Day 5 of Competition

Day 5 took us back through Mil Cumbres and on to Aguascalientes. We’d had some rain overnight and the roads through Mil Cumbres were slick in places. We took it somewhat easily through the first section of the day while we figured out the condition of the roads. By the end of the first section we were in sight of the Chevy Sportswear Corvette that set off into the stage 30 seconds before us, but Pierre de Thoisy, who had had mechanical problems on the day before and started a minute behind us, was almost on our tail by the end of the section. He was pushing hard to make up for the day before.

(picture courtesy of Bret Haller)

We started the middle section of Mil Cumbres in the same order, this time Rachel’s confidence that the roads were ok was up and we pushed harder, passing the Vette about half way through the stage, and by the end of the section, there was still no sign of Pierre in our mirrors.

Due to the way the timing works for the overall stage, to avoid penalties, we let the Vette back past us before starting the next timed stage. This time we came round a fast corner to find a wall of blue smoke across the road. The Vette engine had let go in a major way and they were off to the side of the road. The smoke was so thick that we had to pause for a couple of moments rather than fly through it, unsure of exactly where we would find the car.

The afternoon sections this day were far more open than Mil Cumbres, allowing the big horsepower cars to claw back the time they had lost on us in the very twisty sections. These sections were so long and so fast we were sure we’d be dropping places on the day. We would have come in about 13^th on the day except for 4 total mechanical failures in the cars in front of us. The Chevy Vette, Shamrock Racings Porsche, Tom, Gerry and Coop’s Mustang, and another Porsche all had mechanical failures that were serious enough to take them out of the race. We finished the day with our highest day finish to date, 9^th on the day and 10^th overall. With only a day and a half of racing to go we were beginning to hope that we would be able to pull off a top 10 finish. It would all depend on the nature of the remaining sections; if they were too fast the Elise wouldn’t stand a chance against the high horsepower cars in the top 20.

The Final Run into Aguascalientes was done with a police convoy, and every single intersection on the way in blocked to give us priority. We flew through the town, red lights and all to get to the finish line. I would just like to apologize to the people of Aguascalientes for making their Tuesday evening commute a total disaster while we went through the middle on clear roads. Sorry. Thank you. Sorry.

Day 5 also had the latest start drivers meeting so far, with half an hour of local interpretive dancing before hand. I don’t want to seem ungrateful, because the welcomes we got at all the towns on the route were tremendous, but I was at the point where the all important things for finishing this race were food and sleep.