El Platillo Volador

El Platillo Volador, The Flying Saucer!
What you are looking at is a postcard we had made to hand out to the mass of fans we should encounter during La Carrera, clamoring for autographs. And if not, we're good on Christmas cards this year. When we first bought the car, one of the things we noticed was that there was an alien head sticker or a Grayling for you Area 51 fans, on the back window of the Chevelle. This was significant, in that it gave us a means to name the car. I think this is a good story. There was a guy from Mexico who worked at the shop, so I asked "How do you say UFO or flying saucer in Spanish"? He was a little perplexed by this, and didn't quite get what I meant. Finally, after a bit more coaxing, he got a big smile of understanding on his face, and said "Apaches"!! Whoa, oh man, that goes deep into the psyche of a Mexican, way back when Apaches came across the border and and took a few pilgrims to Planet Arizona. I thought it was a great answer.


Next Time: One Step Backwards, Two Steps Forward

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Summer Sabatical

I've been on a bit of a layoff from the blog since we got back from the Chihuahua race. I wouldn't exactly say I've been fiddling and nothing has been getting done.We've been doing enough things to the Chev to keep a little busy, and now that we are about 30 days out till we leave, it's time to get back to writing about what's been going on.

Now if I can just find my notes........

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Cha-Cha-Cha-Changes

It's been a summer of making some big and small changes to our car, things that even if you saw it before, you might not notice. If you look at this picture of the Chevy, you can see we have added a few nifty stickers to our ride. Once we get to Oaxaca, I'm sure we'll find a few things for the local Picasso's to add on.
Some of the new additions include, a Terratrip rally computer, so I can really get confused navigating. We have changed the exhaust headers from full size Hooker Headers to shortys made by JBA. This was because the Hooker's were the lowest point on the car and scrapped bottom on most every "tope" in Mexico during the Chihuahua Express. The jury still out on this idea. The clutch linkage was reworked taking it from needing to be god-like to push it in, to semi-superhero status. Some of the smaller fixes are, we reattached the window nets so if the door actually did fly open, we would now probably stay in the car. The gas petal was repositioned to eliminate a day long foot cramp and the fuel filter moved so it can be changed in three minutes rather than fifteen.

One thing we had overlooked was the breather on the rear end. The stock GM one was left on for the Chihuahua race, and the car got little greasy on the bottom side. That was changed to a long breather tube, with a catch can. We've replaced and repaired our auxiliary fuel pump, which also gave us problems in Chihuahua.

There's been some lights added, a third brake light, and LED bulbs to the regular brake lights. And also, a nice, bright red oil pressure light, in case it all goes bad.
There's a few other things I'm forgetting, but it's work in progress, right up till October 26th, about 8AM.


Next Time: Summer Sabbatical

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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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