Day 1 of Competition

Day one of racing proper and we had drilled into us once again that 50% of the crashes in previous years have occurred in the morning of the first day. We were gridded according to qualifying times, which meant that we were mixing with some pretty quick cars (Modern Nascar cars with 1950s bodies. Some of these vehicles cost over $200k. We were a bit nervous. Half way through the first stage of the first day we came across the first wreck. A beautiful 50s Chevy pointing the wrong way for the corner and flipped over on its side. We knew that car is one of the more expensive ones here. These guys are crazy.

The first section was very good for us, nice twisty mountain roads with smooth tarmac. There were only a couple of tricky features on this section, a tight right hairpin at a junction, with the outside of the junction lined with people, and a couple of turns onto narrow bridges. The bridges were only about 6 ft above a small river, but with no rail whatsoever, it made for an interesting corner.

We took it relatively easy on that section while still working on our communication. No drama, just smooth, quick, driving. Our confidence climbed a little.

The next section took all the confidence away again. The surface of the road was broken up and very bumpy. There had also been a very half assed attempt to repair it by filling the worst offenders with loose asphalt, which was coming back out of the holes with every passing car and spreading gravel all over the road. We decided to coast that section. It just wasn’t worth the potential damage to the car to push at all.

The transition to the next speed section was probably in the worst condition I had ever seen. There were potholes all over the place, which were big enough to take a wheel off the car no problem: 6-8” deep and 2-3ft across. And they were all over the road. The weird thing was that the road was very smooth and in good condition apart from these holes. We picked our way through them very carefully.

The final stage before lunch was wide open mountain roads and very quick for the Elise. I’m sure we did well on that one. Then after lunch we did the same sections in reverse back to Veracruz. (Due to the political problems in Oaxaca, the routes got changed at the last minute. It isn’t normal for the rally to backtrack like this).

The problem with that was we had to do the bad road second section again. We coasted it again, there really was no option. The final section was a repeat of the first section in the opposite direction. This time the bridges were much more interesting because another Studebaker had gone off it and was sitting in the middle of the river. That one may make it back into the event, but an accident like that will definitely put it out of the running.

(Pictures courtesy of www.LaCarreraPanamericana.com.mx)

The Cumulative Crash Count at the end of day 1 was about 10 with maybe 3 of them not able to make it back at all. There are also some mechanical dropouts. Despite that, we slipped 8 places to 24^th (I think). Most of the lost places were because of the nightmare bad road sections on the way out and back. If we continue to hit bad road sections like that (and the consensus is that we will occasionally) we’ll have no choice but to take it easy. Next year we’ll come back with a lifted Elise on soft shocks for the bad sections, but this year we’ll just do our best to finish. After the first day it’s not hard to guess that fully half of the cars to start will not manage that.