A confusing day, and over half way

A very confusing day and a very exciting day. We woke up to clear blue sky with a light dusting of frost, the sun bouncing off the crystal clear lake, eagles soaring above and snow capped mountains as the back drop ( used to be an estate agent, this sort of gush is easy:) )

We headed out of the car park with some very strange banging and crashing going on at the back end of Molly. I got out and checked all four wheels, kicked the exhaust pipes and decided all was well.

Surprisingly my expert opinion was correct and Molly performed well all day.

From the hotel car park, we had a leisurely drive to a go kart track. Here we had 3 timed laps, we tried our best and we await the results. Then a timed section on open roads, great twisting empty roads, Molly clocks her fastest time of 131 kph and we arrive early at the time control.

We have to drive through a river to start the next timed stage, the water did not quite come up to the door handles, but I am sure it was close :)

This next time section is 8.7 Klm in 7 min on roads best tackled in a range rover. We do finish it and again await results, anywhere in the top 32 will be good.

The NEXT stage is again over goat like passes travelling some 17 km in 25 min.

The last one is 14 km in 12 min all on the same gravel ( that's what they call it) roads.

After all that we have a little drive of 265 km to the hotel. This drive is on the main road and is just fab.

The confusing bit is that one minute you are in desert like plains with the odd wild horse charging about and then you drive into a town with a snow man in the middle of it.

Molly is the smallest car ( I know you know that) but she is also the lowest. Some of the rocks we are going over at about 80 kph are nearly as tall as she is. This makes the journey a little noisy. But the rattles in the car are getting quieter as all the bits drop off.

Tonight's hotel is a million miles away from the luxury of last nights.  

If Carlsberg did hotels and views last nighwould have been it. This one is closer to Watneys Red Barrel 

I thought Patagonia was a clothing shop :)

We have arrived in a smashing place called the Llao Llao Hotel, Spa Patagonia AND wait for it, Golf resort. This has got to be one of the most stunning golf courses I have seen.
If the weather is good tomorrow we might get nine holes in, think the clubs are in the back of the car somewhere :)
We started the day in bright sunshine but had to battle through some pretty heavy rain and very strong winds. According to our local helpers the wind will only get stronger as we head south.
A lot of the driving today was on various grades of gravel roads. Some were perfect for Molly and we belted along, others were better for a JCB and not so pleasant, but we arrived on time and in one piece.

Couple of rallying tips we have picked up and are proving very useful are
Always smell the petrol spout the attendant is about to fill your car with. Two vintage cars have ended up with tanks full of diesel!!! Luckily no harm done to either car.
The other is don't let your bag with your passport in it, out of your sight. One poor crew had theirs pinched and that was the end of the rally.

The above part of the blog was written yesterday afternoon, when we were tired, hungry, covered in dust and a bit scratchy.
Last night the true rally fraternity came out to play.
We were introduced to a new game called 'pudding pouters' the rules are quite simple, you line up a creme brûlée  on the table, bend your head over it, suck like hell and eat the pudding in one go.
The undisputed champion was Hugo or 'Hoover' to his mates. Hugo's piece de resistance was to Hoover up his opponents puddings while they were still warming up. I am not sure the head chef was impressed but we all were. Should be on UTube :)
From this we went along for a little sing song with Andy the mechanic leading the way on guitar.  We 

all got the words on our phones or iPads and were in perfect harmony, bit like X factor does 

Patagonia. Highlight of the evening a rendition of a well known ballad, written in 1972 called 'Living next door to Alice' performed by Andy on guitar, Sadie on head gaskets and everyone singing with mighty gusto. Probably the funniest rude version of any song I have ever heard.

It was great to see everyone thoroughly enjoying themselves after such a long day.

Today is a rest day. We have cleaned Molly's windows, shovelled the sand out and cleaned the air filters. Andy has had to re set the points again, but the little girl is still flying along.

We have unfortunately lost 4 crews with terminal car problems. Such a shame and really heart breaking for them.

The hotel we're staying in is stunning surrounded by awesome scenery, the food is great and the sun is shining.  Do we enjoy rallying??? You bet :)

Tomorrow is an interesting day, we get to race around a go kart track. Now let me think, who has got the smallest car? May do OK.

Final bit of news is that Team Tigre is still in the number one spot, bloody amazing (sorry again mum). If we win this team competition I may have to go and stand in the naughty corner for swearing too strongly.

Cheers

David, Julie and Molly.

We have arrived in Buenos Aires

We have arrived safe and sound at the  Emperador Hotel. The flight over was not one of BA finest, upgrading to Ryan Air for the return !
We have meet Team America, 5 cars all highly prepared, including ice boxes, roll out tables, air conditioning, cooling and warming seats all in 1939 cars, amazing.
We have also meet up with our friends from the Tiger rally Jan and Marion in a seriously cool 1965 Mustang ( can see one of these on the shopping list)
Have done the tourist bit and had an open top bus ride around Buenos Aires, the local driving looks quite safe from up there. They have the widest road in the world in the middle of BA ( honestly). The problem appears to be that the locals think all the roads are the same width and try to get 9 lanes into 3 at approx 60 mph. Not to sure of the speed I was trying to climb into the back seat with the others.

Julie and I had to have a go. I borrowed the hat from a local and Julie was in her normal Waitrose shopping outfit, great fun, oh and she dyed her hair :)

After all the exercise we just had to try out one of the stake house with Team America, amazing steaks and great company.

It looks like we will be able to collect Molly a day early. It will be great to get behind the wheel again. Weather perfect for a little drive only 25 degrees and clear blue sky's. this rallying lark is quite hard you know :)

  

Molly Porsche has arrived in Buenos Aires

Molly Porsche arrived in Buenos Aires yesterday 28th October. Great news, means a third of the team is in the right place.
All we have got to do is fly over and find her. Apparently she is in a nice bright red container, so should be easy to track her down :)

 

We fly out on 9th Nov, its all getting quite exciting.

Insurance

We have to have  also sorts of 'paper type' insurance cover for this rally, shipping insurance, accident, personal liability etc and its different for each country, luckily The Edurance Rally Association help us and Julie watches over it all.
Third part fire and theft does not quite cover this sort of event.
However we like to cover all the bases. So we will be taking this chap along with us, he should be able to put a good word in for us if we come really unstuck. Only problem is his pointed hat doesn't fit in our coupe :(

 

Some times you do get it a bit wrong

and some times its best not to argue with the 'loss adjuster'

check out the little guy in the flat hat :)

 

Getting ready for the Cape Horn Rally, packing and rally school.

We leave the UK on 9th Nov. We think we are nearly prepared with all the paper work, insurances, documents and appropriate clothing. Molly is only a little car and trying to pack all the clothing for the trip with temperatures ranging from 25 to 0 degrees is tricky.
We will be going up to heights of over 3000 metres ( snow line is usual 2000 meters) but Julie has got it all under control.
 She said that

'there seems to be so much more room for my evening attire if we take this old spare engine out the boot'

 

We are not competitive ;) but just so that we are ready for this event we have been going to the gym twice a week. Thanks to the guys at Better Body Shop. We are now really good at jumping up and down, pushing heavy weights around, pulling heavy weights around, and  real experts at applying 'deep heat'. 

 

Julie also sent me off to rally school.

Wow! I had to learn to drive all over again.

The school was the David Higgins Rally school in Wales.

David is a Team Subaru driver and one of the UK's best rally drivers. I was very privileged to have David teach me on a 1- 2- 1 basis.

Stop press!!!!!

David Higgins and his co driver Craig Drew have just won the Rally America Championships 2013.

 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/wales/24613371

I had to be taught in Molly. She is the oldest car to ever do his 'forest stage' and with my driving probably the slowest. I had to explain what drum brakes where :).

Thanks to David for his patience, this link goes through to a quick view of us on a smooth bit, sorry about the long intro :)

http://youtu.be/ULiemYYGTZs

 

but to see how it should be done go to Daves website. Totally amazing.

http://davidhiggins75.com/index.php/launch-control

David brother drove our 'other car' in a back water film called Skyfall :)

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-mid-wales-19515559

 

 



The Cape Horn Rally 2013

Last year Julie and I took our 1958 Porsche 356A, known as Molly, on the Tiger Rally all around Malaysia, Thailand, Loas, Cambodia and back into Thailand, some 6500 kms in 21 days.
We had such fun that we became hooked on Endurance Rallying. In about 3 weeks time (9 November) we are off again.

This time with the Endurance Rally Association. We are taking part in the Cape Horn Rally.
Down through South America zig sagging across the Andes. 6000 kms in 20 days.
We are driving Molly again. She has been back to Gantspeed Engineering for a fairly major check over (thank you Robert and the team), and is ready to go again.
Molly Porsche is being shipped by CARS UK to Buenos Aires, we are being lazy and flying over.

Molly Porsche's home for 6 weeks.

We learnt a lot from the Tiger Rally, mainly to take your own pit crew. I have been doing a lot of in-depth research into this and came up with the perfect team. Julie does not seem so impressed. Girls just don't understand car things.