Queensland - beautiful one day, tropical downpour the next..... The weather forecasters spoke of "scattered showers" throughout Sunday. That sounded good enough for Dad and I to head down to Sanctuary Cove for the monthly Cobra Club breakfast. There was no rain for the first 40 kilometres or so, then it just drizzled a little as we got closer to the coast.
Just as we're parking the car - DOWN IT COMES !!!! Absolutely pouring down - best guess was that around 4 inches of rain fell within an hour, blocking all exits to Sanctuary Cove. Southbound had nearly 5 feet of water over the road
Northbound only had a measly foot and a half - still more than enough to stop traffic.
There were only 4 Cobras that braved the weather, so after the roads opened, Dad and I rugged up and headed off, just behind John White (King Cobra at Nationals - 400TT). No more than 200 metres down the road, the realisation that my engine, a full spool rear end, 11" wide tyres, and most importantly NO WINDSCREEN WIPERS was going to make the drive home somewhat of a challenge. I was sitting so that my face was above the windscreen, as I couldn't see a single thing through the screen. Raindrops feel like hailstones, and tilting my head backwards to peek over the screen meant that rain was also going up my nose....
Thank goodness we made along the highway to the first service station to buy some Rain-X. That made all the difference, and then it was just down to the matter of keeping the car on the road. Once I could see where I was going, the drive wasn't anywhere near as bad as I thought it would be. EVERYBODY that drove past just had to stare at us - whether to give us a thumbs-up, just to smile, or to generally piss themselves laughing at the two guys that were totally saturated in the little sports car....
By the time we got home, the water in the footwells was up to our ankles. I was trying to be gentle when slowing or accelerating - to prevent wheelspin of course, but more importantly to stop the tidal wave of water that would bash both of us in the shins !
Yep - it's safe to say that it'll go down as one of our more memorable drives !
Here's what the driver's seat looked like during the rain.....
