Setting a hot pace with some sting in the tale

John Connolly and Michael McMicheal competing in the 2024 Adelaide Rally.

The big question was how did it get in?

In a rally and a race, the windows must be up. But it wasn’t a terribly big bee. Probably a teddy bear bee. Or as we call them in Adelaide, Amegilla Asaropods.

But, despite the cute name, the teddy bear bee is more deadly than the inland taipan, the box jellyfish and the cone shell. Combined.

Not helpful that I was steering around a corner called very dangerous in the pace notes at 115km/h. It was helpful that I had my racing gloves on whereas Mick, as navigator, had his hands exposed and thus very attractive to a death bee as a handy place to inject its stinger – a hollow, thorn-shaped organ at the end of its abdomen that contains venom, into the skin of an unsuspecting older person.

We did what any experienced team competing in the 2024 Adelaide Rally would do. We screamed like girls, boys or others.

But then I noticed the burning smell.

At that moment I was relieved, thinking that smoke soothes bees and makes them lose interest in pushing their hollow, thorn-shaped organs into the skin of a navigator.

But then my left foot started causing me a lot of pain and I realised the smoke and smell were coming directly from my thin leather FIA-approved racing shoe which was pressed against the metal covering the gearbox.

Clearly the electrons in the metal were as excited as Mick and me when we saw the bee because they had made the steel glow blue.

There were obvious choices. Despite the speed and the tarmac road, I could take a lead from Captain Larry “Titus” Oates who, on his way back from a fairly unsuccessful trip to the South Pole, opened the door to the tent he and his mates were sharing and said, “I am just going outside and may be some time”.

The Connolly/McMicheal entrant in the 2024 Adelaide Rally.

Or I could wait for the bee to bite the Sultan and die (the bee not Michal McMichael – so good they named him twice – although come to think of it …). Or I could move my foot; man, woman or other up and continue to the end of the stage where one of The Ritz of servos, the Yasser Shahin-founded OTR petrol, QSR, mini supermarket and coffee station, stood waiting with the best 50c soft serve ice cream in the known metaverse.

Small plug for the Shahins who apart from starting OTR and selling the company for more money than Musky could dream about, founded the southern hemisphere’s best raceway, The Bend. And young Yasser is pretty handy behind the wheel.

To spoil the ending for you, unlike Titus Oates, Mick and I survived, we recorded a top 10 finish and got to spill a few Coopers with Rio Tinto director Dean Dalla Valle, former Foster’s exec and Retromotive owner Zach Hegde, the Donald Trump of pace notes Bernie Webb and lots of Ferrari owners. Overall winners were the team of Alex Rullo, the world’s youngest supercar driver, and Smoothline pace notes co-founder Steve Glenney, with Alex Rullo’s father Peter Rullo and his navigator James Marquet coming in second.

In the best news since 2022, Targa Tasmania will be back next year. One of the world’s great motorsport events around some of the world’s most beautiful country, the rally will start in Hobart on November 16.

“The six-day tarmac rally is for the true motoring enthusiast and will travel a whopping 2000km over the week,” Tassie Minister for Sports and Events Nick Duigan said to us exclusively from the battery of the nation and arts centre of the world thanks to MONA. “We know this event has a massive tourism impact for our state, with 80 per cent of Targa competitors, visitors to Tasmania, travelling from across Australia and overseas to participate. The event attracts over 3500 interstate participants each year, with each staying an average of nine nights in the state.”

I like Nick mainly from his 20 years hosting the national fishing program Hook Line and Sinker, which would also be a great name for a reality series on car dealers like the good folks at Autoleague who also own Boating Co at Freo.

Moving on to F1. Leading up to next weekend’s booze and car fest in Las Vegas we are going to give you some helpful hints on what to do and where to stay. You’ll be pleased to know Michael Jackson is still going strong at the Mandalay Bay, as is David Copperfield at the MGM Grand, and our Australian exports Simon Morely and David Friend are still performing Puppetry of the Penis (probably best you don’t take the kiddies with you to the appropriately named Jewel Box Theatre) where the tricks performed with their wedding tackle include the Big Mac, the Loch Ness monster, the wristwatch, the pelican, the Eiffel Tower, the hamburger, the bulldog, the windsurfer and others.

Our friends at The Black Label recommend the Eureka Casino at 595 E Sahara Ave. “The Eureka is like an ugly person who has smoked for 40 years and then punched themselves in the face for sport. Just slightly larger than a
7-Eleven, it houses more video poker machines than you can shake a tiny stick at, but it does have something that no other casino in Vegas offers: frequently served free drinks! Also, there’s a ridiculously racistly named restaurant called Fat Choy (which is funny because Eureka is actually the only Asian American-owned casino in Vegas). Fat Choy is one of the best-kept secrets in Vegas and serves some of the best boas we’ve ever had. And they also suggest Siegel Slots & Suites.

“Some Vegas hotels/casinos will offer complimentary buffet tickets or seats to a show, but at Siegel they like to spice things up a bit. How about free bloodstains on your mattress, doors that don’t lock, or my personal favourite, piles of puke.”

This year we warned you about EVs like Tesla taking secret videos of you. And The Australian’s Paul Garvey reported that Cyber Security Minister Tony Burke is continuing to drive a Chinese-made electric vehicle that has been likened to a “listening device” on wheels.

This week Mark Sellman from The Times (part of this paper’s global empire) tells us eavesdropping air fryers are sending data to China. Those commies know you’ve been cooking with Aldi ingredients and will threaten to expose you on social media unless you spy on your neighbour who wouldn’t know where China is even if you had a map of the world.

We also hear that ASIO is considering a ban on the $12.49bn worth of machinery, nuclear reactors, and boilers that we import from China every year. Nuclear reactors, what could possibly go wrong?

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