A quick update

So, there’s good news and there’s bad news. The good news first. On Thursday they held a prequalification session, where all the cars ran at top speed through 7km of twisty road. Everyone assumed our little car would be back of the pack, but Conrad drove the wheels off of it and I think I did okay calling the corners for him because we qualified 18th out of 110 cars! That was the good news. The bad news is that today, the first day of the race, with me at the wheel and Conrad calling corners, we started off very strong even bested our qualifying time so our hopes for a podium (top three) finish in our class were high, but by the third session of the day we started having fuel pump issues. As in, it wouldn’t pump fuel. Conrad hug over his seat with his ass in my face and giggle the wires to the pump (it’s under the rear panel) and that worked for a while but we obviously couldn’t run a speed section that way, too unsafe. So we parked it and begged the other racers for a pump. Luckily our friends Paul and Darrell had one and it got us to the lunch break. But by now we’ve completely blown our lead and our timed stages. We arrived at the lunch stop to a crowds of people lining the street and celebrating our arrival. Our fantastic crew were already there waiting and had been alerted that we would be needing a fuel pump from our spares package in the service truck. Conrad worked his magic and the new pump was in and we were off. Only to have it fail during a speed section 15km away. So, Conrad to the rescue again. We wedged the car against a storm drain so that the rear was elevated and Conrad climbed under and went at it, Magiver style, while I motioned frantically for the cars flying by at over 120mph to watch out for us. Long story short, the fix held to Qaxaca, where we are now, but we’re out of contention for the day, having received too many time penalties for our late arrivals at the check points. Tomorrow is another day and hopefully we’ll make up some time, but it’ll be near impossible to get up near the front again. Oh well, we’re having a blast and we’re amongst amazing people. As we drove into Qaxaca with full police escort, literally thousands of people were lining the streets of this incredible old city. All of the cars made their way to the town square where we were mobbed by families asking for photos and autographs. I signed about ten t-shirts and wait till they realize that this nobody from California ruined their shirt.
More more piece of bad news; my iphone was a casualty of yesterday’s prequal run. It was smashed as I hung on for dear life. This phone was used to take photos for this blog, for the time being, no photos. I’m sorry. Tasha is sending me a new phone and I’ll have it by Tues. For those of you who know me well, you know how absolutely crazy-making it’ll be for me to be without a phone for four days.
That’s it for now. I’ll be back in touch tomorrow with a report on our progress. Tomorrow Conrad drives and I navigate. Wish us luck.