tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7755423504965784432009-12-20T13:21:43.498-08:00Daily accounts of our Porsche 911 GT3's campaign in the Unlimited Class at La Carrera Panamericana. Well, almost daily accounts...Emilhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16953477149118202745noreply@blogger.comBlogger50125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-775542350496578443.post-53485737602609048632007-11-09T15:26:00.000-08:002008-08-03T10:42:30.280-07:00

Time to say goodbye to our new friends and the beautiful country of Mexico.  Sad. Our flight was out of Laredo, Texas at 11am - but finding a taxi driver who had permission to go in and out of the US was a challenge.   We also knew there would be a huge wait at the border, so we felt pressed for time as it was.   Finally, after many phone calls were made on our behalf by the hotel staff, we had

Kerihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00766954016861473330noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-775542350496578443.post-10948856464587004622007-11-09T13:16:00.000-08:002008-08-03T09:59:12.014-07:00

One of us wasn't feeling that great when the day began.  I won't say which one of us that was.  But I will say that this person's shoes did NOT reek of tequila.  After little breakfast, advil and plenty of water, we were ready to go.  This was the last day of the race!La Bufa was our first race section of the day and the route book warned that the morning chill was going to make the pavement cold

Kerihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00766954016861473330noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-775542350496578443.post-4160599112508157222007-11-09T11:33:00.000-08:002008-07-30T15:30:24.934-07:00

Zacatecas was even more gorgeous at night.  Churches and other buildings were lit up. Participants and fans of La Carrera were rather lit themselves.  It was the night of the annual Donkey Tequila Walk!This is a tradition in which the crowd walks through town, drinking tequila from casks that are carried by donkeys.  Since it seemed that most of the donkeys in Mexico were busy trying not to

Kerihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00766954016861473330noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-775542350496578443.post-2174928786372713482007-11-07T10:50:00.000-08:002007-11-07T17:48:59.895-08:00

(Today's pictures provided by the local roadside photographers on the route...)We were so happy to be starting the day - considering that the day before there were many moments of "we're done."Today's velocity sections would include the famed "La Bufa" - another stretch of dangerous mountain roads. We were assured that the GT3 would LOVE La Bufa. It did.The landscape was amazing from up on that

Keri Rensingnoreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-775542350496578443.post-17358438294856444972007-11-07T09:30:00.000-08:002007-11-07T12:14:14.135-08:00

Mil Cumbres wasn't as bad the second day. I guess 96 cars zooming through the day before swept away a lot of the gravel. The cow and horse victims had been removed, as had most of the fallen trees.BUT...the rest of the day was not to be as easy. To start with - the gravel knocked our rally computer's sensor off of our back wheel. So we couldn't track mileage that well. The car's computer can

Keri Rensingnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-775542350496578443.post-73131944400102846492007-11-06T18:02:00.000-08:002007-11-07T09:07:45.307-08:00

This was a special day because we would be have two velocity sections in the famed "Mil Cumbres" (Thousand Peaks). We had been warned that it is a dangerous section, full of crazy turns, steep cliffs, and banked roads. Every year, cars go off cliffs or crash into the mountain. This year, Mil Cumbres would be especially trecherous because it had just been repaved and so the road was covered

Keri Rensingnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-775542350496578443.post-12945215901092483092007-11-06T17:04:00.000-08:002007-11-07T09:06:51.415-08:00

As Emil will explain in great detail - we had a speed section on the major freeway of Mexico City. The police shut down the freeway, and we had at it. After this section, we had a high-speed police escort to the mid-day service stop. This was exactly Emil's sort of thing, so I won't attempt to describe it.The morning started out with heightened excitement. We were raring to go because we knew

Keri Rensingnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-775542350496578443.post-90129128851490214992007-11-06T16:25:00.000-08:002007-11-07T09:05:41.847-08:00

On Day 2 of the race, Emil made the following suggestion for my navigating. "Please only say 'caution' when it's really a caution. You keep saying 'careful!" and 'caution!' - I am always careful. Rather than telling me to be careful all the time, say something like 'SLOW DOWN NOW!' when it's really dangerous." I showed him the route book and said "You see here - 'Left 3 with cliff', 'Right 3

Keri Rensingnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-775542350496578443.post-87251722136019239062007-11-05T15:27:00.000-08:002007-11-07T11:11:59.896-08:00

The morning that the race kicked off was a fury of chaos and confusion. I'd like to say that it got less so as the days progressed. Looking back, I think that the chaos created at atmosphere of excitement and "go-go-go!", so it wasn't so bad actually. I was sad to say good-bye to Oaxaca, but excited for the day. The sections went well, a few cars crashed but none from our class. The first

Keri Rensingnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-775542350496578443.post-129135579106132632007-11-05T14:10:00.001-08:002007-11-07T09:04:25.338-08:00

Figuring out this race took some time. There was a learning curve for sure. Not only do you have to learn what the different control stops mean (they are called T, Z, A, B, C, and D and each is for a different purpose), how to calculate when you need to be at which control stop, and how the heck to understand the route book, you are contending with what everyone refers to as "Mexican Time". As

Keri Rensingnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-775542350496578443.post-61858872023098301952007-11-05T13:08:00.000-08:002007-11-07T09:05:09.058-08:00

After an annoying experience with Mexicana Airlines that resulted in us having NO connecting flight from Mexico City to Oaxaca...we were able to hitch a ride with Bret and Kevin. They arrived in Mexico City a few hours after us and had already planned to drive down to Oaxaca. It was a really fun drive and it gave us a good idea of what the roads would be like on the race. or so we

Keri Rensingnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-775542350496578443.post-3348294802985475462007-11-04T16:25:00.000-08:002007-11-07T09:03:22.801-08:00

Some of you expressed concern about our sudden halt in posts since the Donkey Episode (which, for the record, was Donkey Episode 1 of about 4 - which soon spun off into Cow Episodes, Horse Episodes, Chicken Episodes, and 1 Dog-Chasing-Our-Car Episode. Oh and we can't forget Front Left Tire Episodes 1 & 2)We are ok. We didn't crash. We made it out of Mexico and live to tell the tale. We simply

Keri Rensingnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-775542350496578443.post-89568063722744164752007-10-27T21:35:00.000-07:002008-12-11T09:44:27.522-08:00

Found it!When I saw this thing booking across the road, I laughed out loud, then got really scared...Play Video

Emilhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16953477149118202745noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-775542350496578443.post-73145718885737580172007-10-27T20:37:00.000-07:002007-10-27T20:39:15.607-07:00

At the end of day 2, we finished 2nd in class. So that brings the tally to:2nd in class, qualifying3rd in class, day 12nd in class, day 2

Emilhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16953477149118202745noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-775542350496578443.post-2584754377689284822007-10-27T19:29:00.000-07:002007-10-27T20:01:17.923-07:00

It's been 5 days since we've been driving in Mexico. I have not stopped at a traffic light since we've been here. Like, not one. Every intersection has a very helpful police officer whose job it is to ensure that I'm not delayed. Well, not just me, but all of us La Carrera "correadors". Today, though, it just got silly. When we rolled in to Puebla (we hit nearly 300kph on the Autopista) we

Emilhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16953477149118202745noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-775542350496578443.post-72619443822018801762007-10-26T22:48:00.000-07:002007-10-27T20:44:35.601-07:00

You know how sometimes you'll be driving down the road in your street and you'll see the neighbor's dog whipping up the street and you think, "Gee, I hope he does not run out in front of me" and sure enough the little s.o.b. does and you work like hell to avoid hitting it? That happened to us today, except replace "Street" with "Mexico", "Neighbor" with "Farmer" and "Dog" with "Donkey".Shortly

Emilhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16953477149118202745noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-775542350496578443.post-24690079103049536062007-10-25T20:26:00.000-07:002007-10-25T20:41:05.879-07:00

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

Emilhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16953477149118202745noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-775542350496578443.post-82364080947309179182007-10-25T11:58:00.000-07:002008-12-11T09:44:28.082-08:00

Just got word from Emil via text that qualifying begins at 4:30pm EDT today! Stay here for more updates and also be sure to check out the live tracking to actually see those dots on the map move!

J.F. Musialhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16495049365795150933noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-775542350496578443.post-73934660347069164722007-10-24T23:22:00.000-07:002007-10-25T08:08:41.592-07:00

Today, Keri and I did our first driving for La Carrera. We pre-ran the qualifying stage, It took about 9 minutes to get out there, cruising at about 250 kph, 5 minutes to find the start of the qualifying stage, and about 8 minutes to drive the qualifying route.Of course, this was not during officially sanctioned driving time, so we were dealing with traffic on the toll road (a few cars and

Emilhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16953477149118202745noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-775542350496578443.post-66306297862691006532007-10-23T18:44:00.000-07:002007-10-25T07:47:47.677-07:00

The hardest part is over. The GT3 has been cleared to participate in the Unlimited Class at the 2007 La Carrera Panamericana.Yes, I was VERY worried. The rules of this event are quite strict. And the organizers are kind of, shall we say, "chill" about the whole thing. But the guys took one look at the car, tested the cage for size, poked through the inspection hole and slapped the decal on

Emilhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16953477149118202745noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-775542350496578443.post-88951037211620067982007-10-21T20:58:00.000-07:002008-12-11T09:44:28.268-08:00

Lots of time has been spent on this blog talking about preparation. Prep time is over and now work time begins. So, with 3 hours remaining before we head south to Mexico, also known as the Land of the Rising Sun (Mexico's Official Slogan), I'd like to talk about strategy.We've got a simple three point strategy for winning. Steve Case used to refer to the "6 C's" that made AOL successful. They

Emilhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16953477149118202745noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-775542350496578443.post-27074305709969446762007-10-21T18:23:00.000-07:002007-10-21T18:53:47.732-07:00

It is important that as we mature, we don't loose sight of what we are meant to achieve in our relatively short lifespan on this planet. Deep inside all of us, there is a little kid that is fighting to get out, to explore and conquer as much ground as possible. Emil and Keri have taken such an idea and run with it, or should I say driven with it? The two are off in Mexico for the next 10 or so

J.F. Musialhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16495049365795150933noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-775542350496578443.post-60642487676019036222007-10-21T16:51:00.000-07:002007-10-21T17:26:19.382-07:00

I've learned much from Alex Roy in the last few months. Both as a friend and hero. I'll admit it, the guy has done something that I look up to in terms of adventure, freedom, and sheer determination.Because of Alex, I've met JF. JF has been key in getting Team Polizei through some very hairy situations and since JF has nothing to do when he's not in school, working, still helping Team Polizei,

Emilhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16953477149118202745noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-775542350496578443.post-63340431972594314052007-10-21T06:06:00.000-07:002008-12-11T09:44:28.369-08:00

One of these days, I'll run the Targa Florio. Maybe with my dad.He's not here this year, but we'll be running one of his old plates on the race car.

Emilhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16953477149118202745noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-775542350496578443.post-73585203435751294652007-10-20T20:33:00.000-07:002007-10-20T20:53:47.601-07:00

Found the location of our hotel and the tech site in Oaxaca. The tech inspection site is marked with the inspector looking icon guy. The hotel is marked with the little bed icon.View Larger MapThat's a live map, so you can drag the view, zoom in, etc.More maps to come!

Emilhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16953477149118202745noreply@blogger.com0