A typical day in the La Carrera.

Yesterday was our first day of proper racing. Despite telling the organizers about their Qualifying screwup, we couldn’t change our start time from 12th position, The race is disorganized enough without trying to make changes at the last minute.

Basically the rules are set up so that you have to go through a checkpoint about 300 yards from the start of the speed section in order, but after that checkpoint, cars can switch order for the running of the speed stage. We knew that we were going to be faster than the cars in front so in that 300 yards we tried to juggle position so that we would be not stuck in traffic. The guys directly in front of us let us move up for the first stage, but the next cars, didn’t want to.

The first stage just went to show how wrong the qualifying time was. In the first 21km stage we passed two cars in front of us, starting 30 seconds and a minute before. We weren’t just quick, we were flying.

Again, because of the rules we had to let the cars that we passed in stage back past us for the Z control. The car 2 places in front showed up and went through the check point, but the car directly in front (a ford falcon) did not. We found out later that the car had slid off first stage. They were able to rejoin the race again the next day.

The second speed section was shorter, only 9 kms, but we again caught the Yellow Volvo of Karl Scheible, who came 3nd in the race last year. The signs were good that we were by far the fastest car out there.

The first Stage after lunch Karl let us by before the run, and again we caught and passed 2 cars in 15kms. All of these cars were fast, so it just went to show how fast we were going. For the start of the forth stage I had persuaded 3 more cars to let us past before the run, that meant that we were running around 4th in the pack. The fourth stage was also very long, and around the 8 kms mark we caught and passed a car that was running the race in fourth. To emphasis that, we were going fast enough that that we were 30 seconds faster than the 4th place car for roughly every 8 kms we ran. The car and Driver were more than quick enough to win this event.

That’s when everything went wrong. In a downhill section with a complex of 4 quick corners, I called the left 3 at the end too late. This was totally my fault, in that as soon as I said it I knew that I hadn’t given Bill the time he needed in a downhill fast section to brake for the corner properly. Bill tried to slow the car down and make the corner, but the back right of the car slid out and hit an earth bank on the right, kicking the car straight. We were on loose rocks, and there was no way that we could slow the car in time. The car bounced up onto an earth berm and down over the edge of the hill. We came to rest with the nose about 10 feet down, and the tail of the car still showing above the edge of the berm.

That will do for now, but this is only the beginning of a shit day. I’ll write more later.

Simply put, The first day was about the worst possible day you can have racing apart from the day where you get hurt. We are fine, but on top of the crash, parts got stolen off the car while it was crashed, A federale wanted about 3000 USD to make a tow truck permit problem go away, and it took 13 hours alone to get the car out of the place it finished up, and a further 3.5 hours to get to the hotel from there. we went to bed about 4am. I'll write the story in more detail later, suffice to say the team's a bit irritated.

Race Over

(Amy posting for Steve again)

Car 108 has retired.
Steve and Bill are both just fine, no injuries, but are very disappointed.

More info to come when Steve can find internet again....

Qualifying Day

(This is Amy posting for Steve because the Internet has died in his hotel)

If you've taken a look at the results for the Qualifying run today, Bill and Steve (listed as Steve Warren, for some reason) are 12th.

This is a mistake. Steve and Bill passed the car that is listed in 4th place during their run, so they have got to be going faster. The current theory is that the timing people got the two finishing times mixed up.

So it looks like the Batmobile should take 30 seconds off its current qualifying time, which makes it 2nd, and that is pretty darn fast.

In case you'd like to track the cars in real time, go to: http://panamericana.waypointinfo.com and click the "Mapa en linea" button. Click on the appropriate day, a little menu will pop up called Tasks. Click on the Race Cars button and select 108, then click Start Tracking to track Bill and Steve's car via GPS!

Day 2. More Tech

We got through Tech today, with only a small problem, the car was deemed to be underweight due to a change in the rules made on the fly. We had an e mail that said the weight could be within 5% of 3300 lbs. They now say it has to be over 3300 lbs. We were within 60lbs at weigh in, so we put an extra battery back in and we are very close with an empty gas tank. by the time we've added all the crap to go racing (water, some tools, etc. We'll be in weight without a problem.

A lot more cars showed up today and if i wasn't connecting to the interweb through a Hamster powered connection i'd post a lot more pictures....



This is Gary Faules' beautiful Mustang. It should be pretty quick...



... And this is Doug Moffet's Oldmoblie. This car is probably the favourite for the overall win, Doug and his professional Co-driver Angelica have spent the last week pre running the whole course, Doug has been doing this event for years, and Angelica has just become the first woman to be inducted into the Mexico Motorsports hall of fame. She didn't collect the award because she was prerunning with Doug. Thats how dedicated she is.

I'm here

Well, I'm here

I'm now in Oaxaca overlooking this view:



I'm here, the cars are rolling in and some of the people got to know last year are showing up. Some with new beautiful cars like this Shelby Daytona Replica,



some with the same car as last year, dents and all.
we've fixed some minor problems with the car and should be teching it tomorrow. We also may try to get it out for a little run which may or may not involve some of the roads we'll be running on Thursday.

This post is a quick placeholder for things important for this years La Carrera Panamericana. I will be Navigating for Bill Beilharz, who is driving his newly reworked 1954 Studebaker commander in the Turismo Mayor class. (the big dog class) we are car 108.
Tuesday and Wednesday the 23rd and 24th October are Registration and Tech
Thursday 25th is Qualifying outside Oaxaca
Friday is Day 1 of Racing, Oaxaca to Tehuacan
Saturday is Day 2, Tehuacan to Puebla
Sunday is Day 3, Puebla to Queretaro
Monday is Day 4, Queretaro to Morelia
Tuesday is Day 5, Morelia to Aguascalientes
Halloween is Day 6, Aguascalientes to Zacatecas
Thursday is Day 7, Zacatecas to the finish line at Nuevo Laredo

Important web sites are www.lacarrerapanamericana.com.mx ,the official site, which should have the results and maybe even a way to track us around the country
Also car108.blogspot.com , Bill's blog.

Obviously I'll do my best to update this as I go.