We made it to the end!

We arrived in Nuevo Laredo after a long day of racing. We did La Bufa again and then had long transits that got us here from Zacatecas. We had another flat tire but changed it quickly enough to end our segment on time. I'm really tired but plan to attend the celebration tonight anyway.

Pierre de Thoisy and Frederic Stoesser won 1st place in a Studebaker. This was Pierre's 7th win. He got a cake with 7 candles at the ceremony. We finished 41st (out of 100). Not bad considering our power to weight ratio and our modest budget.

What's next? I'll have to think about that one for awhile.

Zacatecas

Steve did some preventive maintenance this morning, replacing spark plugs and cleaning the points, and he fixed a flat tire that picked up a nail sometime after yesterday's race. The car has been very reliable overall, though.

Steve working on Phinix in the maintenance area at Tehuacan, which was under a large permanent translucent canopy. It made a great place to work on a car. Plenty of room, lots of ventilation.

A Porsche Spyder, or maybe a knock-off.

We managed to leave Tehuacan this morning in the lead group of about 15 cars that was escorted two abreast by the police through town at high speed. It was an impressive sight and a load of fun.

We ran La Bufa twice this afternoon. One of its most dangerous features is the grand view of the mountains and the town of Zacatecas below. It's easy to become distracted as you burst upon it, but you have to keep your attention on the road. We encountered two cows on the road in a tight turn, but missed them both.

Pierre de Thoisy (right) and Frederic Stoesser are one of the leading teams in the race. Pierre has won this race six times in this car. He's also raced at LeMans for BMW and in the Cannonball Run.

Phinix in the Plaza in Zacatecas.

Aguascalientes

We arrived in Aguascalientes last evening. Some cars are sporting scars but most are still looking good.

We moved up to 39th. We do well on the downhill sections where driving skills are paramount and not so well on the uphill sections where our small power to weight ratio slows us down.

A Jaguar XKE that came a little too close to a rock wall.

Phinix with some of its competitors. The yellow car on the right is a Facel Vega, a French car that was not imported into the US.

With all the crowds it's really hard to get pictures of just the cars. This Lamborghini is an exhibition car supplied by Fiat, one of the race sponsors.

Even though the roads are closed for the Special sections you still have to be careful. We've come around corners to find Burros, Cows, downed trees, and rocks. But the worst are the photographers. You round the bend and there's one standing right in the middle of the road intending to snap a picture and run, but you don't know which way he will run or when. Some of them leave their cameras in the road and dart out to click the shutter and dart back.

Mil Cumbres

We did Mil Cumbres uphill today. It was just as exciting as doing it downhill yesterday. But most of the day was consumed by long transits.

Clouds pouring over cliffs on Mil Cumbres this morning.

The Panamericana is really two races. One is a collection of what they call Special sections where you run against the clock on closed parts of highways selected for being challenging drives. This is the smallest, but most intense part of the race. The other parts are called Transits, which require you to get from one Special section to the next on time. If you get there early or late, you get penalized. Your total score is a function of your times and your penalties. The Transits are on open public roads with regular traffic, but since it is impossible to arrive on time by driving at legal speeds we drive much faster. The police along the way actually abet our speeding, looking out for us, getting us through road construction, traffic tie ups, stopping cross traffic at intersections when we arrive, turning the lights green for us. It's like a dream. We've driven at two or three times the posted speed limit past at least 200 police cars in the last week, and didn't get one ticket. They close the roads from the outskirts of town into the town square when we arrive at the end of the day and we zoom into downtown on empty streets, through traffic lights red and green, and past the traffic jams caused by the street closures. Then they give us medals and a party. How great is that?

Tomorrow we do La Bufa once each way, and Friday, the last day, we do it again on our way to Nuevo Laredo.

Other Panam Postings

Here are links to some other Panam blogs that my wife Vicki found:

• Flat-out Across Mexico - Tales of a 1967 Fiat Abarth


• La Carrera Daily - Porsche GT3, with movies.
  


• La Carrera Panamericana 2007 - Mustang
  

Morelia

We arrived in Morelia this evening after tackling Mil Cumbres (Thousand Peaks) in the downhill direction. This is a twisty bit of mountain road near Morelia that is one of the two most challenging in Mexico. (The other is La Bufa.) Tomorrow we drive it again in the easier uphill direction on our way to Aguascalientes.

Morelia seems more cosmopolitan than other towns we've visited so far. We're staying in a Holiday Inn with a McDonalds, a Burger King and an Applebees within walking distance. Finding someone who speaks English is easier, too. The road we took into the main square is built on both sides of an old stone aquaduct that runs down the median. The cathedral is large and magnificent. There are better pictures of Morelia than I'll ever take at Soul of the Garden.

The repaired shock absorber mount held together all day, which raises the odds that it will hold up for the rest of the race. Car trouble and accidents continue to thin the ranks, although many problems are fixed overnight in hotel parking lots, including engine overhauls, transmission replacements and major body work. A Corvette went off the road yesterday, turned over, and burned. It was beyond repair. No one was hurt, though.

We're required to carry a lot of safety equipment, including five-point seat belts, helmets, gloves, roll cages, fire retardant suits and fuel cells. It's hot and uncomfortable in all that stuff on a hot afternoon, but worth it when you need it.

La Carrera Panamericana history

Wikipedia has a good article on the History of La Carrera Panamericana

Queretaro

Day 3 featured a six kilometer race through the heart of Mexico City on a section of the main freeway downtown, closed just for us. It was quite a spectacle. The Carrera drivers raced after several lucky local Ferrari owners "tested" the course. We created a traffic jam, like we do in most places we race.

While transiting to the next race segment our rear lower shock absorber mount broke. Steve removed the shock completely and we continued on. It seemed to have little effect on handling so we finished the day's racing. Here's Steve repairing the mount in the parking garage of our hotel.

The repair was successful and we should be ready for another four days of racing.

The afternoon sessions included six laps of the Queretaro Raceway. That was fun. We then made our way to the Queretaro town square for the usual festival.

Ours was not the only car needing repair. Here's part of the scene in the parking lot where we stopped for lunch.

More Carrera Cars

Jaguar Mark II

Studebaker Commander

Puebla

Steve and I moved up from 64th to 55th after Day 1.

Day 2 ended here in Puebla. We were again greeted with a festival in the town square, with a small acrobatic circus and a band; and crowds of people.





It was a long day of short race segments and long transits between. A few more cars were lost today, but again, no one was hurt. Steve and I moved up again, to 46th. We have a large car with a small engine so there is a limit to how high we can place, but driver skill is a large factor and we are beating some more powerful cars.

-Dave

Race Results

Daily race results can be found at http://www.lacarrerapanamericana.com.mx/resultados2_07.asp.

Carrera Cars

Oldsmobile

A beautiful BMW 502 that was driven into a ravine on the first day.

Studebaker Commander and a Mini in the Oaxaca Zocalo.

Volvo P1800

Studebaker "Police Car"

A new Shelby Coupe, made in South Africa by two of the designers of the original Shelby Coupe.

The support truck for a Mexican Mercedes-Benz team.

Mercury Coupe.

An LT Special racecar, built in Mexico.

Alfa Romeo 1900TI roadster.

Alfa Romeo Giulia Coupe.

Tehuacan

We made it to Tehuacan! Not everyone did. Some because of mechanical failure but there were also off-road excursions into arroyos and rock walls. Some cars were not seriously damaged and are back in the race. Others retired. But no one was hurt that I know of. We took the long way round to get here, looping first nearly back to Oaxaca before heading North. We went through some beautiful country, but didn't have much time to admire it.

The people of Tehuacan welcomed us with enthusiasm and a festival in the square. If I weren't so tired it would have been more fun.

We began with the ceremonial start at the town square (zocolo) in Oaxaca.



-Dave

GPS Tracking

The Panamericana cars are tracked throughout the course of the race by GPS. The location of each car can be monitored from the web at http://panamericana.waypointinfo.com. To track our car, click the "Mapa en Linea" button. This opens a map of the race in a separate window. Click on the Race Cars task, scroll to car 315 and click on it, then click on Start Tracking, and close the Race Cars window.

Monte Alban

The car is now bedecked with official La Carrera Panamericana banners and officially entered into the race.

We spent the afternoon visiting the Zapotec ruins at Monte Alban, which is a short distance outside Oaxaca. It was a beautiful day and we climbed to the highest of the pyramids. The view from there was magnificent: the mountains and the broad valley with the town.


There have been festivals with fireworks and music every night that we have been here, in different parts of town, but our hotel is high on a hill overlooking the town and we can hear and see them almost anywhere in town.

-Dave

Coyote Convoy to Oaxaca

I'm writing this from Oaxaca, which is where the race starts. Internet connections have been problematic at our hotels, which is why the blog is empty until now. But the view of Oaxaca from our room is fantastic.


Saturday we drove from Laredo, TX to San Miguel de Allende, MX.

Sunday we stayed in San Miguel for a car show in the central plaza. It was very festive, with a band singing oldies from the US in English and Spanish, the church bells ringing loudly from time to time, and a junior brass and wind ensemble playing in the bandstand. San Miguel is an artsy town on the top of a hill with beautiful views on all sides. They say the weather is good the year round. Many Americans retire or have second homes here.

Monday we drove from San Miguel to Oaxaca. It was a long drive made longer by road construction. Parts of the trip were through dramatic mountains. We arrived after dark.

Tuesday was the first day of race registration. We got there early and were on schedule to be finished by noon. As Steve says, by "capitalizing on the chaos of the rookies." However we got snagged on an ambiguity in a recent change to the specification for roll bars--we needed an extra bar in the roof. Steve found a muffler shop to do the necessary work and finally got the registration signed off about 7 PM. We will go back tomorrow to have the official stickers put on the car. Registration continues for two more days, but after we get our stickers we are mostly free until the race starts on Friday. We got the race route book today, which shows every curve and turn in the race.

Here are the sights and sounds of the new bars being hammered and welded into place.

The car and the race computer are both working well in spite of being hammered on rough roads and the topes (speed bumps) that are everywhere here. I'm comparing odometer features with the commercial units used by other teams and ours has useful features for this kind of race that none of the others have. (Our race computer was custom built for this race.)

If this Internet connection keeps working I will post pictures soon.

-Dave

Watch this space for team Carrera 315 news.

The team will travel with the Coyote Convoy from Nuevo Laredo to the race start in Oaxaca Oct 19-25, 2007.

The race back north from Oaxaca to Nuevo Laredo takes place Oct 26- Nov 1.

Visit the official La Carrera Panamericana (English), La Carrera Panamericana USA and Team 315 sites for more information.