2009 LCP: Day 4 Queretaro to San Luis Potosi

- October 26, 2009

We arrived in San Luis Potosi - Gerie just rolled in, all is well, the car is good and we won't have much work to do tonight..... which means we are sitting down eating a square meal (haven't eaten all day) and are going to crack open a bottle of cabernet we bought yesterday at a vineyard near the Pena de Bernal.

Albert Fellner and Fernando Garcia with an impressive (and chirpy) speed stage start today in the fast little 1969 Saab.

Gerie and Coop with a sweet speed stage start.

The day started heading out of Queretaro towards La Pena de Bernal.

Cute lil' asses near La Pena de Bernal.

Trimming the bigote enorme on the road.

Albert and Fernando fly by us to catch up with the race at the noon service stop after replacing their clutch master cylinder this morning.

Two sets of skid marks - two separate crashes here....first the blue Jag.....

Then the red Porsche.

Day 4 brought some more excitement as we spotted 10 cars out of the race, at least temporarily. Fernando and Albert in the Saab needed a new master cylinder and Tony Bogovich replaced that for them in the morning and I don't know how they did it, but they were able to get by all the service vehicles on the one lane mountainous transit and catch up to the race at service.

Today on the sidelines we saw the rainbow colored Oacaxa Studebaker, and then we came around a corner and the red 914 Porsche that was so fast on Day 0 was in the gutter and not looking like it would run again. We saw a silver Chevy or Oldsmobile on a trailer, and our friend Benjamin from Cancun on the trailer in his silver Mercedes - and we found out later in the day that they were changing out the clutch. The #253 a blue Volvo was on the side near the Pena de Bernal, and the Predator blue Jag was in the ditch and just 50 feet away a red 911 Porsche was on a wall. It was impossible to tell from the double skid marks which happened first but even in our quick driveby we could see that all 4 occupants were okay. We also gave water to a Federale to get him back on the road.

Todd gives the Federale some water for his overheated squad car.

Fernando and the Swedish Saab.

Tom's beautiful Lincoln.

We stopped to talk to Rick Row's son, James, the navigator of the beautiful little BMW. The aluminum wheel was literally torn to shreds by the caliper - they'd been having this problem for a while and it finally broke. Rick had taken off with a Mexican guy who didn't speak English to repair one of the wheels. We gave James Gatorade and when I asked him if he wanted to send a message to Rick if we saw him he said, "Tell my mother I love her."

We left him there because we knew his service vehicle was on its way. About an hour later while stuck in the lineup for the speed stage I ran almost a mile to the start and after watching Gerie, Fernando and Tom and Paul in the green Lincoln make impressive starts, I was so surprised to see the Row's white BMW pull up. I looked at them and said, "Whaaaaa? I just saw you broken on the side of the road!" James laughed and said, "I know!!!!" I apologized and said I did not have time to get the message to his mother, it had only been an hour or so!

Todd and Rick's son discussing the brake caliper problem while Rick took off with a Mexican who knew a welder.

The brake calipers were biting the wheels......they were back on the road within an hour!

The school children - our finest fans!

Albert in the little Saab.

On that speed stage some crew vehicles were blocking the race cars from getting to the start. In the rule books your race car can be penalized if your crew vehicle gets in the way. It was a cluster and I was in the middle of it thumping on trucks and telling them to move. The problem was that there wasn't a shoulder though one crew pickup went off the roadway and when he came back on he scraped his underside pretty hard. When you are in the race car it is really frustrating to be blocked by traffic and you can note the numbers of the blocking service vehicles if you want to avoid a penalty for being late. The blue Chevelle was being blocked and sitting still waiting to get through and I told him I had pictures of the blocking vehicles in case he needed the numbers.

Benjamin's Cancun crew replacing a clutch in traffic while waiting for a speed stage to open.

The red Chevelle ready to rip.

The blue Chevelle being blocked from the start line by service vehicles.

Gerie, happy after his Day 4 finish in San Luis Potosi.