There’s a tradition on La Carrera that you hand paint your numbers and other info and celebratory messages on your car. Now, a lot of the big pants guys (rich guys) wouldn’t dare let a Mexican stranger carrying his paints in an Under Dog lunch box, touch his primo paint job on his million dollar ride. I, on the other hand, wanted the hand painted stuff because, given my current paint job, it’s probably an improvement. So, we hired Umberto for the day and let him go to town.
We woke this morning to church bells ringing. I did anyway. Others may have gotten up before me. So, after a little breakfast we headed over to the local car wash in preparation for today’s car show in the central square. The rest of our crew also arrived today. Peter Lambert, the generous owner of our support vehicle and Christin Rotolo, Conrad’s wife and our chief worry wort.
After a quick $3 wash (this guy could make a killing in Marin county) we headed off to the show. It was lots of fun meeting other teams and locals, all excited for our adventure. A great day. Tomorrow we head out for Oaxaca.
Sat morning, 5am. Well we made it into Mexico. Which was a big “if” due to a screw up with the car’s paperwork. Luckily, the Mexican border police didn’t want to so much as take their hands out if their pockets this morning so they just nodded us through. We’re now 200 or so miles into Mexico pulling the taxi on our way to San Miguel de Allende. There we relax until Monday morn then off to Oaxaca. We’re part of a 12 team convoy that includes some pretty cool machines.
Conrad (seen here) and I just landed in San Antonio. Trusty Memo Mertz picked us up and we’re hauling ass to Laredo. We have an appointment with the Mexican boarder patrol tonight at 9pm. We’re walking across to make sure our paperwork is sorted then tomorrow morning we cross with el Taxi at 5am. No turning back now.
Thanks to James Phillipps at Swirl, we have a logo. And not to forget our official sponsors, eBay Motors and Bringatrailer.com.
Practice makes perfect. We hope.
Conrad really getting into his prep work.
Our official logo! That's dust off the back. Not exhaust. I hope.
What ever possessed us to take a worn, 45 year old Italian car, 2200 miles across Mexico at top speed? Sounded like fun.
The 2009 La Carrera Panamericana will once again see El Taxi lined up for competition. This time driven by yours truly, Martin Lauber and able co-piloto, Conrad Stevenson. After many months of preparation the car is ready and leaving to be towed down to Nuevo Laredo Texas, where it will be met by Conrad and me for the drive into Mexico. After four day of heading south, we’ll arrive at the start of the race Oct 20 and join 110 other cars in Huatulco Mexico. The race starts Oct 22 and lasts 7 days and covers approx 2200 miles of road, highway and village surface streets. Broken up in to Speed Sections where we go as fast as we can and Transit Sections where we go as fast as we can but aren’t supposed to, we’ll quickly work our way up the country stopping at beautiful towns each night, like Oaxaca and Zacatecas.
But for now, the car has to make it to Mexico. It’s in the hands of Bill “Memo” Mertz our able crew member driving our loaner support vehicle, the ridiculously comfortable 2005 Range Rover provided by Pedro Lambert, our second crew member. Rounding out our crew is Christina Rotolo, chief logistics person and Conrad’s wife. Wish us luck and please check back for daily updates on our progress with photos and times.
Loaded up and ready to rumble El Taxi Perdido - the Lost Taxi
the cart before the horse - not sure what I mean by that.
Conrad on the left, Martin on the right. Wonder if we'll be this happy after spending 7 days locked in a race car together?
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