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Day 11---
10-25, Sat, Oaxaca, Oaxaca to
Puebla, Puebla, 2860 mi
Another day, another day of driving.
Today we started by following the race cars out of town
to the north. Schmutzi forgot to tell something yesterday--because
there are no new MINIs here yet, and because we have all
the racing stickers on the car, spectators think that we
are a race car! More importantly, the police all think
that we are a race car!! So the cops give us escorts
through towns, they stop traffic and wave us through red
lights, and they honk and wave as we pass them at 90+ mph.
We spent some time this morning on one of the new toll roads--autopistas--and
were able to cruise at 110-115mph for an hour or so.
The MINI is a tremendous car--it does whatever it is asked
without complaint.
One of the people we stopped to help
today was an early 50s Buick with a broken suspension.
They hit a tope at speed without seeing it and bottomed
out a shock, tearing out the steel bracket welded to the
differential and also the steel mounts for the Panhard rod
that holds the body and axle in their proper place.
Now they are driving at 10mph with the body swishing back
and forth at the back. Looks funny, and it is scary
for them. Another car, a beautiful 54 Merc kept dying
at stops whenever driven hard--that turned out to be due
to the fuel pumps being mounted too high and losing their
prime. To get it running again, one of them would
have toget under the back of the car and blow into the fuel
cell vent hard enough to pressurize the tank and force fuel
into the pump--then it would start again. Not a nice
job. There are so many ways a machine can malfunction!
Our hotel in Puebla is the Meson de
los Angels, a Frank Lloyd  Wright
inspired work of art. All aspects, every angle, every
detail of this place is spectacular. Debbie is going
crazy looking for details. The race has been pretty accident
free so far. We have heard that someone, possibly
a Mercedes, left the road and rolled yesterday, but we have
no details. At least 10 cars had to be towed in today,
so lots of people are up late tonite working...a typical
evening at the races.
Day 12---
10-26. 3150 mi, Puebla, Puebla to Mexico,
Mexico to Morelia, Michoacan
Sunday means Mexico City. ARRGH.
Mexico City is very difficult. There is no direct
way through a city of 6 million, and no easy way around.
So we get up at 5:30 am (actually, it was really 4:30am
because we were unaware that the time changed today...)
and followed our friend Jose Antonio Calderon through the
city to his house for breakfast and then on west.
Jose Antonio kind of adopted us last year--and we needed
all the help we could get! After breakfast we went
west almost to Morelia and turned off to Mil Cumbres.
Mil Cumbres is (choose one, or two)
a 1)really beautiful drive through the pine forest; 2) a
really twisty road; 3) terribly frightening and dangerous;
d) hell; e) all of the above. I personally have had
a lot of fun on Mil Cumbres, but the people who drive really
fast cars have a difficult time. Doug Mockett, last
years winner and in first place this year, slid off the
road and rolled this afternoon
damaging the Olds badly, breaking his hand, several ribs,
and getting a concussion. He had left skid marks but
was not visible from the road. Several cars passed
the scene, but fortunately Doug´s navigator got out and
climbed back up to the road. A Swedish Volvo team,
Mats Hammarlund and Eva Helstrom, saw him, over reacted,
slid off the road, and smacked into a bank, bending their
RF suspension. They immediately found that Doug was
unconscious but alive, and Mats ran 2km back in his helmet
and race suit to the checkpoint to get an ambulance.
Our kind of fellow racer.
The Mercedes coupe also
rolled today and another car, a 356 Porsche, was hit by
a taxi as it entered Morelia. Totaled. Quite
a number of cars are out today for mechanical difficulties
and several crews were up all night putting cars back on
the road.
Feelings are mixed tonite--reminders
of mortality mixed with the hard grind of the event--some
spirits still very high, others somber. And it is
only half over.
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