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Day 15---
10-29, Wednesday,
Zacatecas, Zacatecas
 An
easy day in Zacatecas. The racecars run up the La Bufa mountain
once, and then back down again. We found the place to watch
the racers in the middle of the time section, and saw one
old Ford go too fast, spin around, and leave the road just
enough so that his front tires were hanging down a hill
and his rears were in the air. What screeches. Lucky guys!
We heard that one of the Volvo 544 racers hit a cow on a
transit section and lost the fender and light on one side.
The cow did not do so well....poor Bossy.
It's also been a Fickle Finger of Fate day--our friends
Luis Unikel and Alfonso Oneto were running their Ford in
3rd place overall (they have, in fact, finished in 3rd a
total of five times) when a roller rocker stud broke and
they missed two stages. That dropped them back about 15
places. A heartbreak.
Another of our friends, the WINDIGO team of Matt Hamilton
and Jimmy Gubelmann, were in 3rd place in their class, 10
minutes behind second and 6 minutes ahead of 4th. They had
no chance of advancing, so they were cruising comfortably
when suddenly the clutch disc exploded. Missing two stages
put them securely out of contention. I got to help them
some with the clutch change, but once their reinforcements
arrived beside the road I wasn't needed--they have a crew
of nine or ten!
Day 16---
10-30,
4040 mi, Zacatecas, Zacatecas to Nuevo Laredo, Tamaulipas
The final speed sections and the final long transit stages
of the Carrera are today. While people would like to think
that the most challenging parts of the race are over, there
are, in fact, still a few teams who will fall out today.
A major letdown for them. We passed the Metroplex MINI team
dejectedly sitting on the side of the road with a blown
clutch. Several other cars were also having problems, bad
enough to keep them from finishing. A few cars we've noticed
have simply disappeared, as the race has left them behind
somewhere. We hope they are OK. The Carrera is a tremendous
thrill for the participants, but it is truly a grind.
But it does come to an end. We stopped to eat in a small
town about 75 miles in from the border, so we got into Nuevo
Laredo late. As we approached the city, we noticed that
all the traffic was being diverted from the 6-lane highway
onto the access road, and we thought "Oh, oh, must
be an accident..." But as we waited patiently in line,
we saws cops literally RUNNING our way, clearing the cars
from in front of us and directing us back onto the now empty
freeway---and so it went, all the way downtown, traffic
emptied forcibly out ahead of us, all the way to where the
Reception Party was still going on! We even drove through
the Finish Arch! WHAT A BLAST!!
Debbie wants to write a book about the Carrera, with one
chapter for each of the teams. It would mention the cars
that bring us all together, but it would really be about
the people. When they got their idea, when they decided
they could really do it, how they chose their vehicle, what
they had to do to get everything together, what they went
through to get to Mexico, and finally, almost anti-climatically,
what happened during the race. The cars are the catalyst
for an unbelievable story about PEOPLE. We think it would
make fascinating reading.
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