The door wedge strikes back...

[GeminiCoupe]

Finally went to pick up the Piazza last night and fuck me dead, what an adventure [or misadventure]. Arrived at the place about half an hour late, so we tried to get the cash thing sorted out as quickly as possible, only to realise id left $100 and home. Off to a great start, lucky my cousin had cash in his wallet.

Took off innocently enough, couldnt help myself and had to show my cousin what its capable of in the wet. Hammered it a few times coming out of round abouts, bit of ass-out fun. All was ok. Pull into the servo, fill up, a car gets pulled over across from the servo...oh oh, i just remembered the cars unregistered. Were in for a long night.

Left the servo and jumped onto the freeway, pottering along trying to figure out why the dash has started blinking at me and why the lights are so dim. Before i had time to think what it could possibly be, she started dieing...fuck, alternator. It was at that point i realised i was lost, so i turned off on Montague St and ended up in the worst spot ever - some little side/onramp st next to the west gate freeway. To top it off id lost my cousin too and had no melway.

I start off by kicking back in the freezing cold on the phone to my mrs, waiting for my cousin to find me. He had got lost on the other side of the city in the process...how that happened he wasnt sure. Meanwhile, im shitty myself because im stopped at a busy intersection in the city with lots of traffic, and lots of police cars driving by. Surely one of the cops would become interested in a broken down car and would find its being driven unrego'd....but they kept going.

While i was sitting there waiting a silver Piazza turbo drove past me. The owner noticed the Piazza and turned his head and looked, but didnt stop. Is that anyone here? Its abit of a shame he didnt stop to help a fellow Piazza driver...mustve been in a hury or something. Anyway, cousin finally makes it to the car after 1hour and we get it jumped started.

While the car is idling we decided to make a plan of attack. Illegal u turn over the gutter, down lorimer st, down todd st and into the service station off the westgate where id buy a new battery and hope its got enough in it to get me home. So i pull the u turn, off the gutter and take off. Look in the review and a cop car has stopped next to my cousin whos facing the wrong way. Fuck. I see him waving go go so i took off and kept going. Later he told me it was one of the EPA vans who asked why he was facing the wrong way. He told them he was jumpstarting a mate so they let him off.

Meet up at the servo only to find out they dont sell batteries. We decided to let the car idle off the Commodores battery for abit and hopefully charge up. We kill a coffee, cousin kills a deck of smokes and just before were about to take off the idle suddenly drops and the oil pressure light goes on...thats not a good sign. Ah well, topped it up with oil and booted off.

Alls well for about 15mins. Managed to get over the westgate bridge, onto the Western ring road and then cop the dreaded de-de-de-dead. Stopped on the side of the freeway near roadworks, so i went to talk to the blokes working. They ended up being two young blokes who were into gemis so we sat there talking or about an hour. Turns out hed heard of the Piazza but never seen it, said he reckoned it looked cool. My cousin started laughing at which point he said it looked like a door wedge. It came time to go, so they stopped the flow off traffic so my cousin could swing a u turn and get back on. They told us not to be shy, so i gave the piazza a bootfull of revs and held a burnout for the best part of 30m.

It didnt last long though, as if to say fuck you for doing the burnout it spat the dummy and died again just after sunshine. My cousin was getting pissed off [join the club buddy] and he had work at 6am 2morrow [so did I] so i decided id take him home and go back with another battery and some other mates. Times like this you find out who your real mates are - not many of them would get out of bed at 1am to go on a wild goose chase. Picked up the bmw, some tools and the battery out of my cousins smashed 306 and away we went.

Maybe my luck changed, because once the Pug battery went in the thing started first go. We took off hammering and the thing was fine, going from sunshine to mill park without any dramas. After this i was only faced with little dramas, such as the bonnet begining to lift whilst demonstrating how quickly i could run away from the BMW in 3rd....

Got to the suburbs, thought fuck it ill teach the car a lesson. Went for the "drift lap" and now i know why so many motoring journos hated em. The ass end flicks out hard and fast [much like the gemini] but the front end wont play ball so the things all over the joint. It feels messy as inside the car, but my mates reckon it looked crazy outside.

At this point i finally got the car home. Sorry about the long essay. Id like to thank a few people - Rodeobob [he was the first person i hassled for ideas what to do lol], my cousin Dace, and the boys - Rowen and Paul.

Ill have photos up as soon as i get my camera back.

Nick-