2008 La Carrera Panamericana

Some cards I made up for Apple Farmer car. These are our calling cards. Kids line the streets yelling for them in every town we go through. It's the first thing we hand the cops when we get pulled over and we give them to the kids with machine guns at the military checkpoints. Next time I will make them in Espanol, duh.

Al was already the Crew Chief

Just made it to Tuxla. The last leg of the trip was on a domestic airline - nervous about the guy next to me genuflecting on take off and landing. Met some folks on the plane to Mexico city and shared a ride to the hotel with a guy who has been running the race since 2000. Lots of excitement here - I am going to the hotel bar to drink beer and talk to peoples. Will try to get good pics at qualifying tomorrow.

Richard and Nate nailed it today and took 1st in the Historic A plus class (4 cylinder euro) . Their qualifying time of 3:09 put them clearly in the lead in not only their class but was actually super-competitive across all of the classes, 19th out of a field of 103(!). Tomorrow is the first day of real driving and is one of the longest days of the race, the team will be in the racecar for > 8 hours of speed and transit stages. Al Ginocchio and I are going to take off early and head for the service area in Oaxaca. Today was light for us, all we did was an oil change, some clutch adjustments and swapping out the sticky tires for our long-distance rubber. I forgot the cord for my Nikon but I should get some stills up tomorrow from the tech area and the qualifying. Stuff is pretty disorganized yet somehow functional through this whole event. It's really a control-freak's nightmare. People eventually end up in the right place and everyone is happy with "it's Mexico..." as the (non-pejorative) explanation for how things go with the organization of the race. The state of Chiapas is beautiful. We are surrounded by mountains in a near tropical climate - we are very close to Guatemala. The parking lot of the hotel is full of locals who want to come and talk to the drivers and take pictures of the cars. This event is bigger than I understood it to be. The people here are very proud of it and I think the sendoff tomorrow will be terrific.

Al muscles the truck across insane roads.

This guy is a maniac. He lives about 20 miles down the road in Austin.

This is one of 2 Curtis cars built specifically for the 1954 race. The race was canceled before either car was able to run it. It has a big Lincoln under the hood - very interesting.

Oddvar helps us with some front end issues, some cars in the transit stage.

Way to Mx City

We replace the melting poly bushings with rubber in exactly the right amount of time

Nate holds up our finishing medal for the run to Zacatecas. Nate is a treetop cropduster for the Royal City flying company. He's also a certified aircraft mechanic and owns his own stunt plane. He likes to fly backwards in his plane at 100mph in a spiral. Our team has firepower. Here is Nate explaining the route book: pics.1800philes.com/edit_test.mov

Duct tape is strong stuff. That will buff out.

Lister racer

Jo was one of the motorsports icons in the race.

Colonial city, very historic with lots of local silver manufacturing.

These guys became great friends with us. Their 444 went off road on day 1 and I was sure they were out. They had the car towed to a baseball stadium in Oaxaca and pulled the front end damage out with a come along. They fought bushing problems and cooling problems all the way to the finish line with us. Rugged, smart people.

Everybody is a character on this race. No lack of imagination here.

Nate purchased this mexican flag sarapi so he could blend in with the locals.

The car finally came back together. All week we've been struggling with clutch issues. A combination of heavy pressure plate and incorrect throwout bearing bent our clutch fork, broke actuator rods and kept us under the car all week. On day 4 in San Luis Potosi we decided to pull it all apart and fix it. We worked all night lying in puddles of 40 degree water with 10 mph winds. Still didn't take so we had to sit out the next day (AguasCalientes). Needless to say everyone was pissed and depressed and beat up. We had a meeting and put all options on the table. We decided to carry on to AguasCalientes and take a 3rd try at the transmission issues. Oddvar, Nate and I figured out the issue, modified some parts and got it back together. Luckily we had a warm garage to sit and think about things in a non-raining/freezing environment and fix the damn thing for good. The next day Richard and Nate told us to bolt up the sticky tires we used for qualifying and they went out and destroyed the speed stages. Last night in Zacatecas we took 1st on the podium in the oldest bullfighting ring in Mexico. All of us were wasted on tequila and personal satisfaction and the whole team went up to the podium together. Big night for us. If the car had worked correctly we could have been first overall - missed day means we may make 3rd in our class which is no small accomplishment. Hells yes.

We finally solve the problem with the clutch. The Throwout bearing does not work with the volvo fork. We ground the guide lip off and bolted it back together. Oddvar liked the apple farmers and became an unofficial member of our team. He was born in Norway and spent too much time in Alaska before moving to WA.

Did I mention we pulled the transmission 3 times?

Dean had two of the mustangs on his team wreck. He said one actually landed on top of another one. "If you can still push it onto the trailer it's not that bad".

Yes, that was a GT350.

After hours of humping the service truck through nauseating, sketchy mountain roads we exit into a valley.

This was near the end of a particularly insane speed stage. Just a little more tire...

These small mountain communities were unique and isolated.

Studebakers everywhere. This guy is about to launch into a speed stage.

Part of today's speed stage was a 30 mile long straightaway. Guys were holding the gas down and pushing as hard as their engines and aerodynamics would let them go. Our volvo got to about 130, some of the studebakers were clocked on radar going 185+.

This banquet was at the cultural center on Nuevo Laredo. Awards were given out for overall and the various classes. The winners were sent off to be weighed and checked for violations. Even engine displacement was measured. A brilliantly engineered black studebaker took first overall.

Oddvar's team digging the fancy grub. These guys ran another 122 in our class.

We weren't expecting this. We bumped a porsche to win 3rd. Not bad for a bunch of farmers.

Mmmmm, tastes like winning.

Al kicked 10 tons of ass in this race.

7days of fighting automotive entropy to a standstill.

Mexican army has mandatory service for young men. We rode across the border with the racecar in the trailer. Nate flew back to Royal City and Richard and Al stayed with us in Austin for a night before heading North. Everyone is scheming for next year. I'll be in grad school and may have other responsibilities but I know we can win it if we get back down there.