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Part
1, Background and Prep
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Part
2, Day 1, 2 |
Part
3, Day 3, 4, 5 |
Part
4, Day 6, 7, 8 |
| Part
5, Day 9, 10, 11 |
Part
6, Day 12, 13
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Part
7, Day 14, 15 |
Part
8, Day 16, 17, 18 |
No Excuses!
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Day 12: rest & repair
Well,
that was a bit of a change. Instead
of staring at the speedo all day, I spent most of the morning at my
computer, building this prettier (and more accessible version of the
postings (WITH pictures!). Durango�s
main claim to fame these days is a steam-powered narrow-gauge railroad to
Silverton, apparently once for mining use, but now a tourist attraction.
Having once worked on the rails, and gone the equivalent of to the
moon and back on the squealing twin steel ribbon, I elected to pass �
though I do indeed enjoy railroading, just not as a break from driving.
So, instead, we dealt with the impedimenta of our road warrior
existence. Laundry. Fluids for
the car. Clean out the car.
Sleep a bit later. Go for
a walk. Print up some more
handout cards for the kids. And
deal with those suspicious brakes.
We lifted each wheel and spun them.
OK there. Then we applied
and released the brakes. All OK
except the left front. Dragging,
but then releasing slowly. Bingo
�that�s exactly the feeling it had when we pulled out last night.
We did a close inspection of the parts and found no problems, other
than some minor brake dust buildup and some hot spots on the drum face.
We put it back together, backed off the adjuster a 1/2 turn and
we�re good to go. At least,
there�s nothing there that will kill us.
On the other hand, since the hub comes off with the bearings, we had
to pull the grease cup and cotter pin in the bearing nut.
We found a second cotter pin in the grease, just lying there next to
the nut! I�m sure glad it
didn't find its way into the bearing itself!
Still
no pictures posted on the Race website, but now you�ve had a chance to see
them here, so that�s OK. We
did get some notice today in an article on the race passing through Dodge
City, in the Hutchinson News (Dodge is in Hutchinson County).
I was quoted, and correctly! (Editor's
note, the interview from 2006 is no longer available online in the
Hutchinson News).
Otherwise,
this was pure R&R today. Tomorrow,
our departure number is 90, so we leave a full hour and a half after the
first car. We�ll be sleeping
late!
Day 13: Stage 10
A
long desert run today: Colorado, Arizona, New Mexico, Utah, back into Colorado
and finally, into Page, AZ. This
is the �Four Corners� area, the only place in the US where four state
borders coincide (guess which four). This
is high desert, painted rocks and scrub vegetation.
Our route took us through the Valley of the Gods and Monument Valley.
Once again, the real challenge was staying on task, holding speed
through the hills on loooong runs, while stealing glimpses and photos on the
fly of the incredible scenery. I�ll
get a bit metaphysical here, but if you remember the Early Earth scenes in the
film, Fantasia, with the adolescent crust pocked with reddened volcanic
acne; then you�ll appreciate this area.
In the higher places it supports no vegetation at all � too dry and
too alkaline or copper-loaded. Eons
of erosion have left spires and canyons beyond belief.
Life itself, in all its forms, is as thin a layer on the bare Earth as
a grass stain is on a golf ball. Here,
it�s rubbed raw and the red soreness is palpable.
Only the thin band of the San Juan river offers a bit of soothing aloe
shade and green relief from the hard red rocks.
Here�s a few shots (we could easily have spent days in photography
here, but the Race Must Go ON!):
and
here�s the view from the car:
Somehow,
there is NO WAY to capture the majesty, scope, and fierceness of this place in
little photos!
Needless
to say, it was hot again. Much of
this run was at 6-7000 feet and the sun through the thin, desiccated air was
almost as strong as in outer space! I
have a significant trucker�s tan (going west, guess which arm gets the sun
ALL DAY?). To beat the heat, we
had packed a flexible cooler sack with ice cubes and wet towels (towels gifts
courtesy of many of the towns we have
visited).
When we�d get too hot, we�d pull out one of those cold, wet ones
and drape it around the back of a neck. That
INSTANTLY cools the brain and restores lucidity and vision.
Then the evaporative cooling will keep it comfy for another hour.
What a great system! Here�s
a quick image of me coolly driving (the neck towel is barely visible, being as
white as our team shirts and tucked in the collar).
Dave
has been promoted, by the way, from just Navigator Extraordinaire, to Navvy/Photographer.
Almost all the images you see here came from him.
We
had just two city stops today, Farmington, NM and Page, AZ for the night.
Long runs, as I mentioned (on the other hand, in this desert, where are
you going to stop?). We did pretty
darn well, despite my daydreaming and rubbernecking at the otherworldly surroundings. We scored a 14
second day (!) and won our third Ace. We
were close to winning our Rookie Division
for the day, too. The best
Rookie score was 10.46 seconds and the best overall an incredible 1.63
seconds! So, we scored 5th
in Rookie today, 18th overall.
Cumulatively, that moves us to 10th in Rookies and 54th
overall. It was a tough day for
all the cars. We had 8 DNFs (did
not finish). The reliability of
our Imperial carried us through!
The
desert leads to a lot of creative visual expression in its residents (and
there are some!). We couldn�t
help but stop when we passed (off the clock) this unique advertisement, making
a new use of an old DeSoto:
Otherwise, we saw other cars only during the two refueling stops.
Here�s an image of one such, showing some of the variety of cars
participating:
That
red one in the center looks like a Sting Ray generation Corvette (too new), but
it�s actually a 58, with the prototype body that led to those later
production cars.
Our
race-instruction execution was perfect today, but we had one goofy failure.
When we were at Farmington, NM for lunch and the show of Race cars, we
put our 1:18 scale model of this car (complete with Great Race stickers) on
the hood, as we often do; along with the handout cards that we give the kids,
slipped under the wipers. I guess
we were a little heat-addled, because we left the show with both still out
front. I got about three blocks
along when Dave suddenly saw the model out there on the hood and called out
for me to stop! Whoops.
It rolled right off and hit the road, literally!
It suffered just some scuffed fin tips and a loose rear bumper.
I guess the models are as strong as real Imperials.
Just the same, I�ll prep a back up model for tomorrow.
After we stopped to retrieve the hood-lost model, we started again, not
noticing that the cards were still under the wipers.
I pulled over again, and turned on the wipers to see if they would drag
the cards into my reach. I got
one, but the rest of each stack remained in place.
I flicked the wiper switch on and off to keep the blades in mid sweep
and not whacking the cards, while Dave, laughing his head off, climbed out to
get them to safety.
We
get teased a lot here about our luxurious ride.
Of course, it's true, but it�s worth noting that we get no handicap
on our score at all, and we're running �A capella� (with no support
team or chase vehicle at all). Only
a few of the racers are doing that � maybe we should ask for an A Capella
(unsupported) class! The veterans
mostly have a big race-shop-in-a-trailer heavy rig coming along behind,
sometimes with a staff of about 6 people!
They clean and repair every night while the racers rest (or party).
It�s just a little wicked pleasure to watch team #4 (Reeder &
Stone), a grandfather and his 13-year-old grandson, out in front overall in
this Great Race!
Those
of you who read yesterday�s post will note I offered 2 M&M�s to anyone
who remembered the Wolf Creek Pass song. Well,
part of my day�s writing ended up in the Daily Racer paper handed out here,
and Vicky Atkinson, who gives us our course instructions each morning, sang it
for me today. She wins the M&Ms!
Tomorrow
is the toughest run of all: 500
miles to Tonopah, NV; and desert all the way!
Start time is 6:30 AM, and it�s pushing 10 PM here now.
Time to get some rest myself. If
we have time or space (how big is Tonopah, NV anyway?) then I�ll report
again tomorrow.
PS:
I am sitting in the hotel lobby (the only wireless hotspot) to write
this (Dave�s asleep), and a family of locals just came in, having seen the
July 4 fireworks nearby. One older
fellow wore a Code Talker hat and we spoke briefly.
He is indeed one of the local Navajo (preferred name Dineh � Navajo
is a Spanish appellation and considered slightly derogatory: I learned
something there!). The Code
Talkers, you may know, were bilingual men (English/Dineh) who joined the
service and by traveling as radiomen with forward troops, provided an
unbreakable code for our armed forces in the Pacific theatre.
The Japanese forces never could work through the unpublished language
that they used to make secure communications.
As volunteers and the truest of Americans, their work saved countless
lives and shortened that terrible war by making the American advances totally
secret from the opposition! It was
an honor to shake his hand. I wish
I had gotten his name.
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