lacarrera92, 7/24/92
La Carrera Classic, 1992
Better late than never, and as things have died down here a
bit I've found some time to pen our adventures in the '92 running
of the La Carrera Classic Road Race.
To the uninitiated, the La Carrera Classic is an open road
race run (in various configurations over the years), from Ensenada
to San Felipe, Baja California on the (mostly closed !) main
highway. Depending on the road conditions and the organizers mood,
the race can be either all out for the entire 125 miles, or some
combination of top speed, rallye, and transit (designed to keep
speeds down in the extra dangerous parts). At it's inception it was
designed to be a vintage race, but over the years these
requirements have loosened a bit, and in fact this year it was open
attendance.
For the past four years we have run this event in a 1959
Austin-Healey Bugeye Sprite (affectionately known as Redcar), with
varying degrees of success. Year one we DNF'd with a clogged fuel
filter, year two we pit stopped for the same filter, and
consequently finished last, year three we DNF'd with a shattered
ballast resistor, and year four, well, you'll have to read on.
Tuesday, June 23rd, 1992 (day 0, the day of preparation)-
After successfully negotiating the loan of a large, filthy Dodge
van capable of achieving 12.5mpg no matter what, I spent the day
tracking down and replacing the alternator belt, topping everything
up (including the 30gal. tank), loading it up, hooking up the
trailer, & finally securing the car.
Wednesday, June 24th, 1992 (day 1, the day of departure)-
Up early, I motored down to San Jose to retrieve the other half of
Magic Arrow Racing Team, one Paul McPartland. A bit of background;
Paul got caught up in all of this quite by accident, first by being
our support vehicle driver in the Classic for the past 2 years.
Having proven himself as an invaluable contributor to the lunacy
that occurs on this trip, I try not go to Mexico w/o Paul. Well,
the racing bug bit him a few months back, he decided to run a
driver's school that was being offered at Laguna Seca. Going whole
hog he had a full cage and racing seat installed in his daily
driver (and only car !), an '86 Dodge Shelby Charger Turbo, and
after doing very well at school he decided to look for other events
to run. Well, while helping me get registered in this year's
Classic, he began talking with the La Carrera coordinators, and was
told a few weeks prior to the event that it was now open to all
cars. Before you could say cerveza, Paul was in.
By noon we were on our way out of San Jose, with our goal that
day being LA to stay with some friends. At 7:15pm our motly (& hot)
entourage rolled into town. About the only noteworthy aspects of
this leg were a in-car thermometer reading of 110 degrees in
Bakersfield, crossing a bridge in Fillmore that was couldn't have
been more than 1 foot wider (total) than the trailer wheels, and
trying to talk the temporary tattooist at the nightclub we ended
up going to into doing one that said "Death before DNF" with
crossed wrenches. He couldn't, and after pondering the morbidity
of how seemingly funny this would have been, I was kinda glad.
Thursday, June 25th, 1992 (day 2, the day of infermo)
I woke up, I threw up. Repeat three times. Honestly, I don't think
it was the ~ $15 worth of .50 cent beer we'd had the night before -
must have been the tortellini. By 10am I was feeling somewhat
better, so we headed out for the border. By 1pm we had secured
three days worth of Mexican car insurance, called our loved ones,
and then waved goodbye to California as we crossed into Mexico.
Meandering our way south, we managed Ensenada by 4pm. Being one of
the first groups to check in to the hotel, we luckily had our pick
of the rooms & parking. After rejecting the first room with no
lights and a door that would not give back the room key, Paul
managed to negotiate an upgrade to a ground level room by the pool
& right next to our cars while I positioned the van for optimum
accessibility. By 5pm we were all settled in and had begun
patronizing our sponsor (Tecate), and fiddling with the cars. By
dark quite a few more people had arrived, and we were doing more
sponsor patronizing and less car fiddling, so we decide to call it
a night & go for dinner. Venturing forth on foot we came across a
remarkably clean outdoor taco bar where we planted ourselves and
partook (?) of Mexico's finest while the watching the night get
under way.
Friday, June 26th, 1992 (day 3, the day of the hillclimb)
Up early, and into the cold pool for the functional equivalent of
a shower and coffee, and it was back to work on the car. The list
I had drawn up the day before had grown very small, but there was
still a few remaining issues. Like the horn. The schedule was to
have a driver's meeting at 10am, and then the hillclimb at 4pm, so
I still had a few hours to fiddle about. Well, 10 came & went, and
no meeting. And still I fiddled with the horn. Seems I just could
not get a good ground through the steering column. I even pulled
the column out & cleaned the splines, but still it'd just hum.
Hmmmm. Well, by noon I had given up, and besides the tech
inspection was on it's way around, and now the driver's meeting was
scheduled for 2pm. Tech was mildly eventful in that the spirit of
Mr. Lucas had by now possessed not only my horn, but my brake
lights as well.
With the entire group of tech inspectors gathered around my
car, the brake lights quit working. Great. The one electrical thing
they decided to check on my car, (I say that because on an evil '76
XJS entered, they decided to check the signals, and all cheered
when they worked on the first try), and they fail. Turn on the key
and try again. One works, then quits. Get a bit panicky, remove
lenses & check contacts. Clean up contacts and they both work !
Yeah ! They sign me off and walk away, and the lights quit again.
Later I found out that they work fine when the car is running, so-
so when it's off. Whatever, I'm legal, and it's time for the
driver's meeting.
At the driver's meeting we were told that we would all have
to purchase a "license" that would allow us to compete in any
Carrera event and provide us with insurance. At 200,000 pesos
($60US) there was quite a bit of grumbling about this unexpected
additional cost. Oddly enough, it never came to be. We were told
that since the hillclimb was supposed to start in < 2hrs. they
would take care of the licenses later. They never did.
The Hillclimb: This event is solely to determine starting
order for the actual race, and is run on the preceding day. This
blasts 5km up a windy two-lane road to a tourist spot called La
Bufadora (the blowhole, so named because the incoming waves blast
thru a rock formation and up into the air). It's a fun run, altho'
not a very accurate way to determine starting order for a top speed
event, as it more indicative of the car's handling and acceleration
rather than top-end potential.
Either way I get a kick out of it, cause it's our oppourtunity
to whomp on so many of the much-faster cars. Case in point in that
out of the 20-something cars that ran, we finished 11th overall.
Which meant I was going to get passed a lot the next day.
Well folks, this is getting a bit long, and things are getting a
bit hectic, so I think I'll post what I've got & pen pt. 2 when I
can. Happy reading.
dstone@sc9.intel.com
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