We finished stage 1 and headed down the freeway. At the Pemex we filled up the tank and ran
into the Stroppe Bronco team. We told
them that we had seen their car by the side of the road but that’s all we knew
(see 1:58 on the Day3 Stage1 video). It
would turn out they were having electrical problems.
Arwen and Mary hadn’t caught up, so we left a note at start
of stage 2. We’d heard that the start
was going to be horrible. “4 feet of
silt” was the term that was thrown around and awful mountain roads. Rhonda and I talked about it and decided I
should drive. I was really getting the
hang of the zebra and she was getting better at juggling the map book and
GPS.
The Mexican 1000 is an unmarked. It keeps people from messing with the course,
or driving on it, but it makes navigation a challenge. Before the race I hadn’t realized how
important it would be to have a good navigator.
Rhonda’s combination of being a flight instructor and super bike
training made her exceptional. Oh and Arwen had told Rhonda not to let me kill
myself (or her), so she kept me from getting too reckless.
We started the stage --- no silt. It seemed the “four feet of silt” didn’t
exist, it was miles of straight flat road.
Which was great, but also a little tense when you’re expecting it to be
horrible. Finally we started to climb
and the road got interesting.
At 31.3 miles we came across a jeep, car 8. The welds on the cross member that held the
tops of the rear shocks had broken. So,
basically the rear shocks were gone. To
top it off they’d worn a small leak in the fuel line. The driver was going to remove the shocks,
patch the leak and limp on to the Mag 7 pit.
We headed up the road and continued to climb. It was beautiful. Deep canyons, weird rock formations, wild
horses and the occasional oasis. We made
good time and Rhonda tried to keep me focused on the road and not the amazing
environment.
We eventually ran into Sol Saltzman, Justin Rivera and Big
Oly.
Saltzman has built a duplicate of
the original Parnelli Jone’s Big Oly Bronco.
They’d been shorted gas from their pit and were dry. We had plenty but getting it was a challenge.
The roll over flap on the fuel cell made
syphoning difficult. Rivera tried to
disconnect the hose from our carburator but the mechanical fuel pump only gave
a trickle.
Finally I pulled the feeder
hose and we syphoned straight from the tank.
We gave them three gallons and everyone was on their way. Good karma.
 |
| Spreading some of my dad's ashes by Big Oly |
As we went on the roads got rougher and the views more
spectacular. There were boulders that
were fuzzy and green from the copper
deposites. Small ranches and moments
when you thought you were driving through the 1800s. I swear we saw Don Quixote with a horse and
albino mule.
We reached Mag 7. Big
Oly gave us 5 gallons of gas.
We passed the Stroppe Edsel with one of it’s back tires off. Luckily it’s chase crew had caught up to them
and they would eventually finish the stage.
Then we started the climb.
Narrow roads and steep cliffs. We
didn’t get any pictures because we were focused on the road. We also came across a new phenomena, the
random concrete road. Some of the
steeper sections had been coated with concrete.
It could be a patch that was about as wide as our car, often with deep pot
holes. Or it could be an array of rocks
cemmented together in the form of a giant unruly cobblestone. It was odd and a bit unnerving.
We climbed and then eventually started going
down towards the see of cortez.
Going
down a steep grade in the land cruiser is kind of nice. The first and second gears are so low you
really don’t have to use the brakes.
Just put it in gear and slowly roll down the hill.
Toward the bottom we ran into truck 19. Their fuel pump had gone out and their spare pump
wouldn’t pressurize. We couldn’t really
help them, so we gave them some water, wrote down their information and were on
our way.
Within a half a mile we ran
into car 203. They’d lost their
steering. We gave them our extra power
steering fluid and once again were on our way.
There was one last steep climb and then we dropped down and starting
racing along the coast. It was beautiful
Until the car start lurching.
My worn out brain decided we were out of gas. Rhonda knew that with our 32 gallon tank we
couldn’t be out of gas. Then Big Oly
came by. They offered to syphon some gas
but they were still in the race. Their
times were good enough they might place, so I told them to go on and take a
message to Arwen and Mary. As soon as
they left, I looked at the fuel filter….it was a mess.
Luckily I brought a couple spares. We changed it and were on our way. The last thirty miles of the race was fast
and smooth and we finished to 161 mile stage with a time of 4 hours 51 minutes
(not bad but not great).
We made it to the hotel just as Mary was gathering up stuff
to come get us. Had some dinner, took a
swim and headed down to the beach for a bonfire and some excellent tequila.
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