t handle the pressure of the entire car on its singular wheel. It then popped, and came inwards on the rim, causing him to lose control of the front immediately.
Then, as his car still had the rear wheels in the incredibly slick gravel, started to fishtail at about 30km/h, and because of the front right being gone, was basically impossible to correct back into a straight line. After fishtailing right-left-right and onto a gutter and back left again, the car span to a halt facing the gravel on the corner, about 50 metres down the road. I watched this from my rear-view mirror and immediately pulled a u-turn. After checking he was okay, we worked on the front right tyre and got it changed with the help of a nice guy who lived right outside where he spun.
This however was not before an what can only be called irate and irrational old man came out with his dog and started completely abusing the hell out of us and saying we were pushing it. I went through the corner at around 40km/h and made it fine with a bit of correction of the 4 wheel drift. In comparison my mate went through it at around 20-30km/h and it absolutely caned the hell out of that tyre. This old guy wouldn’t let up though, he was yelling at the top of his voice and calling us ‘twats’ for pushing it through the corner. The old guy had no idea what had really happened and had absolutely gone off the deep end about the whole thing, probably thinking that as P platers we were obviously at fault. He also said he had called the Police, and as such I was scared if we left after changing the tyre we’d be ‘leaving the scene of an accident’ but after some corrections its only if two vehicles are involved.
Anyway, after informing the local guy who helped us change the tyre of exactly where my mate lived (only around 400 metres down the same road) we decided to take his car back on the spare and he would ride with me in the FTO. Anyway after all that we picked up a friend of mine and headed out to Beechworth, with the following vehicles:
- Me: FTO
- Rhys: Kawasaki ZZR
- Jake: Nissan Pulsar ET Turbo
- ‘Roger’: Holden VS Commodore
After grabbing a drink in a nice little cafe in Beechworth we headed back to Albury-Wodonga, and after visiting the Burning Stump (which was quite ironic as a bushfire started as we were driving back along some ranges near the stump, which had just closed its doors to food) we headed to the KFC & Hungry Jacks combined carpark for dinner. After a quick yet crappy meal (for me anyway) we headed up to my friends place where we went swimming again, like the previous night. After swimming for around 2-3 hours, we went to Rebels Pizza on the highway and grabbed a snack, then headed back for more swimming. After another couple of hours (it being around 4am at the time) we headed home to our various locations, after a quick check if we could see anything interesting fire wise, which we couldn’t.
As I dropped my mate off back at his house really strange misting rain started to fall, and has been since I’ve been home, writing this up. I just hope it continues. A good day however. 
Ta for now.
Quick edit, here’s the front right rim & tyre after we got it off.
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This is the headunit:
