The Chihuahua Express

[borrani]

Hey Gang,

Tomorrow morning, 6am, two friends and I are hopping into a Dodge pickup truck, towing a 1966 Volvo 122, and heading straight through to El Paso, TX. We'll then cross the border and take part in the 3 day rally known as The Chihuahua Express (CE).

El Expreso de Chihuahua 2007

This is the little brother to La Carrera Panamericana, which is run 6 months earlier. I had the huge pleasure of being navigator on that one.

Not sure if I'll see any Alfas there, sure hope so. I'll take plenty of pics if I do.

Hope I can keep you posted on the 3 days. If it's like La Carrera, it'll be tremendous. We're based in Chihuahua, and each day goes in a different direction. It's run like an FIA rally, with transits and speed sections. In fact, we have to buy an FIA-recognized license for the princely sum of $280 to drive or navigate the event, dammit! At least it's good for the year, so if I can run the La Carrera again, I won't have to buy another one.

My friends are rallying the Volvo, I am navigating in my friend's 2007 Subaru WRX STI again, which is fine by me. Since they're driving straight thru, they wanted a 3rd driver, and I thought that'd be a fun way to get down there. Road trip!

More later,

Steve Schaeffer
Seattle, WA

[Nicola]

Good luck Steve -
And need I say?
Have fun and be safe
We'll look forward to pictures and a full report upon your return.

[Subtle]

Interesting event.

[borrani]

Here's the "mother" event:

La Carrera Panamericana 2007

2 pics of me at finish line, happy day for sure.

If you can see the route book, you can see the tortuously twisty routes I had to navigate!

Steve Schaeffer
Seattle, WA

[borrani]

Made it to El Paso, TX. We drove straight through in about 33 hours, with 2 hours taken to visit my dad in Silver City, NM, and of course, stopping for eating and all that. No stress, just drove, drove, and drove.. We unloaded the Volvo in New Mexico to put some more miles on the new motor. Only took him about 20 minutes to get a $175 speeding ticket in the Volvo!

We go south of the border tomorrow. Some really cool cars are in the parking lot already, as well as some La Carrera veterans.

More later,

Steve S.

[borrani]

This is the mother of all events! The first day of the Chihuahua Express was a redline event, nothing subtle about it. 593km of the most amazing mountain roads you can think of. First speed section was a whopping 40km. That's bigger than anything the La Carrera had. There's tight mountain twisties, and 2km straights that we bombed along at 155mph on. Just mindblowing. The cars absolutely have to be in 100% race condition to take this enormous abuse we thrust upon them. It's 78degrees out, and we're well over 100mph for much of the speed and transit sections, with braking to 3rd gear turns all the time.

Tomorrow will make today pale, they say, as we head to Copper Canyon. We'll have over 1000m elevation gain in 30 minutes.

The Subaru is holding up perfectly, surrounded by gorgeous Nascar-like Studebakers. We're in 6th position in the unlimited class after Day 1 of 3. I think our 300hp is the lowest of the top 8 cars.

My navigation was technically spot on today, no errors, and man, that is not an easy task. I'm calling out those instructions as fast as I can turn the pages.

The black Subie WRX STI that destroyed the competition at La Carrera is here and... he's doing it again! Magnificent job, killing all others around him.

We've got perfect weather here in Chihuahua.

Much less stressful than the Carrera, when I was learning to navigate.

More later,

Steve Schaeffer

[Subtle]

In this event, I'm inclined to support the Subaru efforts.