Cracked egg pics

Day 6, We are done

Well, shit. I'm sitting in my car, on the back of a tow truck, in the middle of Mongolia.  Again. This country kicks my ass.

The front left steering knuckle is twisted up, the wheel is sitting at an odd angle, the driver door won't open, and the roof is smashed in.

The first stage of the day was pretty good.  I haven't seen any other times, but mine shouldn't have been awful.

The second stage was a problem. About 3k from the start, we found ourselves quickly approaching a hidden ditch large enough to swallow most of the car. The ditch entry was somewhat gradual; the far side, steep. A long, sharp V dug into the ground. Head on, the front end would probably have been stuffed into the far side.

I was beginning to set up to go left, but Hayden said to go right. In retrospect, it was too late to change direction. As I swung right, I lost the backend to the left. I was "hazard fixating" us straight to the ditch.  We lost a bunch of speed traveling sideways before the left wheels hit the ditch. The car rolled over on to the side, continued uphill on to the roof, and then rolled back downhill on to the wheels. We were rubber-side down, firmly strapped into our seats with 5 point harnesses, apparently uninjured,  our left wheels in the ditch; the rear of which, was hissing out air rapidly. Amazingly, we were able to drive out of the ditch before the wheel went flat.

That's the end of the story. A bunch of other events occured over the next 12 hours, but they are boring and irrelevant. It doesn't matter how long we waited for the truck. It doesn't matter that the valley was green and beautifully lit in the waning sun. We were out of the competition.  Done. Kaput.

So now my car and I are heading back to Ulan Butar to find a ride home.

Terrible News!

Using his mechanic super powers, Hayden was able to get the car running decently while Team 54 was in Ulaan Baatar. Unfortunately, a mere 125 km outside of the city, on their way to the next check point, tragedy struck. Garrick somehow managed to roll the Bug. It wasn't a bad roll and both Garrick and Hayden are OK. The car landed on the drivers side, so Hayden got knocked around a bit and his neck is a little sore. It seems the Bug got the worst of it - a broken steering knuckle and crunched-in driver's side door.  Garrick says that the car still runs, but only at about 30km/hr...and it can no longer turn left. The insurmountable car troubles coupled with the knowledge that the next 5 days will take the rally through the barren wastelands of Mongolia and topped by the fact that they are now in last place have impeled Garrick and Haden to decide to drop out of the race. They are currently in the Mongolian desert waiting for a truck to tow them back to Ulaan Baatar where they will catch a flight back home. It's a sad ending to this illustrious adventure.

Bad news

Turns out, the engine problems are worse than just altitude. All of the valves were incredibly loose and two of the pushrods got eaten. We've replaced the two pushrods and tightened the rest. It seems to be running mostly ok at the moment but we don't know if it will stay together.

Today we are in a nice big city with resources like trains, cellular service, and airports. Tomorrow we leave for 5 days in the desert with no resources at all. I'm not sure I want to leave the city with a possibly buggered engine. We are thinking of coming home early.

The Most Recent Rally Results

Ulaan Baatar

Breaking News!
I just got a phone call from Ulaan Baatar.
Garrick and Hayden have arrived safely and are spending their free day searching around town for alternator bearings and breather hoses. Apparently the Beetle is not running very well. Garrick says that he spent most of yesterday's second stage with the throttle to the floor - quite possibly due to the effects of the higher elevation.
They were on their way to an outdoor car parts market when Garrick called. In Ulaan Baatar, there is a part of town where merchants have shipping containers full of car parts that they unpack and display during the day. The merchants then pack up all the parts in the containers for the evening. Team 54 is hoping to find some of the needed parts for improved car performance at this locale. Stay tuned for more breaking news.

Along the great wall.

This was the first stop after the start of the rally.

The egg and the Leyland P76

The other car belongs to my good friends Gerry and Matt. Gerry Crown, standing behind the egg is a legend in Australian auto rallies. He is a wonderful man with a laugh that fills the room. At 81 years old, Gerry is the current rally leader.

The Leyland P76 is an interesting car. It has always been reputed to be the worst car in Australian history.  From the beginning the car had serious quality control problems along with unpopular styling (generally wins a place in top 10 ugliest car lists). Personally, I think it looks awesome. The body was designed by Giovanni Michelotti of bmw, triumph, and maserati fame. The car was quite advanced in its day with such features as a power assist disc brakes, rack and pinion steering, and a big buick V8.

Day 4, very slow

The engime is continuing to suffer from a lack of power.  We only had one time stage today which was basically smooth fast track. I spent a lot of it at wide open throttle wishing the car would go faster. Hayden could have served me tea in the middle of the stage. The car basically can't pull itself past 95kph. It's very frustrating to be coasting along when you know that the car is capable of much much more.

Anyways, the stage was followed by 200km of smooth tarmac to get us to Ulaan Baataar, the capital city of Mongolia. This city is a vibrant mix of educated locals ready to burst into the global scene and various expats in the mining industry. When I was here three years ago,  I called it a frontier town that bursting at the seams. Today,  the streets are clogged with brand-new reasonably-priced cars owned by a burgeoning middle class. The difference is palpable.  Hopefully mongolia can keep up with the necessary infrastructure to serve its people.

Btw, the Layzell's (car 55) time posted in the results is wrong. They were only 40 seconds faster than us. That means I should still be the class leader. I will be filing a protest in the morning. I hate to do it because I've become good friends with both the son and father, but it's only fair.

Tomorrow is a rest day so we will be checking the spark plugs, valve clearance, timing, jets, and throttle cable. I really hope we can fix the engine. I'd hate to coast along the rest of the rally in a car that should be a real contender.

If my protest for the Layzell's succeeds, and we fix the engine, then we should be able to hold on the lead.

Waiting to enter Mongoloa.

Entering Mongolia is the iconic rainbow arch.

This is another unnecessarily long wait. We hang out with the cars for an hour, go inside to stamp the passports.  The navigators leave the building to Mongolia while the drivers walk back to the cars.

All warnings to the contrary, noone checks chassis or engine numbers. I've been told that Mongolia is very strict about cars entering the country. A bond past be paid to ensure that cars are not to abandoned in the country, but I've not seen anu evidence that they actually care.

Lined up leaving China

Leaving China takes forever for no particular reason. We wait around on this hot, windy, dusty road for about an hour. Then we drive in, park, we walk inside to have our passports stamped, then we drive through to the no-man's land before mongolia.

Day 3, the rally starts

Today was the first real day of the rally. We left the hotel promptly at 7:30am to line up at the mongolian border. As typical, by the time we got through, we were an hour and a half past schedule.

Shortly after leaving the border,  we left the tarmac road for the dirt and got into our first timed stage: 25km of full assault of the desert road. The road was quite rough; mostly 3rd and 4th gear. I was too anxious and was driving too hot. This was my first time driving this car at speed in the dirt and the learning curve is steep. After a few big bumps that bottomed out the suspension, Hayden finally brought it to my attention. I was simply too tense and driving faster than I could process the terrain and properly react. So I backed off quite a bit to allow myself to recollect my wits and relax. Then Hayden informed me that I was driving too slow and I kicked it back up a notch. The final third of the stage was much better. I was beginning to understand the car and drive reasonably fast while maintaining control. We still got the fastest time overall!

Then we were able to drive on a long section of new smooth tarmac before getting back into the dirt. Unfortunately the engine was showing some problems.  It was ok at lower throttle but then would run out of power as the main jets kicked it. We kept it slower to not damage the engine.

The second and final stage was a very fast 25km of straight dirt track. We ran it at about 100kph. As reflected in the results, we were very slow.

At the end of the day, we were the first car into camp. This is meaningless, but it feels good! As I'm writing, I'm waiting for today's results to be posted.  While I feel fine with my own performance, there are a lot of very fast cars here this year. The level of competition is much much higher.

We opened up the carburetors and checked the jets. They were clean as a whistle. Maybe we just have shitty gas.

You Tube Video from the Start of the Rally at the Great Wall

Here's a link to a You Tube video about the start of the 2013 Peking to Paris Rally.
You can't see Garrick in the video, unfortunately, but you can see some of the classic cars that are on the journey.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GU44WOX8f9g&feature=youtu.be

Day 3, To Eronhot

Long boring day. Once we got out of Daihai, it was basically a long freeway drive through the grasslands of Inner Mongolia. It is beautiful country, but one grassy hill looks like the rest.

Day 1 (Part 3) Daihai party!

When we got to the hotel, we were presented with a blue Mongolian good-luck scarf and party invitation! The owner of some garage or car club has been following these rallies for years. He has a 1960 Tatra (the world's only air-cooled rear-engine V8); he claims his is the only Tatra in China.

After dinner, a few of us walked across the street to find a gaggle of Mongolians hanging out in a parking lot. A small bonfire was burning. A BBQ was warming up.

As the evening went on, we were treated to food, drinks, fireworks, and mayhem. We were taught how to do a shot in the traditional Mongolian way. Dip your right ring finger into the silver shot cup, flick it once to the sky, once to the earth, once to yourself, and then drink! It was great fun and I really appreciate their effort. I daresay that the best night of the rally may be behind us now.

Anyways, start time tomorrow is 8:54am.

Day 1 (Part 2) To Daihai

Hayden and I left the Great Wall, entering the well-maintianed highway heading north-west. Driving was pleasant with little traffic and easy conversation. We talked of changing rally rules and exchanged little stories.

The rally masters were adament that today and tomorrow are just practice days. No competition. Just get used to the GPS, rally meter, tulip directions, and your car. We had one timed checkpoint at another spot along the Great Wall. We arrived well over an hour early. I got to take a power nap in the car.

The roads after the checkpoint deteriated rapidly. It is amazing that inhabited towns, within 2 hours of Beijing, could survive on roads that are unsuited to a bicycle. Today's route was a good introduction to the roads we will be seeing in Outer Mongolia.

As we traveled into Inner Mongolia, you could see everything changing around us. The people no longer look ethnically Han Chinese, but now look Mongolian. You start to see Mongolian writing here and there. We passed through a soapstone mining town and saw giant stacks of stone that could be my kitchen counter.

We were the first car to get to DaiHai Hotel! The hotel has a really cool retro 60's vibe. As people started to stroll in, Hayden and I were already into our second round of beers.

With round three in hand, we went to do some work on the car. It had been handling very squirelly. Hayden had the thought to check the toe-in of the rear wheels. Sure enough, we measured 10mm of toe-out on either side. An hour later, we were finished swinging the wheels forward through their arcs correcting the toe-out. When completed, we had 4mm toe-in on either side. A quick test drive showed huge improvements. I was able to get down a straight road without fighting the car.

Day 1

Day 1. Couldn't sleep. Stomach is nervous. Do I have everything? I have no idea.

The one thing I knew for sure, my experience taught me that the most important piece of information that must be known before going to bed... your starting time! We were to leave the starting line at 8:25am. In my nervousness, I clung to the knowledge that, surrounded by a bunch of newbies, I knew the importance of my start time. "This is my starting time. There are many like it, but this one is mine."

The starting line was at a tourist spot along the Great Wall about 45 minutes away from our hotel. We woke early, threw some breakfast down our gullets, and left the hotel by 7:00am. Navigating to the starting area was easy enough since Hayden and I had both been there before. Unfortunately, several cars didn't make it. We passed a few cars along the way with their hoods up. Some cars got lost. One car Model A with pink wheels still hasn't shown up. I heard they went 3 hours in the wrong direction.

After the grand ceremony with Chinese bands and dragon dancers, Hayden and I departed on another "once in a lifetime" trip through Asia and Europe in our little car.

And They're Off!...

The Peking to Paris Rally has officially started May 27 8:25am (GMT+8) 
(That's 5:25 pm 5/26 Pacific Standard Time)
GO Garrick GO!

No Real-Time GPS Tracking?

We had the big briefing meeting today that goes over the whole rally. One big news item was that the yellow brick gps devices were confiscated by the chinese customs idiots. Turns out, they don't like things that upload positioning information. 

Picking up the Bug

It is 6am and I've been awake for 2 hours. Sigh. My internal clock doesnt want to shift. I have slept no more than 4 hours the last three nights. With no naps during the day, my head is getting fuzzy.

Hayden, my navigator, with all ease, steps off the plane, has dinner, sleeps 8 hours at the proper time, and has been "bawright and chippah" since.

Anyways, we got the car from the warehouse today. We were taken by bus about 30 mins outside of the city to a large run-down storage and transfer facility. Most of the cars started right up and drove off without the slightest hesitation.

It was our first look at the other cars. It is easy to see a great shift in eras. The 2007 and 2010 rally were dominated by the grand tourers of the first half of the century. This time I think there are fewer than 20 of the oldest pioneer cars.

This time we have lots of later model Mercedes, Porsches, VWs, and GM cars. Giant heavy roofracks on several cars show naivete in preparation.

We also have a lot of serious, modern, well-prepared race cars with giant intakes, vented disc brakes, and big suspension.

We won't really be able to identify the conteders until after a few days in Mongolia. 

Tomorrow is "scrutineering"; where we stand by our car for hours waiting for the car to pass inspection.

Beijing Meet and Greet

This is the first gathering of all of the particpants. We are going to hear a breifing from the Captain of the Chinese Police about driving harmoniously with the people.

I only see two familiar faces in this room, Matt and Gerry. As far as I can tell, almost everyone is new.

This is supposedly proof that all of the cars are in the warehouse in China waiting for us. Do you see a white beetle in this picture? Maybe in the upper left corner past the open door? I dunno...

Almost ready to go!

Almost ready to go! I've got my visas. The car is in China waiting for me. All travel arrangements have been made. The satellite phone should show up Tuesday. Nothing left but to pack my bags!

KCRW interview is up!

The "Which Way, LA?" radio interview is now up for listening!

http://blogs.kcrw.com/whichwayla/2013/04/the-classic-car-rally-over-8000-miles-from-peking-to-paris

My first thought listening to the interview was, "Is that my voice? Is that what I sound like? Why do I talk like that?"

Warren Olney and Christian Bordal are just as nice in person as you would expect. Both are friendly, gracious, and very easy to talk to. Stanley Gold and I got along very well. I expect we will be commiserating over beers at the end of our grueling days.

Not much yet...

The rally hasn't started yet so I don't have much to say right now, but take a look at 2010's blog to get a taste of what's to come... http://car106.blogspot.com/

Which Way, LA?

"Which Way, LA?", one of my favorite radio shows on KCRW, is doing a bit on P2P and I've been asking to participate. I think I'm about to be interviewed by Warren Olney!

First post!

Hi all,

I am leaving for China to being Peking Paris 2013 in 3 1/2 weeks and I haven't even started the blog yet!

Fortunately, everything else is in order. The car is shipped. My last visa application is in progress. I am mostly packed. Things at work are getting organized for my absence.