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.
No comments:
Post a Comment