El Taxi Perdido's Blog

It’s Sunday morning and I’m home in Mill Valley looking over photos on my computer. I’ve had a little time to reflect and there’s not much I can say to top what’s already been said by others. What an adventure! What great friends! What great roads! What great Mexican people! What great tequila! It was just wonderful and I want to thank a whole bunch of people and if I forget anyone, please forgive me.

Special thanks to;

My friends Famous and Rob at eBay Motors for their support. To Randy and Gentry at Bringatrialer.com for their friendship and support. To Jon Norman and Dan Marvin for a kick ass motor and support with all the last minute parts requests. To Glenn Oliveria for his advice and help. To Tasha McVeigh for being my dear friend and lifeline to Swirl and to home. To all the great people at Swirl for supporting me and not hating me for taking the time off to do this once in a lifetime adventure. Especially to James Phillipps, Jen Conway, Katie, Bo and Annie L for their support from Swirl. To John Ryersen for making our team t-shirts and jackets and hats; fantastic! To Jay Jarvis and Amanda Jarvis for their support and help with the car and its graphics. To my brother Edward and my nephews Colin and Justin for following the blog each night and wishing us well. To Cathleen Cannon for writing about us in the Alfa club newsletter and for her never ending enthusiasm. To all the the Alfa guys and girls and for their words of encouragement via the blog and especially to Ulrich who last year won this class in his Alfa Super and who didn’t hesitate to share a single tip; Thank you Ulrich! To my CSRG friends for follwing the blog. To Gerie Bledsoe for getting us down there, well before we ever left the Bay Area. To Paul, Darrell, Nancy and John for support and advice before, during and after the trip – you guys are an inspriation. To the many unnamed folks who helped us along the way, like the countless spectators who pointed us in the right direction as we were about to take a wrong turn. To Rochelle for putting up with weeks of my fretting, planning and talking about this trip. To Bill, Peter and Christine for all their hard work and humor – we did it! And finally, to Conrad who at one point leaned over and says to me; ‘you know, there aren’t many people I’d do this with’ then proceeded to tell me who to drive for the next 210 km – you’re a great driver, a fabulous engineer, an incredibly decent human being and a valued friend. Thank you all!

What follows is just a bunch of photos that I never got to post. No particular order. Enjoy and thank you for being a part of our La Carrera Panamericana adventure.

We’re all safely back in the USA and I’m waiting for my connecting flight in Denver, where there is snow on the ground. Funny to think that this time yesterday I was going 220 Km an hour on ten miles of closed freeway, sweating in my race suit. Today, I just sitting here reliving all the excitement. Here’s how things turned out at the awards ceremony. For Day seven, we won our third consecutive 1st place podium finish. This was just fantastic and Conrad and I were proud to once again stand up there and celebrate a great day. After the day’s results they announced the overall results and we knew that since we broke down on the first day, we had over six minutes
to make up for to catch our nearest competitor, Team Apple Farmer. Well, we hustled all week and we made up most of those six minutes, besting their times in each stage, but in the end, their consistency and fast times prevailed and the very deserving Team Apple Farmer and their Volvo 122S took 1st place overall in Historic A plus class. We took second and we’re pretty damn pleased. Firstly, because Team Apple Farmer (Richard and Nate) are two of the nicest guys and they absolutely deserve the win. Not only did they run strong every day, they also helped us with advice and support throughout the week. They are true champions and great guys. We’re also excited about our result because it being our first time, we were happy just to finish. We surprised a lot of people and our little taxi was well loved amongst the other teams. Even by the german guy who thought it was a Lada. Got to catch my flight now. More later.

So, the race is over and we’re in Nuevo Laredo. Picture this, we’re celebrating in the town square, having beers, telling lies, when I receive a tap on the shoulder. I turn around and am confronted by the chief tech inspector of the race who informs me that I must put down my beer and report with El Taxi to the inspection area. Apparently, if you go too fast and do too well they must inspect your car to make sure you are not hiding anything. Right now about a dozen cars are “being pumped” to verify that they’re motors are actually the size claimed. It’s a compliment I suppose. I’m being told as I sit here missing the cold Tecate I left in the town square, that any top finisher that is either new or unexpectedly fast must undergo this humiliation. Actually, it’s not so bad. We have nothing to hide and we’re a little more of the La Carrera experience than most folks. I don’t really mind. Unless of course, we’re here because someone lodged a complaint, which is the other way you end up here at the principal’s office. It cost $500 bucks to file a complaint and if you’re wrong you lose your pesos.
I just noticed that Conrad is sitting in the corner looking rather guilty. I hope there’s not a three litre hiding in there. If that’s even possible. More on how this turns out and on the official results later. (they announce the class and overall winners at 9pm tonight).

Okay, it’s 6am and I’m in the lobby of the incredible Quinta Real hotel in Zacatecas. This hotel used to be a bull ring and the town is over 475 years old. It’s so beautiful, it rivals anything I’ve ever seen in Europe.

Okay, but enough of the tourist stuff; yesterday we left with Conrad at the wheel driving like a man with a purpose. His purpose? to keep the car in one piece for the final day. Well he did more than that. He ran so well and so fast that we won yet another 1st in class. And his run included the intimidating La Buffa run; a 12 km twisty road on the side of a mountain overlooking Zacatecas. The thing about La Buffa is that it is has some very fast straights that lead up to it’s very sharp turns, all the while hugging the side of a very high mountain. This is a stage that claims a lot of cars that over drive it. In fact, yesterday about 8 cars had ‘incidents’. We weren’t one of them. Despite my best efforts to mess things up (more on that in a minute), Conrad brought it in Zaca fast and solid. I on the other hand was all thumbs, including when I tried to help him rejet the carbs and dropped the carb cover cap down into the spring channel, where it could not recovered without removing the wheel. What does Conrad do? He pulls a plastic hotel room key out of his bag, cuts it in a circle, pushes a whole through it and makes a new cap with some tape to top it all off. He’s amazing! And we’re back on the road. What a great day. And it included a great service stop where the whole team donned our new team t-shirts (thank you John!). Here are some photos from the day.

Yesterday’s final stage ended in the quaint town of Tequila and they held a wonderful fiesta for us including a guy who could whistle like a bird. But even that wasn’t the highlight of the evening for Team Taxi Perdido. After the whistling stopped and the awards ceremony started, we received another 1st in class for the day! We’re very excited and very lucky. The car is running incredibly well and both Conrad and I are driving within our skill levels but also fast enough to place high in the rankings. This morning we start 11th overall. I wish you could see the grid list; it’s ten huge cars (Studebakers, Buicks, a Hudson, an Oldmobile) and then our little Taxi. Great stuff. The team is doing an awesome job of keeping us on the road and we’re lucky to have them with us. Thank you Christine, Peter and Bill!
In other great news, my iphone arrived last night. Here’s a shot of two of our three trophies. We’ve named the little guy, Paco.

Just a quick post to say how excited we are for today. Conrad’s driving got us a first in class for yesterday and a 15th grid position overall for today. We also got our second little man trophy of the race. Today we’re heading to the town of Tequila, in Jalisco. Can you guess what they’ll be serving?

I think it’s Monday and we just finished for the day. I’m going to try doing a post before mid night tonight to avoid all of my horrible typos and misspellings.
Today was a great day. We started out in the morning getting our grid positions and surprise, surprise, surprise, we were gridded 17th out of 110 cars based on Sunday’s results. So we did well on Sunday and it even earned us a Second in Class for the day (along with a little trophy). This morning we lined up

and headed out. The route took us to where we were yesterday but this time we ran the speed sections in reverse. Conrad drove and I called corners and it was a blast. We had a lot more fun being up with the big boys. The car ran great and we covered over 350km. In about one hour I’m going to head down to the drivers meeting to see if they’ll announce our times and grid positions for tomorrow. Maybe we’ll get another podium finish (first, second or third) for our class? They do a little awards ceremony every night.
On a somewhat sour note; several of our favorite cars have had accidents and won’t be coming back. One of them is the formerly gorgeous Maserati 350GT. The car is totaled as the frame is bent, but I’m sure it’ll be restored and back in action sometime in the near future. Another car we liked was the red 911 S. It lost control today and ended up on its side. Then, in order to avoid hitting it, a gorgeous, blue E-type Jag has to run itself off the road to avoid hitting the 911. Bad luck, but everyone is okay and surprisingly, spirits are still high.
That’s it for now, I’ll put up a little info before bed to let you know if we made the podium tonight or not. Wish us luck.

I’ve been told (over and over again) that communication is the key to any relationship and we’re certainly finding that to be true this week. For those of you who don’t know, here’s basically how these rally’s work. There’s a driver and a co-driver. The reason that the co-driver is called a driver at all, is because he is partially driving the car. How? By calling the corner (telling him how sharp the upcoming corner will be) and thus controling when to speed up and slow down. Every single turn and road detail (like speed bump or gravel on the road, etc) is listed in a turn by turn set of instructions. The turns are all rated from 0-4. 0 being a very fast turn, almost not a turn at all and 4 being something as severe as a u-turn, or in our case, a switch back. The idea is that the driver wonder what’s around the bend because the co-driver is telling him/her. So if I’m coming up to a corner and I obviously can’t see the other side of (the exit of the corner), normally I would slow down and go around the turn at a moderate speed until I could see where how sharp the turn was. In rally’s you don’t want to slow your pace, since the faster you cover a section the better your time and standing in the rank. So, the co-driver call out over the intercom wired into our helmets, 0 thru 4′s. And the driver does what he’s told. A typical few seconds might go like this;
co-driver: this next one is a 0 left, go, go, go, flat out
driver: Okay!
co-driver: next turn is a 4 right!
driver: okay, hard braking…now!
co-driver: you over cooked it!
driver; you called the corner too late!
co-driver: I did not! coming up on a 3 left!
driver: Did too! Got it, 3 left. Or was that right?
co-driver: GO VISUAL!

Go visual, is what the co-driver yells when he’s lost his place in the book. It’s a command for the driver to judge the speed at which he can enter the turn by sight, not by the corner calling. It’s also a great metaphor for life. When you lose your place in the turn by turn guide book, go visual!
Sorry, had to get a little deep on you there. This place does that to you. As does making these blog posts late at night after driving a full speed all day.
And speaking of the day, here’s a run down. Well, after starting from the back of the pack due to timing issues (there’s not ours) we were escorted out of Mexico City by police and I have to tell you it was awesome! Going 80mph down a two lane street in an urban center, in close formation, knowing that you can’t be ticketed. It was just great fun and it was only the transit section out to where we would do several really fast speed sections through the surrounds mountains. The bummer was that due to rain, we had to skip the race track in Mexico City, but did get on a track in Querataro that was good fun.
We spent about two hours in total, on the side of a mountain carving away at the corners, hauling the mail (that’s a new one I learned from some of the older guys, here. I guess mail delivery was actually considered fast at some point in time). And we did, ‘haul the mail’. We finished second in our class for the day and we’re making up ground from our lost time and penalties on Friday. That also means that tomorrow morning when we get our grid positions we’ll be further up and better able to log faster times. It’s going to be a great day. Conrad’s driving since I drove today and I’ll be calling the corners. He’s come down with a bit of a cold and is losing his voice, so it should be a quick and quiet day tomorrow. Stay tuned.

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Today we started out renewed with hope and a special appreciate for how difficult is it to add times together in a race car traveling at speed over a twisty, bumpy road. For instance, adding your official start time of 14:08.30 to your transit time of 1:53.30, to your Servicio time of :40, to your Transito time from Servicio to Z section, gives you? Quick. It’s easy, but it’s not easy, if you know what I mean. (we had lots of help from Peter L, who’s a math wiz) Throw in that you have to also hand the car to the time checker at no less than 60 seconds after that time and it gets tougher. Tougher because when you line up to hand the card over, six cars that are running late try to jump line on you. So what do you do? You jump out of the car and with helmet, suit and hans device still on, you run a 100 yards and hand the card over. Did that three time yesterday. Boy, I’m out of shape. Speaking of yesterday, it was a very good day. The car ran perfectly, the roads were amazing and we figured out the timing calculations. Conrad drove like a demon and we passed several cars including a Porsche 911 on the inside of a number 2 left hand corner that gave me, an excellent view of the quite surprised Porsche driver. The day was supposed to end for us in Mexico City with a triumphant police escort into a square that had been set up with victory celebrations. But guess what? Police cruisers are faster than us and we ended up losing the convoy of about forty cars. This put us in some neighborhood of Mexico City (the fifth most populated city in the world) with no clue where to go. We pulled over the first taxi (yes, a Taxi hailing a taxi) and asked for him to take us to the Hotel and we’d follow him. He refused when he found out where we were going. Apparently, it was too far for him to go. Great! So we did what any self-respecting American male would do – we asked someone else. Using this method of pulling over every few miles, we pieced together a route that got us close enough for another taxi to accept our offer of “mucho dinero” and he showed us the rest of the way. Oh, and did I mention that it was raining the whole time. And it was dark! Well we made it, but a little late for the big party, which wasn’t such a big party after all due to the rain. The only bummer is that our time card was turned in late and we weren’t part of the official scoring for the day. So after all of that great driving and all of my jogging to hand in our card along the way, we can only hope that this morning (yes, it’s 5am) we’ll be gridded properly. Today is my turn to drive and we’re schedule to be the opening exhibition race for a Mexican NASCAR event that starts at 11 this morning. Wish us luck and thank you for reading this bla, bla, bla. Adios for now.t

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.