The Spyder's team was back on their feet and ready to race. After that setback, we wanted to make sure things went well. Today was the dreaded day when we'd cross Mexico City.
The race was to include a speed stage at the Periferico (one of the main arteries of the Mexico City road system)...at Friday night's driver meeting, Lalo (the race President) compared this move to shutting down the 405 freeway in LA. The group was to navigate through major construction and then to the starting point at the Periferico where the run would be for only 5 km. We left Puebla about a 1/2 hour before our official start time thinking this will allow us time to get to the starting point. It was 9 am when we were trying to make our way through Mexico City traffic. It was horrible...backed up for miles and creeping along with every car on the road wanted to push their way into a better position...yes, this is 9 am on a SUNDAY morning.
I can't imagine what it's like during rushhour on a weekday. Needless to say, we missed our speed run. By the time we reached the starting line, there was no starting line. We later learned from our Coupe team that the speed run was only completed by a few teams.
(This is a shot of how we fit the helmets and legs inside the Spyder...not exactly a comfortable ride.)
Having missed a day and half for the brake problem and now missing morning running would only push us farther back on the line up. We needed to push longer and harder. Before entering Queretaro, we were instructed to head into the hills. There we ran though 3 of the most challenging speed runs. Turns out that the person that defined the course (giving degree of difficulty to the curves) was not the same one who had put together the front end of the route book. The curves was defined to be MUCH easiler than they really were. We ran the course scared that what the book many times defined as a Number 1 or Number 2 could have easily been defined as a 3 by the previous route writer and us. We ran the course well. Bill managed to pull ahead of a couple of cars. Feeling the adrenoline pumping, we headed to the race track for our final speed run for the day. It was great! This car definitely has more power on the straight courses than our previous 356 (in which we raced in 2004). We managed to pass 3 cars and the crowd cheered as we roared past them. It felt great. We finally drove through the finish arch and received our first metals of this race.
This is of course the other side of the race and one of Bill's favorite.
I had never been to Queretaro. It is beautful. This will definitely be a city that I will come back to visit in the future.
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