Unfinished Thoughts

These unfinished thoughts are that we did what we set out to do, give the car a good shakedown, and give ourselves a clue what road racing in Mexico is all about. We put a little over a thousand miles on the car in Mexico alone, so that gave us a pretty good idea. We didn't burn up any tires or brakes and we didn't tear up the motor or trans, that's all good. A list of "fixes" was started during the race and continued on the ride home, nothing too extreme, but enough to keep busy for awhile. In fact, a couple of the small ones are already fixed, and that's just a little bit of alright! At this point, we have about 90 days till we leave to meet the convoy in Texas to drive to Oaxaca, where the La Carrera Panamericana will start. I'm just about ready to get excited!

Next Time: Cha-Cha-Cha-Changes

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Pass the Red Bull's and iced coffee!

It was decided that the trip back home would quicker than the trip down. Majority rules in these cases, I'm always for a leisurely trip, the more sightseeing the better. Logan was suffering a minor case of home sickness, and Rick didn't seem to care one way or the other, so it was full speed ahead back to California. The country side of Chihuahua was just as dazzling and beautiful in the AM as it was on the way down in the PM. We were convoying along with Chip Johns crew and when we got to a military check point, we noticed his trailer was listing hard to the left, one of the tires had disappeared. Rachel Larratt's trailer caught up with us as we started on the wheel, so I took pictures as the boys unwrapped steel belt from the axle and changed the tire. These checkpoints are always thought provoking, an 18 year old with a big German sub-machine gun, I guess that's happening all over the world, always interesting. With our race car, they were rather curious about our fuel cell, and why his stick wouldn't go all the way to the bottom of the tank. After pulling up a brick of foam, they got the idea we weren't hauling any contraband. Besides, they seemed to get a kick out of the Chevelle, with "Malibu" being the secret password.



A couple hours up the road, we were scraping the entry sticker off our windshield and then heading into Cuidad Juarez. This time the stop at customs took only two hours, a minor amount of paperwork and then an x-ray of the tow car, trailer, and race car. We were given a clean bill of health and crossed into the good old U.S. of A. After a very short discussion as to whether we should go on a shopping spree in El Paso for boots and saddle blankets, we parted ways with Chip and Company. It sounded good to me, but as I said, we were now on a mission to get home ASAP. Being back in Texas, and hungry for something other than Mexican, we had choice of real southwest BBQ or a full selection of junk food palaces, we ate at Wendy's. That was our last stop for almost real food. On one of our gas stops in New Mexico, we came across "The Joyride

Rally", some sort of Richie Rich charity drive from Santa Monica to New Orleans. They were all driving expensive, exotic rides, I got a picture of the Maybach and Bentley, and there was also a red hot Mercedes that tore up the on-ramp. At this particular trading post, among other things, they sold big 'ol fireworks. Personally, I would never touch those nasty things, yea right, but it was kind of fun to be in a super market of them. After that, all I remember is only gas stops, Red Bulls and iced coffees. Twenty four hours after we left Chihuahua, Mexico, we were pulling into Santa Rosa, California.

Next Time: Unfinished Thoughts
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Can you say "Ojinaga"?

Today is the last day of racing, and we're excited because we think all the bugs are out of the car. The routine stays the same from the early rise, to breakfast, to making sure we have a full tank. Our start today was as a group making a parade run down the main drag in front of our hotel. Whoever was our leader missed a turn and we made a couple of loops around and about, and then after short off-road excursion through someones backyard, we headed East. Since changing the plug wires, the Chevelle was running right, which made it feel like a completely different car. Muy fuerte! Today's trip to the first speed section was about 120 kilometers into the desert, and once we got out that way, there were some long straightaways. Chip John's Falcon was back in business, so he wanted to see who was the fastest and it didn't take long to say "Bye-Bye now Mr. Ford". It's funny, after you hit about 130mph, driver/mechanics always start to think, "did I tighten that bolt that holds everything together"? Hey it's only a little rattle, no worries. We actually had a vibration between 90 and 100 mph that came right up through the shift lever, and think it's the drive shaft slightly out of balance. The
fast sections today were great fun, the car running good made such a difference, and getting the knack of the timing and route book, all was good. We were friggin flying out there! Our turn around point and lunch stop was in Ojinaga, at the Texas border, and it seemed a sizable crowd had turned out at the Pemex station, or maybe everybody just gases up on Sunday. After a bite to eat and a couple more autographs we started back toward Chihuahua. Because we were right at the border, at about 30 kilometers back, we came to a checkpoint where the Federales would normally make sure you had an entry sticker on your car. Instead it would be the start of another velocity section. We had to wait awhile, as we normally did, to make sure the road had been cleared, and this being a downhill start, we just kept coasting up until our turn. When Rick started the car, and went to put it in 1st gear, it wouldn't go in, all we had was 2nd and 4th. Then we lost 2nd gear. It was a good thing we were on a downhill for the start, as the car ran great, he just had to use the brakes a bit more. As we went along, we realized it wasn't a problem with the transmission, but with the shift linkage. Our little vibration, had worked a stop bolt loose, and once Rick got that out, we had four gears again. We ran two of the sections in 4th gear, but it didn't matter, it was like having an automatic, the car was running so good, who needs to shift! On the trip back to Chihuahua, we kind of leap frogged along with Dean Smith in his red Chrysler 300. We'd been starting behind, and chasing them in the race all day, but never quite caught up. Once in town, we began to see Transit Police, and they in turn, began directing us toward the same plaza we started from the first day. The awards ceremony was at a government palace nearby and the organizers wanted to have us all park there and exhibit the cars. Most everyone arrived back safely despite a few bruises. Sam Berg's LT Special had bottomed out during a section and did a good job of removing the floor on the drivers side. If you look at that picture, you can see through to the ground below. We had a couple of hours before the festivities, so most everyone decided to go back to the hotel and freshen up. We probably should have left our car at the plaza as it turned out. At the hotel, someone broke in the Chevelle, and took our steering wheel and Rick's camera, despite having security around.

The party was at a government building that was enclosed with a courtyard, open at the top, four or five stories tall, very attractive, lots of tile and murals. Tonight there was some extra chit-chat from the race director, as the Governor of the state of Chihuahua was to be honored for the inaugural race. Of course he didn't show up, but an aide was there to haul back his loot. Then came the awards for the that day, and wonder of wonders, we came in 1st in our class! Next came the awards for the whole shebang, and we finished 3rd in our class, 14th overall.
We got a little trophy for 3rd, not too bad for only running two of the three days. All in all, I think we did pretty good. After the awards we went to dinner with Chip, Jo and Dorthy, and had a big 'ol steak dinner and some red vino to celebrate our our good fortune. In that I mean we met some real great folks, and look forward to seeing them again at the Carrera Panamericana.

The next morning the car was loaded back on the trailer, steering via a pair of vice grips, and we said our good-byes to our new amigos.

If you want to see what it was like out there, check this out....video. This obviously isn't us, but it will give you a good idea what it's all about.

Next Time: Pass the Red Bull and iced coffee

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Divisadero and the Copper Canyon

Life is good, we made it through the first day with only some mechanical problems, and no need for any bodywork. Last night the carb was rejetted and the power valve replaced. Don't ask me what a power valve is, but the car seemed to run better. The second day, we left towards the southwest of Chihuahua to Mexico's Grand Canyon, the Copper Canyon. Again, we were up early, breakfast, and give the Chevy the once over. It was running much better, still not 100%, but good enough to try and do some damage in the standings. We had to travel about 200 kilometers to get to the first speed section and on the way we saw a few of the cars already in trouble. Chip's Falcon passed us going the other way, not a good sign, and the remaining Mustang was on the side of the road with the hood up. Also, the other Chevelle looked broken, but caught up when we stopped for lunch.



I'd kind of gotten the hang of the timing thing, or at least our 90 second theory was working, and our communication system was functioning again with the help of a little duct tape.The Chev had truly started to show it's ability, the suspension was working great, along with the Korean tires we were using. We'd finally seemed to have gotten the carburetor right, now if we could just solve the problem with the ignition. This was getting to be fun! In the first couple of speed sections, we started behind a Chrysler New Yorker, and were able to catch and pass him both times. One of those was in a corner, where the Chrysler was literally on three wheels, that's quite a site!
One of the obstacles in this days race was the railroad tracks that we had to cross and recross a number of times. I believe the LT Special with Sam Berg had to stop and wait for a train to pass during a speed section. At one point the route book said, "CAUTION, RR crossing, 2 1/2 right with JUMP!!", we took that seriously and slowed way down and still bottomed out. It was death knell for the Mercedes 220, they hit it and removed their oil pan.

The turn around point was the end of the road in Divisadero, where a lodge is perched right on the edge of the canyon. The train, to and from the coast, stops here so you spend the night, do some shopping, or have lunch. This is where I got my first taste of what it's like to be a BIG TIME race car driver. As I got out of the car, I was immediately surrounded by 14 year old girls wanting my autograph. I got to say, that's different. I guess they'd never seen anything like ol' number 17!
After the lunch stop and a little sightseeing, everyone was off again, on the reversed course, and without any incidents. It's really beautiful country out there, wild and rugged, it would be a great place to spend more time and explore. I'm told the train ride through the canyon is fantastic.
We felt like we had done pretty well this day, even though the car still had a miss. As we tailed the other Chevelle back to Chihuahua, we decided that the spark plug wires had to be changed. If that didn't solve our problem, it was something worse than we expected. It turned out, even though we had Nomex covers on the spark plug boots, two of them had melted through on the headers. What a difference having all eight cylinders makes!
As Ricked worked on that and Logan reported about his day in a machine shop, somewhere in the backwaters of Chihuahua, solving the Falcon's oiling problems, I went to the drivers meeting. Here among other things, the days standings are announced, and the top three in each class receive awards. And lo and behold, if we didn't come in 3rd in our class and win a little bling-bling. Now, I realize that this isn't the Indie 500 or the Mexican Grand Prix and we'd lost a few cars in our class, but I don't get to accept a metal around my neck too often, and that was cool. Even Rick got a tickle out of that one. So, buenas noches, hasta manana, tomorrows the last day and we head for Texas.
Next Time: Can You Say "Ojinaga"?
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The Road to Maderas

So here we are, this is what all our hard work and preparation had led up to - the first day of racing. It's time to become a navigator/co-pilot. Getting dressed, I realized that this was the real deal, putting on a driving suit, fireproof socks and shoes, strap on a helmet and don't forget the route book, this day would was going to be like no other.
Downstairs at breakfast, we said our "hello's" and "good luck's" to the drivers and navigators we saw, and were advised to eat hardy, because this could be the only meal of the day. Our pal Logan, who was going to drive our support vehicle, was now co-driving for Chip John, so he was off to the Falcon camp. Once down at the car, our last minute adjustments included checking the basics- air, water and oil, and fiddling with a video camera we brought but hadn't mastered. Chip's wife Jo, was towing a trailer, so we threw in a couple of parts and an extra spare tire, just in case.
The master plan was for all the cars to line up at the hotel and be escorted across the city to a plaza there the town folk could take a look, someone could say a few kind words, and there would be a ceremonial start of the race. Chihuahua is a pretty fair sized city, and Friday morning traffic can make things interesting. Our escorts were the Transit Police in their Nissians and Federal Police in their new Dodge Chargers. About every intersection was manned by a police, but someone always tries to sneak through, that's where our REALLY loud horns got people's attention. Once we got to Plaza Hidalgo, the cars lined up around the statue of Pancho Villa. There were maybe 50 to 75 curious onlookers checking things out, as the race director Chacho Medina, did his thing for the crowd and participants, a few pictures taken, then we were off towards the first velocity section. Now it was full speed ahead north, about 50 kilometers. We still had escorts, and the traffic was moving better so the trip out of town was pretty quick. There's something mighty neighborly about barreling along at 100 mph and having a Federale pass you, giving the "thumbs up". After the turn towards Aguacaliente we came to the first speed section. We were starting lucky 13th, which was kind of a surprise since we were inexperienced at this. Rick's a good driver, but we thought we'd be at the back of the pack. Maybe they wanted to keep all the "C" Historic cars together. As we waited for our turn, I'll admit I was a little nervous, we had talked about making a check list so we wouldn't forget anything too important, like putting on our helmet, or pulling the safety pin for the fire system. I even remembered to get a time card. The tech inspector came by and reminded us to tighten our seat belts and not to drive off any ravines. All good advise. Around then, the in-car communications failed, I could hear Rick, but he couldn't hear me. I was going to be doing a lot of yelling and pointing.
Both the Chihuahua and the La Carrera races are set up as what's called a pro-rally. You have a route book and there are penalties for arriving too early or too late at timing points. Basically the navigators job is to comprehend all this and get us to the right place at the right time. As we moved closer to the first timing official or what's called the the "Z control", the realization came that I didn't have a clue how the timing worked. We were sure that if you got there too early the penalty was worse than being too late. We decided to stay a minute and a half behind the car ahead of us, and hope he knew what he was doing. The car in front moves to the next control, "A" and is given the green flag to start the speed section. We wait for 90 seconds and move up to the starting point. The countdown begins .... 3,2,1, GO, and we are off. The other part of the navigators job is to read the route book and tell the driver what's ahead. Everything that's on the road is listed in the book. The turns are rated from 1 to 4, 1 being a very slight curve and 4 being a hairpin turn. All the kilometer and road signs, bridges, and slopes are listed also. This part I grasped very quickly, wanting my driver to know there was a 3 1/2 rated left hander coming right after going 110 mph over a blind slope. But that's what makes it fun!










Unfortunately, it didn't take long to know something wasn't right with the car. It started to act like it wasn't getting gas, even though we turned on the auxiliary electric fuel pump. At least one car, a 544 Volvo, had mechanical trouble and was already finished. This first speed section had lots of uphill driving to it, which we made it through, but it became clear that the car had something very wrong with it. It just would not accelerate, it could cruse along a little, but then it wanted to die. We nursed it ahead through the transit section, as every other race car, officials car, ambulance, and donkey cart passed us. Finally, that was it, we had to stop, it was find a fix or get a tow.


So now we have Rick under car investigating the whole fuel system, starting at the tank. With no gas getting to the fuel filter, suddenly the words, "why are you using that old electric fuel pump, even as a back-up" were burning in my ears from Rick's son Matt. We're using a mechanical pump for the primary, and the electric as a back up. The diaphragm had quit, and wasn't letting gas get through. Twenty minutes later, a bypass with the fuel vent line, we are back on the road. Now we tried to play catch-up. The car still wasn't right, but now it was just a miss, and we could deal with that. At the beginning of every speed section now, the timers had already moved ahead, so we just pushed on and tried to catch the tail end of the race. As we got to a twisty downhill section outside Maderas, we were flagged to slow down as the Silver Mustang was on its side. Nobody hurt, just a little reminder of what was possible. As we got down the hill we and saw some of the racers coming the other way, we realized two things, we were running on empty and there was a strong smell of gas in the car. We needed to find a Pemex and an auto parts store to vent the fuel cell again. This was the start of siesta time, but we got lucky to find a place just closing.




Now the race turns around and reverses course, same speed sections, backwards. We came upon a few other casualty's on the way, like the Studebaker that went off road into some pine trees. Finally at the last section we caught the end of the race, with the touring class. These cars were timed, but they're results were not counted in the standings. And unfortunately, our time wasn't taken because we were just too late. This day we would have only one of eleven speed sections counted.
On the way back to Chihuahua we made a quick stop at AutoZone and picked up a new electric fuel pump. Back at the hotel, there was lots of activity, with everyone making adjustments on their cars. We had fixed the gas problem, and now were trying to figure out why we had a ignition miss, and the carburetor still wasn't right. But that's another story, and there's a drivers meeting to get to, some dinner to eat, and let's do it again tomorrow.

Next Time: Divisadero and the Copper Canyon

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The Scrutinizer

Our first morning in Chihuahua started early, we wanted to get the car off the trailer, and see how it was running at the 6500 ft. altitude. This was also the day for technical inspection or scrutinizing of the car.

The tech inspection is to make sure all the safety features are in and on the car, seat belts that haven't expired, roll cage with correct thickness of tubing, proper fuel cell and you have what they require inside the car like a neck brace and first aid kit, stuff you hope you never use. They make sure you have a helmet and driving suit that has your name and blood type on it and that it's written on the car. They also kick the tires and glance at the motor to make sure your not running a 427 instead of a 327.

The gent who was the scrutinizer, also does the La Carrera, so we got a preview of what we need to fix for the big race. Our main problem was how the window nets were attached, and that we didn't have our names on the car and helmets. We remedied the the name problem with some vinyl letters and the nets will be fixed this summer. With that over, we were issued our "official" Chihuahua Express door and windshield stickers, we would be 'ol number 17, Whoo Hoo!
Next we had to get our Mexican road racing licences. That mainly consisted of peeling $260 usd and signing our lives away. We also needed two pictures of ourselves, so a trip to the local Walmart was in order. At this point, our new pal, Chip Johns was finding out that his navigator/co-pilot wasn't going to show up. Chip had needed some help with his Ford (Fix Or Repair Daily) Falcon and we'd let Logan help him out mechanically. Now it looked like he would be a permanent fixture in his car for the next three days.

With that settled, the rest of the afternoon amounted to figuring that we had the jetting right for the carb, getting our pictures taken, drinking beer and BS'ing with the other drivers and mechanics.

At some point the route books and first days starting order were issued, so that gave this rookie co-pilot something to get ready for. There were a few navigators who had experience running the La Carrera, so I was able to be enlightened on how it all works. Right, no problem, lets see, that's control sections T,Z,A,B,C, and sometimes D,......OK, got it! Wait.... Don't got it! Wiley Carlile who was in the rainbow Studebaker and Steve Warwick in Rachel Larrat's Lotus Elise had a lot of good advice that must have soaked in, because we didn't have any penalties, which was either dumb luck or lax timing. Or maybe.... I got it!

In the evening they had the meetings for the drivers to tell them not to crash on the first day, and another one for the co-pilots, to tell the drivers not to crash on the first day. There was obviously other things talked about, but that point was heavily stressed.

After that, it was time for a night cap and to bed, to dream about what lay ahead on our first day of Mexican road racing.

Next Time: The Road to Maderas
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The Chihuahua Express

There's nothing like crossing the border into Mexico, it feels like a whole different world, because it is!
Once out of Cuidad Juarez, the northern part of the state takes on a look of desert scrub land that begins to show mountains before too long. As you get closer to Cuidad Chihuahua, things begin to get more arid and agricultural. I'm a desert guy, so I like the look of it. I know for some, you've seen one desert, you've seen them all.
Our trip down was about a four hour ride that went from late afternoon into evening. There's a reason that folks tell you not to drive in Mexico at night, not just because of animals on the road but the humanity walking around. Somebody could get killed out there! I should tell you that Rick and I had been joined by young pal Logan Wilson, one of the mechanics at North Bay Bavarian. This was his first trip south of the border, or over any border, I think. That's why we had him driving, those youthful eyes see all!
I'd done a little homework about the layout of the city, and knew our hotel was toward the west, that's the way we went, and by God, we found it on the first pass.
Our destination was the Hotel Weston Sobrano, and from the looks of it, was the fanciest place in town. We arrived about 9pm with the parking lot half filled with race cars, trailers and tow vehicles. There were a few of the drivers and navigators around, so we said our hellos, but it had been a long day, we were ready for bed.
The next day would be for tech inspection and to get ready for the first day of racing on Friday.

Next Time: The Scrutinizer

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