Day 3: It's a Race, Not a Rally

Today, we met Julio. Julio is a very important man here in Oaxaca. You can tell by his green jacket and the stars on his shoulder. He came by to take a look at the GT3. When he asked how I liked Mexico, I said, "Muy bien. La policia, te gustan cuando conduciamos mas rapide."

"Yes. During La Carrera, we get to race, too!", he responded.

He reminded me that if we get in to trouble, that we should just call him. You got to love a country where the Generals pose for photos in front of your cars and offer their personal assistance...

Today was qualifying. I'll cut right to the end. Here's how we placed:

With an official time of 5:06, and a start penalty of :09 seconds (that means we got to the starting line a "tad" early) we qualified 2nd in the Unlimited Class and 13th overall.

Congrats to Piloto Kevin Jones and Copiloto Mark Williams in the Subaru for having the fastest overall time of the day with their 4:33! The fastest historic was Roger Habich and Daryl Habich with their 4:36! Congrats to all!



Yes, we have more in car footage today. I tweaked the brightness of the camera a bit. I also left the start in place so you could see how much of a head-start the Mini had. Yes, we passed him. Safely. Note the crowds formed all along the route. I hear it gets worse tomorrow!



Of course the best part of the day was FLYING back to Oaxaca at 140 mph on the freeway and blowing through town. every traffic light between the freeway and the staging area had cops stationed at all 4 corners. When a La Carrera car would pull up, the sea would part and the light would change in your favor. As traffic got worse, we had our own personal police escort.

At the driver's meeting when they announced the class winners, I nearly fell out of my seat. I was expecting to be 3rd in the class, but 2nd was a great surprise.

Tomorrow we meet at 7:00am in the town square. It's a long day of transit and speed sections en route to Tehuacan. I'm sure the heat will be turned up... I'm laying low until day 4. No need to lose it all on the second day.