At the Toyo Tires visitors carpark which is allllll the way out the back.

This was framed up on the wall in the boardroom. An aerial shot of the Toyo building in Minto. SO HUGE!!!!!

I’ve been a Toyo fan ever since my first set of R888 semi-slicks which I purchased many years ago. I’ve had plenty of sets actually, on various cars (Jazz, MX-5, EG Civic, DC2R, Golf GTI, all of which were daily drivers too). Sure, semi’s aren’t perfect for daily driving duties, they’re noisy and not great in the wet, but this is where the R888 is different to the rest. I find that they warm up DAMN fast on the street. A couple of blocks from home and they’re good to go. I also find them pretty good in the wet (but wet grip gets quite drastically worse as tyres wear out). I also generally just love how fat they look. Fat rubber is where it’s at IMHO. Always has been, always will be. It’s just so tough looking (I hate how weak stretched tyres look).

Anyways, to cut a long story short. I’ve been in discussions with Toyo since putting on a fresh set of R888’s on my GT-R at the end of March. I had my car under their tent at EOMM and got to meet the team. We had a bit of a chat on the night at EOMM. It seems like Toyo has been MIA since they stopped sponsoring the drifting. I’m just really happy that the brand is participating in community related events again.

Today I drove out to their HUGE HQ in Minto for a meeting. I was humbled by some of the discussion we had inside. These guys are pretty hungry to make a comeback, they seem to like what I do, and since I’m already a fan of the brand, sponsorship feels like a really good fit.

So yes! I’m officially sponsored by Toyo. Hopefully I’ll be testing out the new R888R on the GT-R soon and getting more involved with Toyo moving forward. Should be an awesome collaboration. More news and details to come!

Just a bit of an update. It’s all bad news, pretty much!!!! I’m pretty careful with my wheels, but yeahhhhh. This happened. Drivers side. Worst feeling in the world (and yes… I lost sleep!).

Turns out it happened on the wheel which already had some slight rash on it (which was already there when I bought the car).

Jack from Beyond Limit Autos (who built my car at Ramspeed and is now at Advan Performance in Auburn) has my supercharger parts, but before booking Jack in to service my supercharger I had to do a major service with Dedy at Top One Auto. Long story short, but that was meant to be MY NSX! I had already agreed to a price, and was about to book a plane to go get it, but a mate ended up offering the buyer more, so I bought Jose’s Golf instead!

The NSX’s spare, so cool!

First issue. Hood strut is leaking and can’t hold the hood up anymore.

Now onto some serious problems. The vented bonnet lets water in. Water has been building up around the coil packs and they’ve rusted in place so badly that it’s taken the guy over 4 hours to get them out. Worst thing is one is still stuck!!!!!!!!!!!

It gets worse… it’s so rusted up in there that the guys can’t even get a socket in to remove the spark plugs!!!!!!!!!

So, one coil pack is still stuck. Fingers crossed that last one will come out. THEN the guys have to remove the spark plugs. If one of them happens to break on removal I could be in for some serious shit. IE: Engine might have to come out (cylinder head removal).

EDIT: Got a late night call from Dedy at Top One. Great news! All plugs are out! Major service has been done! All good to go! PHEW!

Today I’m at Sydney Motorsport Park to back Chris Lazarevic in his next race in the Zen x Jirat Formula Ford race car. Whilst Chris has Simmy’s support (she’s a good woman!) Chris is doing everything else solo. IE: He has no team. Qualifying didn’t go well due to lack of track time and after changing out springs (on his own), Chris forgot to adjust tyre pressures before going out for Race #1, where he made up a couple of spots only to lose them in a spin. Hard on himself but he’s doing well. It’s only race #1 of round 2 and he’s up the pointy end.

Round 2 is held over two days, today (Saturday qualifying & race 1) and tomorrow (Sunday race 2 & race 3). There’s heaps to see! Radicals, Improved Production cars, Super Sports cars, was a great day out despite the rain.

Tickets at the door! Click here for more info.