QUALIFICATION SPEED SECTION

Nov 9 - Day 1 - miles 2700: HAPPY BIRTHDAY BARNY!!!!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOU - HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOU - HAPPY BIRTHDAY DEAR BARNY - HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOU !!

We attend the navigators meeting 8-11 and get extra advise fom Murray. He's a former professional race driver with a Lotus 25. He practised the qualification speed section yesterday and reckons the notes are more than a bit out. He says that some of the corners are wrong by at least one unit. The meeting warns this as well. omeone new has done todays stage becuase the race had its start moved last minute. "Be careful" they warn......
After we go to scrutineering to find out what happens about our fibreglass bonnett. They say we must be weighed unlaiden. The car has to be a minimum of 901 kilos ( with a 5% allowance). We load in everything. An extra spare wheel/tyre, a giant bag of hammers and spanners, 20 bottles of water and all the helmets etc. The car goes up on the scales and comes out at 865 kilos. Phew!!! We are allowed to stay in our class. We set of to the hills for the speed section. Going off in 1 minute intervals with Murrays warning echoing in our ears.
The 10 km section is very twisty and has two narrow bridges in it. Half way round we come across a smashed black/yellow Studebaker. WOW !! We are timed out and return to Veracruz. It turns out that 3 cars crashed badly ..all being written off. Everyone inside safe. Our fellow racer "Coop" now to be known as "Toulouse" turns in a great time..... he's an artist and should repaint our car. We are posted with a slow time of 6:59 47th place. Incredibly the other 356 of Clark and Prill was almost a whole minute faster. But the Carrera 2 is behind us. So we have our start time orders for tomorrow morning. We are going back out to the same hills speed section with another 9 sections added. DO'NT WORRY WE'LL BE VERY CAREFUL.