Day 4

It felt good to be back in the race, and right before the best roads, we were driving Mil Cumbres, 1000 corners. We had a stage before that where I could get used to to Mike and the new car. Turns out that things were a little more sedate than the Studebaker with Bill. I started calling corners only to wind up 3 corners ahead of Mike before we got to the first corner.

The car was not fast, but Mike did everything he could with it. There were some corners where with the body roll I thought I could lean out the window and touch the road.

We got to Mil Cumbres with some sort of rhythm sorted out between the Driver and Co-driver. Unfortunately that rhythm didn't seem to involve the car, which really didn't like to idle at the high altitude. It stalled many times at we waited for out chance to run, In one case flooding just as the green flag dropped on us.

There were also a couple of clues that Mike was not taking the event as seriously as Bill,During the Mil Cumbres sections, on a notoriously difficult road, I could hear Mike laughing from the drivers seat. It was all I could to to keep from laughing as well and continue with calling the corners.

Later in the same stage we lost about a minute as the jerry rigged wire for the fuel pump became disconnected and we coasted to a halt wondering what was wrong. Despite all those problems, Mike drove well considering our equipment and we finished in the top half of the day. We were well pleased.

In the evening, Mike sorted out the flooding idle by adjusting the jetting of the carb, and welded up the front sway bar that had broken its bracket during the stage.