Dia 6: Aguascalientes-Zacatecas

Our night here was spent at the Hotel Fiesta Americana and the morning was leisurely in that today's start wasn't until noon. After a big breakfast and walk around near the hotel, we decided to go downtown and see what was happening at the main market. A short cab ride showed us that Aguascalientes mercado was interesting but nothing special, unless you wanted to buy a sombrero like I did.

The start was at the same park from the night before, with everyone lined up so pictures could be taken and the cars viewed by the admiring fans. It was a day of short transit and speed sections, only about 130 miles, until we reached the edge of Zacatecas and its La Bufa. La Bufa is the name of a small mountain that rises about 500 ft above the city, the names meaning having something to do with a pigs kidney, I think from the shape of the rock at the top.

This section is as notable and infamous as Mil Cumbres with a much different look to it. It's at 8200 ft. in elevation, in high desert rather than forest, so as turns are made you're seeing a sweeping panorama spread out below you. This section is one of the biggest challenges of the race and the entire seven days. There have been many serious accidents here, if you've seen the Pink Floyd race video on the La Carrera, this is there they lost both of their cars, and more recently in 2005, the spectacular crash involving our pal Gerie Bledsoe. If you want to see what spectacular looks like, here's the video... www.youtube.com/watch?v=yCTKlWNKpSo Amazingly, only a broken bone and no serious injures.

The first thing I remember was about our start at La Bufa, as we slowly moved forward to the Z control, is me being out of the car, with the backdoor open, fiddling with the video camera trying to get it to work, and Rick saying "git in and buckle up before they give us a penalty". Needless to say, there is no video of our first run at La Bufa.

The pre-start of this section begins on an uphill that crept along slowly, so, the go, the stop, the move up, the wait, to get to the green flag was a grind on our clutch, our possible Achilles Heel. But as always, the Chevy hung tough, and finally the flag goes up and we're away.

One thing we had been told about was a weird turn at the top of the first hill to watch out for, it looked like you could go left but it was a sharp right turn. It was something like, oh yea, here we come over a crest, here's a junction, left looks good, except there's a crowd of spectators and orange cones and it's a really a 3 right.... whoops.... that could have been ugly!!

There's a couple other spots where you can get confused, that seemed to happen to a '54 Ford that started in front of us. As we came around a sweeping turn, they were just reorienting themselves after a spin at what looked like a freeway off-ramp and once they straightened out, we tailed them to the finish. That was about all the excitement for the first run, we thought, which ended with our lunch break. The stop was at a Pemex station, and as we siestaed, news started to filter in about an accident. It turned out that the good looking '52 Chevrolet of Mike Anderson and Steve Warwick had flipped over an embankment, and been destroyed. Neither one was badly injured although Steve received some battery acid burns, but nothing broken. Before we left, we watched Doug Mockett's crew working hard to keep his car running and in the race with a faulty clutch.

The last run of the afternoon was La Bufa in the other direction, this time we were ready for the turn at the top of the hill, and it still spooked us. The arrival arch was next to a pink cathedral and the drive to it being through the city's winding, narrow streets. Everyone parked in front of the church and the reception seemed to be more enthusiastic than some of the others.

The beautiful city of Zacatecas was founded in the mid 16th century after silver was discovered. It continues to to be a center for silver mining and is still the largest producer in Mexico. It's definitely a place I would like to go back to explore more thoroughly.

Tonight was Halloween and kids were dressed in costumes all around, all kinds of kids. The next day was "Dia de Muerto" or "Day of the Dead" and signs of it were everywhere. The night is also special because it's the last one before the end of the race. It has a tradition of the "tequila walk" from the center of town to the drivers meeting where a burro carries a cask of tequila and everyone drinks from miniature cups worn around their necks to be refilled as often as needed.

Our squad had decided to settle in for a steak dinner at Garufa and as the festivities stopped at the restaurant, we were able to indulge in a few shots as we waited for dinner.



After dinner Rick and Scott decided to go hunt for silver bling bling, while I headed to the meeting with the Camaro crew. Tonight the drivers meeting was held at the Hotel Quinta Real, which was once an actual bullring built in the 1800's. We found some seats up high on the sides and watched the evenings ceremonies below. Afterwards, I spent a few minutes watching the crew with the '57 Chevy change their engine out front of the hotel and that was enough for me, so I grabbed a cab back to my hotel. Tomorrow is day seven, the last day of the race, and tonight has some brought thoughts about the last two weeks of preparation and racing, meeting new friends, and everything thats happened in the last two years. Ah but before getting to caught up in that, we have to make it to the finish line and one last big blow out tomorrow night in Nuevo Laredo. Today we are in 25th place, 6th in class.

Next time: Dia 7 - Zacatecas-Nuevo Laredo

Please see - www.lcp2009.blogspot.com

Dia 5: Morelia - Aguascalientes

Today was another early start and it was back to Mil Cumbres to drive it in the reverse direction. The day started with some foggy overcast and Rick requesting not to be told how many sections or how far we had to go. By the time we arrived at the hill both the sun and Rick had started to come around.
Again, the velocity sections here were cut short like the previous day, because of gravel and trees on the road. The day before had been disappointing at our first attempt on Mil Cumbres because of all the buzz about its dangers, which in fact is true, but we were just too cautious. There's nothing wrong with being careful, but

today called for... a little more oomph... some real gusto and worry later if the life insurance policy was paid up. And what we ended up with was a much more satisfying run, not a worlds record, but much better than the the day before and preferable to the lead Mustang in our class which formed a very close relationship with a tree, and put them out of commission for the day. In watching some of our in-car video, what was really tough about the drive today on Mil Cumbres was with the early morning light coming through the trees and driving into sun with the shadows across the road, it's dark into bright and with so many turns, it becomes intensely challenging.

Two more speed sections took us out of the pine forests and the state of Michoacan, past a large lake, to a transit of almost 150 miles toward Leon. After a lunch stop, the hills north of Leon held the last speed sections, before the long, flat, and fast drive into Aguascalientes. Another demanding day of about 300 miles.

The finishing arch was at a park on the far side of town that had a large covered area in the back, where a number of the cars put in for the night and did repairs, including us. Today the Terra Trip's probe went on the blink, which was OK, we never did get the darned thing dialed in anyway. As was always the case, there were pretty young women everywhere, serving up free cold beer, doing advertising for companies, and tonight, draping themselves all over a Porsche for a photo shoot.

The night moved from outside to inside as the dinner and drivers meeting were also held here. As usual it would go long, but tomorrow we have a treat, a late start at noon.

The picture of our three colleagues at our table has some meaning, Steve Walters looks like I felt...beat! The other two, Mike Anderson and Steve Warwick will take on meaning in the next challenge, La Bufa.

Today we are 21st, 5th in class.


Next Time: Dia 6 - Aguascalientes - Zacatecas

Please see - www.blogspot2009.blogspot.com

Dia 4: Queretaro - Morelia

My notes get shorter and say less as the days go on, but today one sentence stands out, "this has all become a blur". Today we drove Mil Cumbres, which roughly means "a thousand peaks" and what feels like a thousand turns. Mil Cumbres is one of the most famous segments of the Carrera, this is arguably the most dangerous part of the entire race, thats had numerable crashes and a few deaths.

The day was one of short speed sections and long, seemingly uphill transits. Once at the top of the mountain, the start of this section was delayed, which gave everyone a chance to look at

fantastic scenery and brought a
rush on the timing officials by anxious navigators waving time cards. For me, and I think Rick, this was our moment of highest anxiety, waiting for this start, because of all we had heard and read regarding Mil Cumbres. The word on the delay was that the section had been cut short because of loose gravel from repaving and fallen trees on the road because of logging. It turned out that the section was shortened by about 9k because of this. It would have been better for us if the entire portion

had been cut, as we flat out did poorly. Our philosophy for the race was, 1: to finish and 2; as they say when you rent a car in Mexico "no dents". This thinking led us to run a very, very conservative section, so much so that we were passed by, dare I say it... a Ford. Uggggch!

The stories of Mil Cumbres seem always to have living and/or deceased animals on the road, our version included a dead horse, a few alert cows who watched us go by and tree trunk or two. And there's always a few

rocks, whether placed there by enthusiastic locals or Mother Nature, it makes for interesting driving.
After our drive into beautiful Moreila, our evening was filled with changing all the fluids in the Chevelle, which is running excellent, and attending another late drivers meeting. Our thoughts for tomorrow focus on doing a better job driving Mil Cumbres again.
Today we are 36th overall, 6th in class.

Next Time: Dia 5 - Morelia - Aguascalientes

Please see - http://lcp2009.blogspot.com

Dia 3: Puebla - Queretaro

This day was big, we got to race through downtown Mexico City. Somehow, the organizers of the Carrera Panamericana, have connections to shut the roads, on a Sunday, in the middle of the worlds largest city, to let a bunch of gringos go as fast as they can for 5 or 6 kilometers down the
freeway. It was a first, I think, for the

modern Carrera. The drive toward the city was beautiful, but cold, a winding freeway through pine forests that looked like somewhere near Monterey California. But as we got closer, it became stop and go... mostly stop. The route book was very precise with its directions, but we just hoped the Porsche in front of us knew where they were going. The stop and go traffic for miles upon miles

reminded us that we were dealing with a clutch that was fragile at best. We all finally made it to a stretch just off the freeway and waited while the Federales and Transit Police cleared the last cars off the road. When our turn came, it was just "pedal to the metal " and lets see how fast the ol' Chev could go. We ran a "rev limiter", which was set at 6000 RPM, so when I peaked over at the speedometer, we were at about 130MPH on the red line. The one thing about this was there were two slight hill crests we went over, and at top speed all the weight of the car comes off the suspension making for a feeling of lightness that makes things interesting in an old car at these speeds.
( Here's a link to a video for a ride through Mexico City in a Porsche GT3... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gfbEYlQqmhs

As we came to the end of the freeway and a toll booth, we were supposed to turn off toward a service stop for lunch. Somehow the navigator missed that one, and we just kept on going down the highway. You never want to miss these stops because of penalties, unsigned time cards, and who knows what, so our idea was to turn around and get back to where we were supposed to be. This particular toll road had no where to get off for about 8 or 9 miles, and naturally when we did get turned around, here came everyone passing us the other way. Another trip through the toll booth, and a mad dash to catch the stragglers.

The day continued in the mountains outside of Queretaro with some long downhill sections that were tough on brakes. I remember being passed by a Team Tangerine Porsche 356 in the curves that made us feel slow. The last speed section was held at the Autodromo in Queretaro. This is a newer race track that was... quirky, peculiar, odd, take your pick. Now, I don't know much about race track design, but this one didn't seem to have much of a "flow" to it, but we only had to run 6 laps not 500, so no big deal. The idea here was to get through the laps with no dents and no problems. The cars were let out a few at a time, and we somehow began tangling with a Volvo. We were faster in the straights but they would catch us in the turns, which caused them to start honking at us. Honking... on a race track... what's with that?!?

Another long day, about 275 miles, but with pretty smiling faces and cold beer awaiting our arrival in Queretaro, all was well for today. Tomorrow is Mil Cumbres. Today we are 20th overall, 4th in class.



Next Time: Dia 4- Queretaro - Morelia

Dia 2: Tehuacan - Puebla

The reception in Tehuacan was something not to forget. The dinner and drivers meeting was numbing, my notes tell of a band playing, some very pretty girls and the highlight being afterwards, a guy with a contraption on his head like bulls horns, loaded with fireworks, pinwheels and fountains going off, chasing would be Matadors around, as they gave him the "OLAY". It was a good time.
Another 6 AM rise, breakfast and off to find time cards and the starting order. Today the landscape changed to the look of high desert, lots of cactus, rolling hills with the Sierra Madre in the backround. The first speed stages we ran were fast and clean ......we done good! Not so for one of the Corvettes, a 60's Stingray that burnt to a crisp. As we came over a pass during a morning speed stage, we saw a plume of smoke in the valley ahead. In Mexico, they're always burning something, so as we passed the flames and it did not look like a Corvette, we didn't think much about it. Later we found out that the pilot and co-pilot just got did get out before it completely melted. This was a day for accidents, a beautiful black Mercury went off road and over an embankment with no injures and a slightly spectacular head-on involving a Facal Vega, a Studebaker and a civilians car during a transit section. I think there were a couple others that I didn't make note of. What was noted were the "topes" that day. That's prononuced "toe-pay", and basically they are speed bumps, but that doesn't do them justice. They come in all shapes and sizes, everything from a "Botts Dot" to standard, rounded top ones to something more like a parking barrier. The good thing is they keep small towns from having traffic from going full speed down Main St. The worst is having to drive over seemingly hundreds of them in a lowered race car. And there's always a stray one that's not marked, and that's when you want to make sure your exhaust is bolted on tight.
Today we also had an event that I have a special memory of, passing two cars during a speed stage. I don't know why, but an Alfa Romero and a Porsche 356 started ahead of us, halfway through the stage we caught the Porsche who had caught the Alfa. We both got around the Alfa Romero and a couple turns after that, we got past the Porsche. Navigating while passing cars takes some focus to not just start watching the show, but...OOOOWEE BABY, it sure is fun!!
My last remembrances of this day were of a pink church on a hillside during a transit and gorgeous flower orchards in valleys we crossed. Also in our sights, as we were heading toward Mexico City, there were the two volcanoes, Pico de Orizaba and Popocatepetl with snow capped peaks. Our next day would take us racing through downtown Mexico City.
Today we are 28th overall, 7th in class.

Next Time: Dia 3 - Puebla - Queretaro

Please see: www.lcp2009.blogspot.com

Dia 1: Oaxaca - Tehuacan

The nights sleep was a sound one for me, with no dreams of flying.....off cliffs, or turning browsing cows into tenderloin. Our morning routine had been to eat breakfast at the Hotel Victoria and that stayed the same. Since we would now be only staying overnight in hotels we were packed, and Scott, being our lead mechanic and bellboy, got all our stuff to our truck and was off early to meet us down the road. Time had come for us to suit-up, and find our place at the start. All our days supplies were packed in the car, camel backs full of water - check,... snacks for the road - check,... full tank of gas - check,... all switches on - check, all was good. The Chevy was parked on the steep downhill at the hotel, and I do mean steep. Rick settles in, ready to go, pushes the start button..... click, ...nothing..., zero..., car doesn't start. I start thinking, maybe I'm still asleep, and am now just having a bad dream. Rick is thinking, we left something on, and drained the battery. We are on the long downhill, so a rolling start in obvious, except it won't start. We get to the bottom of the hill and still, ...nothing. Now we're at the bottom of the hill, with a sharp left hand turn that leads us through some flat lands toward the hotels main entrance. Looks like it's time for some morning exercise for the co-driver, and fortunately there were a couple of the hotels gardeners nearby who helped with the pushing, as the flat lands weren't exactly flat. And still, we have no start. Just before getting to the last bit of downhill, out the driveway and into traffic, we tried turning the main outside battery switch off and back on again, and we get a start. It turned out, that switch was bad and could have failed anytime that first day. We wound up bypassing it later on, and all was fine.
The Victoria wasn't too far from the Zocalo and as we got closer, the crowd got bigger, until the crowds and traffic became one big entity. The transit police finally got us to where we needed to be and we had enough time to get out and take a some pictures and say a few hellos.

It was time to get the show on the road and now we were moving toward the ceremonial starting arch and I'm thinking " WOW, this is it, this is what we worked almost two years getting ready for, and now it's time to go, go go!" As we became the next car to start, Eduardo Leon, the main man, gave us the 'ol keep the rubber side down speech, and a thumbs up, and we were on our way. The first stage was the same stage as qualifying, but longer, and the ride out of town was an exercise in waving and horn honking to the gathered locals.
Once there, as might be expected, at the first stage, on the first day, had it's confusion finding the time cards, starting order, the official time and various other ingredients you need as a co-pilot. But as with most things in Mexico, with a little patience, it works out. The big news of the morning was having one of the Mustangs in our class removed to the exhibition class for having aluminum heads. Surprisingly it's sister car was not DQ'ed, a better paint job on the heads, I would think.
So now starts the beginning of the speed sections, where the actual timing occurs, these being between two to about ten miles long each. The line of cars moves up until you get to the first control, where you had over your time card, wait, move to the next control, time card, wait, and next is the countdown and the green flag.

And....... we're off! To try and tell about every section or even the day, forget it, I can't hardly remember anything, and I didn't take that great a notes. I do remember a few choice moments though, that I'll drop in. We were on the road to Tehuacan, which would take us through Huitzo and Asuncion Nochixtlan, on to Telixtlanhuaca and through Cuicatlan to Teotitlan de Flores Magon, Zinacatepec and finally Tehuacan. Now if you've never heard of any of these places, that's understandable because they are on some way back roads north of Oaxaca. Absolutely gorgeous country. The first section had probably our most memorable moment of the day, as we caught and passed the Mustang that started in front of us. That only lasted for a few minutes as he repassed us at the finish of the section, but it's always fun to pass somebody.... and never fun to be passed.

At the service stop, we met up with Scott, had some lunch, filled the car with gas and on to another speed section. The day wound down to a last transit into Tehuacan of about 75k. Now I believe Tehuacan had never hosted the Carrera as an overnight stop, but the race has been through here a number of times. These guys were ready! As always, in the transit sections, there were people lining the road, waving and cheering us all on, and entering Tehuacan was no different, except maybe a little more enthusiastic. This wasn't the first time Rick or I had finished a race in Mexico, being in the Chihuahua Express, but the these folks were going nuts! I remember driving toward the Zocalo and the finishing arch, handing over our time cards and getting the first of seven daily finishing medals, put around our necks by beautiful Oaxican girls and then driving around to try and park. There was a stage with a band playing, dancing girls, a DJ, all at about 11 on the volume scale. The place was packed! As we crept along, autograph books, t-shirts, posters, scraps of paper, babies? were thrust through the window for us to sign. After finally getting parked and out of the car, we started handing our "El Platillo Volador" postcards, which were a big hit. These people wanted stuff , whether it was an autograph, a picture holding their baby or one next to the car, or a hello and a smile, it was great! These folks were into it! All the rest of the end of the day ceremonies were fun, but this was the best. As more cars pulled into park it got even more crowded and crazy. One of the Studebaker's decided to have a small engine fire just as it got to where we were parked, causing even more excitement. With that put out, Chip Johns and I scampered off and brought back some beers, and we all hung out for another couple of hours till having to go off and find our hotels. And just to mention, the Chevy ran terrific, what a great car.

And finally came dinner, the drivers meeting and days awards with fireworks, pretty girls, music, all good. Again, this one was better of these affairs because I hadn't yet realized how late they would go, and they didn't pass out the information we were waiting for until the very end, making us all a very captive audience. But when all was said and done, this was one of the

all-time great days for me to remember from the Carrera.

The first day was about 285 miles total, tomorrow is on to Puebla.

Today we are 28th overall, 7th in class.

This days blog is dedicated to Jerry Churchill, who died in 2008.

Next Time: Dia 2: Tehuacan - Puebla

We Be Qualified

Thursday was the day for qualifying, this was to get a starting order for the race and for your own class. Qualifying is not mandatory, you would just start at the back of the pack if you decided not to do it. A few of the cars had mechanical problems and some were still trying to get through tech inspection, but it looked like a pretty good crowd was going to make it. Qualifying was scheduled to start about 3pm, so again, the morning was spent at the ballpark. Now is where you started to find out about the little things in the race, like giving out the starting times for qualifying and the time cards. This process started about 10 am and was put off, delayed, and postponed through the early afternoon.

As chasing the time card was what I was doing, Rick was busy helping in removing the engine from the other Chevelle that was in the race. The guy loves working on cars, any car.

Our start time was about 3:30, we got changed at the stadium and started out at 2 pm to find our spot, with Scott taking off with the Sayther BMW crew. The drive out was the same way we came into the city and took us to a toll road where everyone was making some good time at high speeds. On the last downhill, before getting off, going about 100 mph, we got on the brakes pretty good, and whatduya know, the oil pressure light comes on, never ever a good sign. We stopped to see what's the problem, if we have an oil leak or what. We decide that it was from hard braking, going downhill, and maybe not enough oil in the car. Who knew it took 9 quarts!?

Everyone seemed to be there a little early, so we chatty chitted with who ever was parked next to us till things started to move forward. It finally got to be our turn to start, and we had taken the words at an earlier drivers meeting to heart,"

DON'T CRASH DURING QUALIFYING", which meant, we were going to take this real easy. Which we did. Easy enough to get caught by the Bill Shanahan Corvette with about three turns left. Rick let them by as he could, but when we got to the turn around, Shanahan made mention that he thought we were "blocking him". Now that's a good one, since we got over as soon as he came up behind us. He realized after talking with us that he was a bit anxious and all was well. The drive back to Oaxaca was less eventful than the drive out, and that night at a government building we were wined and dined. This was the first of many nights of speeches by race and state officials, as we waited to get the piece of paper...... the one with the results and the next days starting order. Number 377 would be starting 30th. As that only became available at the end of each meeting, we were in for some late nights. But so it goes, outside afterwards was a fiesta showing off traditional Oaxican dance and dress, very cool, and that's what makes Mexico so great.

Next Time: Dia 1: Oaxaca - Tehuacan