Can you believe it! All the waiting is over now and the day is tomorrow that we get to qualify. Today Jon and Steffan´s plane arrived and the next thing I knew there they were walking toward the car with big smiles. After getting Jon´s paperwork signed off without any problems they got a bite to eat. There were many people for them to meet and a bunch more cars were coming in and many were still not able to pass tech inspection or still having to wait in long lines. For the most part everything is very well organized which really makes it a pleasure to be here. Everyone on TEAM CALIFORNIA´S BEST was having a blast and naturally I was up to my usual antics when I got Jon over to take his medical exam. The doctors giving the exam were trying so hard to stop laughing when I showed Jon how to take the exam. (see photo)
Jon and I signed a lot of autographs and handed out lots of hero cards an posed with spectators for photos. Afterwards we decided to go do a pre-run on the section of highway where qualification will be run tomorrow. This is the only time we will be allowed to do so. I chose to not take Lucky but instead all of us piled into the crew truck and check it out. Boy was it fun even though the road as not closed off from two way traffic yet. It´s nice of them to start off with an easy course even though it has a bunch of cliffs with no guard rails. There was no reason to run it more than once and its very short. It´s not important to qualify in front as many seem to wreck on the first day and any good endurance driver knows this is a long race so there´s plenty of time to sort things out. It will however be a good time to check out the car.
Driving and sliding the four wheel crew truck around mountain corners on the wrong side of the road was a hoot to say the least. On the return to town I was casually driving along at 90 miles per hour when I looked up and saw 6 new Charger police cars all with their lights on coming up behind me. At first I thought I was being pulled over when they turned on their sirens but after they saw the La Carrera Panamericana sign on my door they waved at us and then stepped on the gas. Before long we were all doing 100 miles per hour. It turns out these are the Federalies that will be in charge during the race for the next week. I honestly don´t remember the last time I was doing 100 miles per hour WITH the police instead of FROM them. During the entire time Steffan had the camera running.
Now were are back at the hotel where Jon is having a nap before we go to another hotel for tonight´s co-piloto meeting and then Steffan goes to the press meeting.
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