Day 4: Queretaro - Morelia

You know what sucks more than loosing your phone in the states? Loosing your phone in Mexico. Yep, shit happens but fortunately worse things can happen and have happened this week. Wait, have we been going a week? I had to ask Mom on the phone today what day it was. I know it´s day 4 and we´re in Morelia but that´s about it! Lost the phone getting out of the car to ask directions to hotel tonight. Super bummed but oh well! Onward. So what that means for all of you trusty followers is that I won´t be able to post any real-time photos the rest of the week.

The great news today is that we were again 2nd in our class! Today´s sections were my favorite of the whole La Carrera and Morelia is my favorite city. The first two stages before servicio were really fast and our time smoked the Finnish porsche (with F1 driver Gijs Van Lennep behind the wheel and Albert Westermann navigating) on the long straits but he had us beat in the twisty sections. Today was the famous Mil Cumbres (1000 turns) and full of turns it is! I don´t know how the faster cars´ navigators keep up because I can barely call the turns fast enough. The Mil Cumbres contains 3 speed sections (I guess the middle one is officially Mil Cumbres at 19ish kms) and they are each twisty and long. We got the GoPro camera in the car today and hopefully got all of the day´s sections and I can´t wait to share!

In the longest section we lost power steering...again...but Dad muscled through the rest of the section and I could barely tell we had even lost it. When he told me he felt the belt pop off I may have spilled some explatives but then 4 turns later had to ask him if he really lost it because he was driving like a champ. The places where it was the toughest for him was in the 3s but we just slid around them to compensate. It was a blast! Video will be fun, especially my audio.

After that section we still had one more section to go, just as windy, so as soon as we pulled through C to get our time, we pulled over and did our Mexican fire drill that we perfected yesterday and I think we even shaved a few seconds off. We both jumped out, I pulled the clamps on the right side, ran around to the back to open the trunk, dad grabbed the spare belt, opened the hood, I jumped in the driver´s seat, threw it in neutral, hit the starter button to just make it barely crank over to turn the power steering pulleys and the belt fell right into place. Car back in gear so we wouldn´t roll down the hill, Dad closes hood and latches, I close trunk and we both dive back and haul ass to the next section and made it in plenty of time. We´re getting good at this! Not that this should be regular practice. They are working on this issue tonight and we should be set tomorrow.

We run Mil Cumbres backwards tomorrow and it will be another fun time.

There were a few casualties (car) today. In the first section Gerie Bledsoe lost his brakes going into a right 3 and ended up over a small wall that the villagers has recently repaired. He is out for the rest of the race and had to pay 350 pesos to have the wall fixed. A porsche totalled in the same section. There were a few other minor bumps and scrapes but no injuries.

We all celebrated with some tequila once we made it through the finishing arch and are ready for tomorrow...and the horrid tunnels of Guanajuato. I am determined to have no issues with the tunnels this year.

Check out the Official La Carrera site: http://lacarrerapanamericana.com.mx/ They are posting photos and stories.

Also, for more updates, see Kristin Stewart´s http://funksterwtf.blogspot.mx/. Her dad (Geezer) and brother Vance III (Stewie) are racing and we´re usually right around the same order as them and we have a great time. We all helped kill a bottle of tequila upon arrival tonight...