Story by Rhett Hubertus
Photos by Rhett Hubertus & Mario Domenzain

"Come Live the Legend," states the La Carrera Panamericana website enticingly to those with the drive & allure of speed & vintage road racing. I can now say that from experience this statement is as true as can be.

Our team consisted of Terry Sayther - Piloto numero uno, Mario Domenzain - Co-Piloto, Bill Arnold - maestro de BMW & veteran Targa Newfoundland 3 time overall winner in his modified Bavaria, & myself - Rhett Hubertus Esq.

Terry & I left several days early to head down to Mexico on the "Coyote Convoy," a group of racers from the US who gather in Laredo to cross the border & have a pre-race weekend in the beautiful town of San Miguel de Allende, while Bill & Mario were to meet us in Oaxaca. Last year was the 1st year the convoy stopped over in San Miguel, & a charity banquet in the racers honor as well as a car show in the Centro provided a warm relaxing weekend in one of the most beautiful colonial cities in Mexico. Our 58' BMW 502 sedan was a veteran of the La Carrera in 2002 & 2004, & the overall class winner in the Original Panam class in 04. It was also voted most beautiful car that year, & is always a standout among the typical Mustangs, Volvos, Studebakers (not to say they aren't beautiful), & Porsches.

After the weekend in San Miguel we headed for Oaxaca where the event was to begin. Getting there a few days early allowed time to register for the event, look over the car & ensure its preparedness, & enjoy a few more relaxing days before the main event. Oaxaca is wonderful with its tropical background, excellent food, & colorful surroundings. The traffic & infrastructure of the main road through town though is quite insane. The main road is a like bizarro superman comic in that it criss-crosses several times, & once taking one direction of traffic into the center with 2 outside lanes on either side going the opposite direction. Lanes are reduced from 2 to 3, & shoving your way through traffic seems to be an official custom. If it can be done, someone will try it. Very entertaining.

Thursday was the day of the qualifying which ran the 1st speed stage of the following race day. Bill, myself, & another service guy headed out early to find a spot to watch the 502 & the other cars take a few corners, as we wouldn't have much of a chance later on to see any of the action.

The qualifying & 1st day are typically very hard on cars & drivers, as adrenaline starts to kick in as everyone has their 1st chance to put their car to the test on the pavement. Everyone was in good form, & no cars were wrecked on the qualifying. Most people were holding back in efforts to save their cars for another day. The 502 glided through the turns performing effortlessly, as it seemed to speed through the course faster then most of the other cars we had seen. No question, it looked damn good.

That night Bill & I had a short list to tend to before the start of the race the following day.

Part 2

There had been a knocking noise when going over bumps, which we sourced to a loose sway bar link, & the right exhaust had wallowed itself out at the exhaust manifold around the doughnut causing the entire right exhaust from the manifold back to become loose. We tightened the sway bar links & shimmed the exhaust doughnut with project wire, checked the fluids, made sure everything was tight, test drove, & gave it our seal of approval.

Bill & I needed to be out early the next morning, so after filling up the car & the test drive, we took it to the hotel so Terry & Mario would be able to drive out the next morning from the hotel, while Bill & I were to take a taxi early in the morning to get to the truck & head to the service checkpoint. Waking up at 6am & scrambling to the truck foreshadowed the next 7 days of the race, as it’s a necessity for the service crew to be ahead of the racers & prepared at the service checkpoint for whatever the day may bring. We made it to the checkpoint by 8:15 & started the long wait for the destined service time of 10:15am.

Around 10am, cars began trickling in. Calculating the time that the 502 had left, we determined that it should arrive at approx. 10:37am. Bill waited in the truck, ready for action, while I waited at the checkpoint taking pictures of cars as they crossed. Almost all of the cars had arrived, including some cars that had placed after the 502. I became anxious regarding the status of the 502, as there had been some rumors of wrecked cars but no real details. I continued looking for our car when Chacho, a friend of Mario’s & mechanic crewing for a Mini team from Florida, pointed to a van saying, “isn’t that Terry?” I looked over & saw Terry with a bandaged hand & knee, in shorts & no driving suit. This could not be good.

“The car wrecked… it drove itself into a cliff… we sort of jumped, then fell backwards into a ditch with the nose pointed towards the sky… I’m not sure how bad the damage is, but it’s bad… Mario’s still with the car… I don’t know if he’s got a wrecker…”

“Not good at all,” I thought.

Terry said that he was alright, though his knee was hurt, but overall he said he was okay. Mario was alright as well, & had stayed with the car. I’d got Bill after talking to Terry, & he’d heard already hear that the car had wrecked. It was another 15 minutes before enough traffic cleared to drive to the 502.

After 30-40 minutes of driving we found the car on the side of the road, damaged badly in the left front where it came down the hardest. The wrecker had pulled it out of the hole upside down we later found out, and the roof and trunk were damaged from the extraction. I immediately checked the steering to see if the linkage had failed, but the linkage & tie rods were still attached. Mario was nowhere to be found, & Bill & I helped the wrecker driver secure the car (the rear wheels/axle appeared undamaged), followed him to a police station where Mario had supposedly been taken. Once we arrived, we were told that he’d just left, so we followed the wrecker driver to his junkyard where we were able to load up the car backwards onto the trailer with the help of this skilled wrecker-meister.

After everything was loaded, we drove towards Tehuacan to find Terry & Mario. We initially had some trouble finding them as there were 3 possible hotels for Carreraristas, but we were eventually able to find Terry & Mario at their hotel. It had been a long arduous day filled with stresses that I’d hoped not to have, but we’d made it through with the car in tow & everyone was mostly alright. Terry had a cracked kneecap, & both Terry & Mario felt sore from the wreck & from bruises from the seatbelts. All things considered, they were very lucky to have such minor injuries. That day was definitely an illustration of the bad side of racing.