Our "stellar" racing record, pt.2 .....
In my last posting about our La Carrera adventures we had just
expired (both car and occupants), at a motel on the side of I-5
just through the grapevine. This was the day before we were
supposed to be in Mexico, ready to race.
We awoke early, a bit more optimistic about our situation
thanks to the much-needed rest, but still concerned about what was
wrong with the car, would we ever get there, etc.
During breakfast I went through my mental checklist of what's
the matter here and decided that it might be something associated
with the long periods of continual driving. (Any ideas ?) After
breakfast though, the usual checks amounted to nothing. Everything
checked out to the best of my parking lot analysis could determine.
So what's left to do but continue on & see if the problem surfaces
again. (Which it would of course, but not until .... later).
So off we went w/o nary a sputter, crossing the border into
Mexico a little after noon, and finally arriving in Ensenada about
2pm. Aside from some very beautiful scenery and some fast fun
driving along the coast once into Mexico, about the only other
really noteworthy aspect of this last leg southward was a comment
that my compadre' made just before the border crossing;
Him:
"You know, I think that leaving the U.S. w/o contacting your
parole officer is a parole violation. (Then after a long
pause) Is Mexico considered outside of the U.S. ?"
Me: "Huh !?!"
Now, there's a lot of things you have to worry about when
getting ready to go racing, but ensuring that your traveling
partner has notified his/her parole officer of the trip is usually
not one of them. Hence, I had neglected to take care of this one
minor detail.
(And before anyone gets the notion that I willingly cavort
with criminals, let me clarify to you that this person was my
friend long before he decided to embark on a venture that was (and
still is, matter of fact), against the law. And no, I won't tell
you what he did.)
Anyway, we quickly decided against answering that question,
with visions of the Federales whisking us away to secret
interrogation rooms, never to be heard from again. Instead we
decided to try our luck, keep our noses clean, and if for some
reason we had to deal with this infraction, act dumb.
Thankfully, once we reached our destination (the beautiful
Estero Beach Resort), things began to look up. For starters, one
of the other racers had reserved two rooms, but had a no-show in
his party so he had an extra room. W/O so much as batting an eye
we grabbed it. Then on top of this, his wife graciously offered to
take my friend along in the chase vehicle while the race was being
run.
Several Margaritas and a successful tech inspection later, my
morning pessimism had evolved into a Mexican fiesta attitude, and
I was very thankful I did not give up when things had looked so
bleak at the start of this trip. The car's problem had not returned
(yet), the sun was shining, the cervezas were flowing, the parking
lot was filled with race cars of all years & types, and most of
all, tomorrow we would be bombing across the Mexican countryside
at top speed ! It was going well.
Race Day:
I awoke early, all nerves and with mind racing through all the
many things that I could have forgotten. The morning seemed to drag
by but finally we were told that it was time to proceed downtown
so we could assemble for our false start. The idea was to have all
the cars staged in starting order at the waterfront area of
Ensenada, so the town could send us off, take pictures, etc. and
then 10km outside of town we'd reassemble for the actual start.
The starting order was predetermined by looking at both
estimated car speed as well as driver's ability, placed with the
car/driver combo with the greatest speed potential starting first,
with the idea being to minimize passing. The Sprite's speed
potential must have factored into my position highly, as I ended
up 135 out of 137 cars, flanked by a souped-up Baja bug & a Mini-
Cooper. Hmmmm.
After what seemed to be an eternity, I was finally staged,
counted down, & flagged off, with generous amounts of wheelspin
(yes, my Sprite WILL spin the wheels) to please the excited crowds.
Past the town limits we puttered along pock-marked roads to the
actual starting point 10km out, with huge groups of people
everywhere cheering us on.
Finally we were at the REAL starting line, and the long wait
began. And the butterflies came. Cars were flagged off at 1 min.
intervals, and with 137 cars, well you figure out how long I had
to wait. And one little interesting bit of trivia, by the time I
started, the winning car had already finished the 124 mile long
run. Anyway, my number was coming up fast, and I thought I was
going to throw up inside my helmet. As the cars in front of me were
counted off & screamed into the distance, I pondered my sanity, my
safety, and why I thought this had been a good idea. However,
before I could give that last thought much effort, I was up.
The Baja bug had just left, and the starter motioned me
forward. I could hear my heart beating inside my helmet. I inched
upward, and he quickly approached my car. Bending down, I thought
for sure he'd ask my what I was doing here in this silly little
car. But instead, he began shouting course instructions. "THE ROAD
IS CLOSED, BUT BE CAREFUL FOR ONCOMING TRAFFIC". No problemo. "COWS
ON THE ROAD AT 18KM". Oh, just great. Here I am worried enough as
it is, but now I might have to contend with bovine intervention.
"WRECK AT 10KM". Shit. That's it. The seriousness of what I was
about to do hit home and had my blood running cold. Who could it
be ? How bad ? It could have just as easily been me he was warning
the other cars about. But I hardly had time enough to worry before
the countdown began. I can remember 10, 9, 8, but by then I was
concentrating so hard on what I was about to do that I heard
nothing else. Then I saw a flag drop somewhere in front of me, and
I drove off, trying to race, but feeling mighty sick.
Now 10km is only 6.2 miles, and so even at cautious speeds it
didn't take me long to reach the first casualty. The first thing
I saw was a person waving madly at me as I approached a blind left-
hander. I braked hard. Then I saw skid marks forming gradually in
the right hand lane, approaching the shoulder of the road. Brake
harder and downshift. Then I saw the skid snap back towards the
left side of the road, and into full view appeared the wreckage.
What was once only hours before a beautiful BRG Austin-Healey 3000
that I had taken pictures of in the parking lot was now a twisted
piece of British steel resting on the inside embankment. There were
a few people around attending to it's occupants (which I later
learned suffered only a broken arm & a bit of banging up), but the
sight I will never forget as long as I live. My first view of the
automotive carnage associated with driving in the Red Mist. I
proceeded on with much caution.
After a few more km my nerves had settled a bit, and I fell
into a nice fast cadence on the bumpy tarmac. I felt I was doing
pretty good, when far back in my rear view mirrors appeared a tiny
blue dot, approaching fast. The Mini Cooper. I remembered that it
was at driver's school that I had seen this car before, very well
prepped and very fast appearing. It was. It was also at driver's
school where I learned to concede to the overtaking car when it is
obvious that it is overtaking. It was. All smiles and tiny tires
furiously ripping up the Mexican highway, the blue Cooper and it's
occupants whizzed past on a short straight. Hmmmm. If I remember
correctly that leaves only one car behind me (besides the one on
the side of the mountain), and that was a Jowett Javelin. Now I
have nothing against Jowetts, but I swore if that car passed me I
would stop, take off my numbers, and disavow any knowledge of this
race.
Turns out that I didn't have to worry about the Jowett (yet),
as after a few more km the roads began to straighten out a bit &
my speed inched upward. To about 80mph. Which was enough to catch
the Baja Bug. (And pass the Mini which had broken down with
electrical problems. Awwww, too bad.) On a very long straightaway
I caught sight of the bug ahead, moving fast, but within reach.
True, passing a Baja Bug is no great feat in itself, but it was
merely the fact that I was FASTER than someone else that made me
so excited. The pass seemed to take forever, but finally he was
mine ! I laughed at how absurd this was, and as we approached the
hills & curves again, I continued to inch away.
For a very long while now I was alone on this road. The car
was singing it's well-tuned song, the road was being gobbled up in
big bunches of black space, and suddenly I realized that this was
the reason I had done this! The functional equivalent of automotive
Nirvana. Being able to drive a car you built yourself as fast as
you dared on such a beautiful and demanding wide open road. It's
a feeling I will never forget.
I was riding high on automotive endorphins when I noticed the
person standing on the inside embankment of a sweeping left-
hander. He was gesturing for me to slow down, just as the others
had done at the accident at the start. Snapped out of my driving
trance I realized I was about to come onto another accident. I
slowed quickly and also realized that I had just been yanked from
the fringe of the Red Mist by someone who had succumbed to it.
Suddenly I was VERY alert.
I could see all of the roadway, but could see no wreck. The
road dipped downward and to the left, with a deep ravine off the
left side, and a steep embankment on the right. Then the road
quickly hairpinned right, disappearing around the embankment. At
the outside edge of the hairpin there was parked car and several
other people waving for me to slow down. I had slowed to a crawl
in approaching this reverse question mark turn for fear I was about
run up on a wall of wreckage on the other (blind) side, when I
noticed the skid marks. They began just before the hairpin, and
went straight. As in over the edge. Focusing on this I then noticed
the smoke coming from down in the ravine. Whoever it was, he had
gone straight off and landed down in the ravine. I saw very somber
faces as I slowly passed them, and again I proceeded with caution.
(I would later find out that this time the driver had not been so
lucky.)
I motored on, enjoying a fast but safe pace. I would win no
races today, but I wouldn't crash & burn either. There were several
DNF's along the way, and they waved joyously as Redcar zoomed by.
I was feeling pretty good now, and why not ? Out of a pack of
showroom fresh supercars trailered to the event, here was a
homebuilt underdog that was driven over 550 miles to the race,
still holding her own. Well, my smugness was very short-lived as
the magically disappearing problem decided to reappear. And this
time it chose to stay. At just under 90 miles into the race, Redcar
began losing power. Initially it wouldn't hold fourth gear,
then third. All gauges read okay, just no power. I stopped quickly
and checked all that I could, even removing the gas cap in case the
mysterious vacuum had returned, but it was no good. Putting along
in second gear I was able to maintain about 30-40mph, which I could
finish the race on, so I continued. Everysoften I could manage to
get third, but as soon as I put my foot into it, it would cut out.
I had decided that stopping again was useless, as for one the tools
I had brought along were minimal, and besides 30mph was better than
0, and it might just keep me ahead of the Jowett so as not to
finish dead last. Wrong-O. After only several miles of my low-
speed motoring, a small black dot appeared in my mirrors. The
Jowett. As he passed me I recalled that slow & steady wins the
race, but obviously not as slow as I was going. I was now dead
last. Now last is last no matter how you look at it, so when the
problem began to get worse, I figured I had nothing to lose by
pulling over & working on it. So I did. In the middle of the
Mexican desert I peeled down the Nomex & began troubleshooting.
Even with the assistance of several of the curious locals (!), I
could find nothing wrong. I was just about to pack up & continue
on my slow way, when the chase vehicle for a 356 that had expired
in a big way stopped & offered to help. Obviously possessing
greater powers of deduction that I did, the Porsche guy suggested
that we check fuel delivery first. Bingo. With the carb line off
& the fuel pump switched on, barely a trickle of gas emerged. In
a flash I had the back wheel off to get to the filter at the fuel
pump. Taking this filter off we found that it was fairly clogged
up, but with no spare all we could do was punch a hole in the
screen and let the next filter in line catch all this crap. That
done the car could now get enough gas to run the secondaries, and
would rev freely up to it's 6000rpm redline. After many thanks I
was back on my way.
Now being last is nothing to write home about, but it's better
than a DNF, so I sprinted on the remaining few miles to the finish.
What I didn't know at this time is that the timekeepers elected to
count the last starting car's finishing time as the end of the
race. So, being behind the last car made me out of the race. Which
goes down in the books as DNF. Bummer.
I did however, receive a substantial welcome upon reaching the
hotel. Seems that the word that the Austin-Healey had wrecked had
my friend a bit worried, so he was understandably excited when I
arrived safe & sound. The Margarita's soon began to flow, the yarns
began to spin and the tensions began to ease. The race was over.
And so ends the story of my first La Carrera Classic. Compared
to getting there, getting home was a piece of cake. 16 hrs. of
straight driving with the only mechanical pit stops being for a
broken coil wire and re-installing the entire exhaust system after
it flew off on an off-ramp at 11pm in L.A. No Problem.
Next ... The second La Carrera Classic, or the year I "finished".
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