Our night here was spent at the Hotel Fiesta Americana and the morning was leisurely in that today's start wasn't until noon. After a big breakfast and walk around near the hotel, we decided to go downtown and see what was happening at the main market. A short cab ride showed us that Aguascalientes mercado was interesting but nothing special, unless you wanted to buy a sombrero like I did.
The start was at the same park from the night before, with everyone lined up so pictures could be taken and the cars viewed by the admiring fans. It was a day of short transit and speed sections, only about 130 miles, until we reached the edge of Zacatecas and its La Bufa. La Bufa is the name of a small mountain that rises about 500 ft above the city, the names meaning having something to do with a pigs kidney, I think from the shape of the rock at the top.
This section is as notable and infamous as Mil Cumbres with a much different look to it. It's at 8200 ft. in elevation, in high desert rather than forest, so as turns are made you're seeing a sweeping panorama spread out below you. This section is one of the biggest challenges of the race and the entire seven days. There have been many serious accidents here, if you've seen the Pink Floyd race video on the La Carrera, this is there they lost both of their cars, and more recently in 2005, the spectacular crash involving our pal Gerie Bledsoe. If you want to see what spectacular looks like, here's the video... www.youtube.com/watch?v=yCTKlWNKpSo Amazingly, only a broken bone and no serious injures.
The first thing I remember was about our start at La Bufa, as we slowly moved forward to the Z control, is me being out of the car, with the backdoor open, fiddling with the video camera trying to get it to work, and Rick saying "git in and buckle up before they give us a penalty". Needless to say, there is no video of our first run at La Bufa.
The pre-start of this section begins on an uphill that crept along slowly, so, the go, the stop, the move up, the wait, to get to the green flag was a grind on our clutch, our possible Achilles Heel. But as always, the Chevy hung tough, and finally the flag goes up and we're away.
One thing we had been told about was a weird turn at the top of the first hill to watch out for, it looked like you could go left but it was a sharp right turn. It was something like, oh yea, here we come over a crest, here's a junction, left looks good, except there's a crowd of spectators and orange cones and it's a really a 3 right.... whoops.... that could have been ugly!!
There's a couple other spots where you can get confused, that seemed to happen to a '54 Ford that started in front of us. As we came around a sweeping turn, they were just reorienting themselves after a spin at what looked like a freeway off-ramp and once they straightened out, we tailed them to the finish. That was about all the excitement for the first run, we thought, which ended with our lunch break. The stop was at a Pemex station, and as we siestaed, news started to filter in about an accident. It turned out that the good looking '52 Chevrolet of Mike Anderson and Steve Warwick had flipped over an embankment, and been destroyed. Neither one was badly injured although Steve received some battery acid burns, but nothing broken. Before we left, we watched Doug Mockett's crew working hard to keep his car running and in the race with a faulty clutch.
The last run of the afternoon was La Bufa in the other direction, this time we were ready for the turn at the top of the hill, and it still spooked us. The arrival arch was next to a pink cathedral and the drive to it being through the city's winding, narrow streets. Everyone parked in front of the church and the reception seemed to be more enthusiastic than some of the others.
The beautiful city of Zacatecas was founded in the mid 16th century after silver was discovered. It continues to to be a center for silver mining and is still the largest producer in Mexico. It's definitely a place I would like to go back to explore more thoroughly.
Tonight was Halloween and kids were dressed in costumes all around, all kinds of kids. The next day was "Dia de Muerto" or "Day of the Dead" and signs of it were everywhere. The night is also special because it's the last one before the end of the race. It has a tradition of the "tequila walk" from the center of town to the drivers meeting where a burro carries a cask of tequila and everyone drinks from miniature cups worn around their necks to be refilled as often as needed.
Our squad had decided to settle in for a steak dinner at Garufa and as the festivities stopped at the restaurant, we were able to indulge in a few shots as we waited for dinner.
After dinner Rick and Scott decided to go hunt for silver bling bling, while I headed to the meeting with the Camaro crew. Tonight the drivers meeting was held at the Hotel Quinta Real, which was once an actual bullring built in the 1800's. We found some seats up high on the sides and watched the evenings ceremonies below. Afterwards, I spent a few minutes watching the crew with the '57 Chevy change their engine out front of the hotel and that was enough for me, so I grabbed a cab back to my hotel. Tomorrow is day seven, the last day of the race, and tonight has some brought thoughts about the last two weeks of preparation and racing, meeting new friends, and everything thats happened in the last two years. Ah but before getting to caught up in that, we have to make it to the finish line and one last big blow out tomorrow night in Nuevo Laredo. Today we are in 25th place, 6th in class.
Next time: Dia 7 - Zacatecas-Nuevo Laredo
Please see - www.lcp2009.blogspot.com
