The brakes were better and the skies clear as we rolled through one small village after another. Kids and folks waited beside the road for us to pass. We made it to Oaxaca (446 Kilometers), and incredible historic Mexican town and rolled following the detailed instructions in the race book, to Zocolo park and rolled under a blown-up Corona race arch surrounded by thousands of people who swarmed the cars for souvenirs, trinkets and autographs. I handed out Bikernet stickers, but we needed a postcard of the car.

Day II, Saturday, I drove for the first time from Oaxaca to Puebla, 344 Kilometers. We were catching the race buzz. Between the car, fighting the lingering, unpredictable idle, the race rules, the clock, the GPS and the road maps, this was an endurance test of men and machines.

Fortunately I spoke to a couple of Germans, an ex- biker and his mechanic, with the Holy Guacamole ’54 Mercury, who knew our car well and the carburetor. The linkage wasn’t hooked up properly, dismantling the choke mechanism. They switched it around and suddenly, the car ran as it should, plus the brakes worked well. We were blessed by the gods of pistons and valve springs.

The Guac owner was unhappy with the rules and wanted to leave. “You can run a performance transmission, just use the original gear shift knob and they don’t know,” he said unhappily. That night we took our first third place for the day. I also decided that instead of making each banquet, that I would have a quiet dinner and study the race book for my navigational duties the following day. Chris went to the banquet, picked up our trophy and any announcements.

Sunday we were forced to roll out of the beautiful stone Marriot Hotel in Puebla and blaze back to the center to town to check in, like a poker run. Then we rolled, parade style, through town ceremoniously through the arch once more past the Marriot and out of town toward Mexico City. This was a light day since we needed to traverse the vast Ciudad de Mexico. We scrambled over the Mexican grape vine (10,390 feet) once more heading north into the city. The map book was scattered with hard-to-discern black-and-white photographs of street signs, offramps and tips for making the correct moves to clear the city quick. We made one wrong move, recuperated and lost only 10 minutes.

We blazed over the mountains to our first lunch stop at a new mall in Toluca and discovered a serious oil leak under the engine. For some reason the oil filter came loose. Suddenly we were in a panic while surrounded by on-lookers. We checked the oil level, grabbed lunch and scrambled for supplies.

We peeled out quick to grab a head start, so we could stop for oil. We tightened the oil filter, relubed and headed toward the dreaded afternoon speed trials. Some of the roads were rough, but the curves were the notorious Mirador Mil Cumbres. Some 16 kilometers of head-snapping, sharp curves, slopes, and water hazards, but once more the stinkin’ Lincoln survived to reach the most gorgeous town of Morelia (419 kilometers for the day), a vast European looking city, that someday I plan to return to visit once more.

Day III, Monday and the first leg demanded that we peel back through the Devil’s Pass (Mil Cumbres) heading towards Aquascalientes (460 kilometers). There were rumors of treacherous pine needles in the road ahead dampened by dense morning fog coupled with landslides, dips and water on the hilly winding road. Jim from Texas Driver magazine was pulled over and searched by army troops while in the Hot Rod Magazine Hummer. Jerry Churchill crashed in the morning, crawled out of his car and looked for another ride.

We lost another three cars as we peeled through 11 stages, most with seven speed sections heading toward the last leg, six laps on the Autodromo race track. The dust entering the pits was horrendous like an evil mist blinding drivers and warning them of the Grand Prix track to come. Each car was allowed six laps and our lumbering Lincoln was the slowest one. Remember, we had the only truly original car in the mix. As much as we wanted to push the Northern Beast, our goal was to survive this endeavor. Night after night we took third place in our class.

It was an incredible day. I was beginning to understand the timed sections, figuring out where to refuel and trying not to get lost as we rolled into Acquescalientes a city of one million. They throw a month-long party and four million come to celebrate. Fortunately we met Secuteia de Motorcycle, Club of Cops and business guys who ride. They escorted us across town to our hotel from the huge renovated train depot, made up of two football field sized halls of stone floors packed with vintage cars, a buffet and casino. It’s the only Mexican state allowed to have casinos during Feria or party time. People use packets of play money, dress in turn- of-the-century clothes, watch cock fights, dance and listen to music.

A mid ‘50s Mercedes was down for the count as the whole crew showed up in a truck. My note taking became stunted and limited. There wasn’t a minute left in a day to write, between driving, navigating, car maintenance and trouble shooting. We suspected a gas leak and monitored the fuel pump oil leak. The unused fuel pump needed to be removed and the hole in the engine case capped. Chris had installed a funky fuel pressure regulator from PEP Boys and it began to leak. We shitcanned it and killed the gas leak. We needed to conserve fuel whenever possible. We changed the gauge settings a number of times, but it didn’t seem to make a mpg difference. This dilemma was like running a big tunnel, low capacity, peanut tank on a race bike across Mexico and constantly praying for the next gas station. It was a incessant gamble.

We also discovered that the spin-on oil filter was an accessory replacing the old canister-type oil filtering system. We needed a news gasket between the engine and the adapter for the spin-on oil filter. Just when we thought the Hot Rod Lincoln was running like a dream.

Tuesday, Day V, We rolled toward Zacates (180 kilometers), another terrific old world city, after another six laps on the track and eight times stages. As we entered, perhaps the most notorious speed section of the race, La Bufa, we were told that only 38 cars remained in the race. We survived the dangerous Bufa speed section, the fourth of fifth speed section of the day, but another Porche ate it off a cliff and Chris’s Studebaker blew up. Although Rusty’s cop Studebaker was back in the race and gobbling kilometers with his siren blazing.

Where Mil Cumbre was sheer cliffs and tight curvy mountain roads, with streams meandering over the asphalt, dips and pine needles, Bufa was deceiving. It was made up of soft sultry curves laid out over open, low shrubbery, lumbering hills. It gave the drivers the sense that higher speeds were attainable. The visual openness enhances confidence and gas pedals were depressed, but around too many general curves were declines with tight surprises. We lost more cars.

At a late night post race drinking conversation we heard racers commenting about aftermarket performance parts that didn’t last. They faced plastic distributor gears that sheered. We were running points and another mechanic cringed when I mentioned it to him. “Points,” he said. “You’ve got to be nuts.” But we were still rolling.

It was Wednesday and we were afforded a R&R day in historic Zacetacus. Race driver, Peyton, was looking for a navigator. The night before a band led us through the streets with a crowd and little men carrying massive bottles of Teguila and giving us shots. We wandered the old stone streets to a 500-year-old Bull Fighting arena turned into the magnificent Hotel Camino Real with rooms built into stone bull fighting arena arches. A massive buffet was laid out before us in the center ring, for our evening party and banquet. I believe through my Mescal memory that we took a second place that night.

The next day we faced the treacherous Bufa speed zone and the race leader, and major La Carrera organizer for US drivers, Gerry Bledsoe, in a ’60 Nova went airborne and flipped several times. He was speedong over 145 mph, nearing a number 3 curve, downshifting, hit the brakes suddenly, as his car lifted over a rise in the road. Both the pilot and co-pilot broke arms, but survived.

One of the hazardous aspects of this race is the unknown truck that mysteriously rolls into a speed zone, a dog or cow. In this case a cow may have come near the edge of the road and distracted the team flying along the narrow two-laner. The race was canceled for the rest of the day. Gerry destroyed the Nova front end and his fuel cell flew 100 yards.

Church door in Zacatecas

Back in Zac we were invited on a Corona Plant tour but ditched it. We needed to find a muffler shop. We followed a cab up a stone-padded street. More and more the brake master cylinder was failing. I couldn’t hold my foot on the pedal more than a few seconds before it faded toward the deck. That made driving on steep inclines or declines more treacherous. Many of these streets were terribly narrow and crowded. There was another Hot Rod Lincoln trick bag. If the car died the brake power booster went with it and foot brakes were gone. I needed a split second to factor that terrifying aspect into my feeble brain and reach for the parking brake handle. Did I mention previously that there was no “Park” spot on the shift lever, only neutral?

Day 7, I cleaned and checked the points in the morning, we had the exhaust pipe touched with an arch to fix a crack and went back to the hotel. Thursday morning, the final day, we returned to the notorious hills of Bufa once more and a long run into Nuevo Laredo. The last run for 624 Kilometers, and the Lincoln was hanging fast and true. We watched the fuel gauge, stared at the rattling temp instrument as we motored through vast miles of desert, and tried desperately to remember to reset the GPS, which came unplugged from time to time and lost all its memory. The Zacritas Mercury caught fire.

Here’s the Tiger team. One caught fire.

We were still fighting the Horn button that honked when we didn’t want it to and didn’t when we did. The ground was bad unless we shifted gears. We ran the entire race without thoroughly understanding the point system, but we were nailing the timed sections. Constantly relying on the Garmin GPS and my massive stopwatch.

The girls were waiting in Nuevo Laredo.

As we hauled ass across the desert followed by one of the other Lincolns in our class, paying tolls and estimating gas stops we made a list of Stinkin’ Lincoln projects:

All across the country school kids came out and stood on the edge of the road while the cars careened past.

Gas Tank had to go
Replace the Carter with a Holley Carb
Look into another intake manifold
Rebuild the mastercylinder and removed the brake booster for another power-brake system.
Replace the dash with proper electronic instrumentation
Replace the headers with a better system
Add front disc brakes at least and vents in the rear brakes.
Maybe a different transmission with “Park” and overdrive.
Need a radio communication system for emergency
Add trunk insulation
Check oil filter bracket
Review the fuel pump system and filtration—critical
Fix the windshield wiper
Move the battery or create a venting system.

Inspectors who grabbed our time cards.

We figured the run to Wilmington, California from Nuevo Laredo was 1193 miles. The final race run peeled along like a smooth hard-belly, until we reached Nuevo Laredo and got lost trying to find the final blow-up Corona, La Carrera arch. Cops led us through town over and over until we ran out of gas. Even Chris’s Spanish language didn’t get the word across. We finally found our way and checked in with notes that we were misguided.

Couple of guys from the Yellow Lincoln team—good people.

Our Original Pan Am class consisted for three ’53 Lincolns, the stars of the race in 1950. One was a yellow monster that a private owner pumped $90,000 into then knocked his neighbors in the head and sequestered them into his motor-home as his team. At one point toward the end they followed our lead. They had lost all navigational reference. We pulled into a gas station and check our oil as we had at all refueling stops like a Nascar Team. We jumped out of the car, and I popped the hood for driveline inspection while Chris negotiated with the men who surrounded every fuel pump, and wheeling and dealing fueling service.

Since we checked our engine our sister team did the same and discovered that the engine was three quarts down. We hit the road.

The tres stinkin’ Lincolns.

The other Linclon was owned by an experienced Pan Americana husband and wife team. Their Lincoln was a lowered red and white job with extensive performance upgrades. It ran like a top and they deservedly took first place in our class. The yellow Lincoln was experiencing some difficulties with heating and on this last run into Nuevo Laredo Broke down.

Christian and European journalist celebrating at the final arch. We made it.

The World’s most dangerous road race for 2005, began with 65 competitors and only 30 crossed the finish line. No one died, but there were several injuries. We were the only team who drove our Hot Rod from its place of origin to the race, through the race completely and then home. We generally survived on bottled water and trail mix to avoid the food. Damn, and we came in second in our class overall, with seconds and thirds almost every day of the race.

The race was over, but not the celebration.

We drove home in two days along the Rio Grand rolling out of Texas, through the Arizona desert to the Interstate 10 and into Los Angeles. The points closed up at one stopover and we sanded and adjusted them for the final run to the coast. We’re still not positive of the fuel capacity. Could be 10 gallons, maybe 12.

Unfortunately, on the last day this Lincoln ended up on a trailer.

One of of the last days the Hot Rod Magazine ended up in an accident and the driver was hospitalized.

That constant use of the emergency brake haunted us. It was too easy to drive away with it dragging and a couple of times when we discovered low mileage, we found the parking brake lever was still pulled and the rear drums smokin’. We carried a 5-gallon spare fuel container which was against the rules, but it saved our ass on more than one occasion. The event was covered by a Primedia film crew, six Mexican television stations, Speed Channel, six magazines including Jim from Texas Driver mag.

Rusty’s team (Rusty in black and white) celebrating making it to Nuevo Laredo.

At one point we hit 15.4 mpg and were elated, but still couldn’t trust our gas mileage or capacity. The Lincoln took us home. Goddamnit, if it wasn’t an adventure of a lifetime, two solid weeks of treachery, wild driving, racing, tense action, terror, Tequila and brotherhood. Every team supported one another with parts, help, manpower and info. Sure there was tremendous competition, but survival over-powered the desire to ditch a brother in need. There were disagreements amongst teams, pissed off drivers and disputes with owners from time to time, but it was all a reaction to surviving over 2,200 miles in a strange land.

The winning classic Lincoln.

I can’t thank my longtime brother, Dr. Hamster enough for this opportunity and experience. It will never be forgotten. He’s now apart of our Bikernet Bonneville race effort for 2006 along with Gene Koch of Drag Specialties. May the adventures of life never end.

Back to Page 2...

Back to 2005 Carrera page