Day 0 Prequalification Stage (Thursday)

What we hoped would have happened didn't happen. Murphy's Law, I guess. We expected to have the Spyder's modified roll cage in time for the Prequalification Run. We unfortunately didn't. We missed Prequalification which simply meant that we would be ranked at the back of the list after everyone who did run this stage. We ran around town most of the day trying to get some last minute, somewhat unexpected, items for the cars (by the way did I mention that we are running a two car team). We are driving a Porsche 550 Spyder and our teammates are in a Porsche 356 (similar to the one that we raced in the 2004 Carrera Panamericana).





Paul and Daryl (our 356 teammates) ran their prequalification stage and we were told that they had big grins after their run. They had a good run got their hearts going. The didn't push too hard but were able to get a good feel for their car and the race.

We have now covered the Spyder for fear of damaging our route book in case the rain predications were true. With the car completely ready, we still needed to pass tech inspection before we could possible show up at the start line. It was after 6pm when I was running into the hotel where I had heard the main tech inspector would be running the last of the inspections. The inspections of course were over.

We figured we needed to pull all the stops to have him inspect our car so I had reception connect me to his room and begged him to come out with me. 15 minutes later we had a tech inspection stamp and now the task was to complete the process to qualify for the race the next morning.

8:30 pm was the first of the driver's meetings. This was held in the municipal palace next to an amazing cathedral. The group of 96 teams was welcomed by the City Mayor and City Manager. We ran through all the welcoming by the race officials and the top ranks for the different cars racing. Our buddy Daryl and his son Roger, placed 1st for the prequalification stage. Amazing job considering the competion. After some hustling and lots of chasing after officials, we managed to get our "ok" stamp. We were finally ready to race.



This is a view of Oaxaca from our hotel. The hotel is a 50 year old hotel that is built on the side of a mountain overlooking the city. It has a unique design and has that golden age feel to it. The bar was also great...it has the best of the hotel. There we managed to get some "meet and greet" time with a couple of guys from Germany that would make a great stand up act given how hilarious they are.