Bringing a knife to a gun fight...

We're back! We know that the suspense has been unbearable, especially for our parents who have been cringing at the stories of us paying off Federalies with AK's, but we are doing our best to post updates when we can. Also, we apologize to anybody who read the last post before we made changes to it. It may have appeared as though we had forgotten the English language after only 3 days in Mexico, but it was mostly a result of sleep deprevation.

The drive from San Miguel to Coatzacolocas was only 600 miles, but it took us about 15 hours. However, most of the other cars in the convoy had a similar experience bcause the detour around Mexico City, the traffic in the small towns that we passed through, the unending road construction, and abundance of bone-crushing potholes slowed us up a bit. Coatzacolcos is right on the coast of the Southern part of the Gulf of Mexico. We arrived late at night, but the hotel that we stayed at was once again top notch. Much of the wealth in Coatzacoalcos is derived from the oil refineries there, and the plumes of jet black smoke billowing from their smoke stacks served as a blunt reminder of why sustainable alternative energy education is so very important.

The purpose of stopping in Coatzacoalcos was to avoid having to do the 150 miles strech from their to Tuxtla Gutierrez at night. These roads made the previous ones that we had travelled on look like the Autobahn. The trip took us roughly 5 hours, but it was a great relief knowing that our 4,000 mile journey to the start of the race was over.

The truck has some how managed to almost stop leaking oil and continues to be a worthy vessel. We've nicknamed him Zevon, because we have been humoring ourselves with the Warren Zevon song, "Send Lawyers, Guns, and Money," for much of the trip down. We believe the oil leak that we experienced further North was basically as a result of the engine not likeing the bio-diesel that we were using. Our F250 powerstroke engine is electrical as opposed to mechanical fuel injection, and requires the highest grade of premium flitered bio-diesel. The recycled Tao oil bio-diesel that we were using wasn't generating enough power for the engine and was causing pressure to build up, which was blowing oil out of the rear seal between the engine and the transmission.

Our first day in Tuxtla Gutierrez was once again filled with excitment that we never could have expected. One of the event organizers was very interested to see our car, but informed us that the Carrera is a very long race and that we should drive carefully because they have lots of missles. He was of course speaking about the race cars that reach speeds of nearly 200 mph during some of the speed stages. We are hoping that our car will hit speeds of 80 or 85 mph.

Hence the title of this post, "Bringing a kinfe to a gun fight." Despite this we intened to stay focused on the task at hand; finishing this grueling 2000 miles race using only waste vegetable oil that we collect along the way.












The missiles: The Studebakers in this picture can easily reach speeds of 200 mph. The silver one is pioloted by world champion rally car driver Stig Blomquist.

One of the things that has been absolutely amazing about our time in Mexico is the willingness of both the other competitors and the local people to help us is whatever way that they can. In San Miguel we had a difficult time communicating with the local people because neither Kip nor I speak very good Spanish. We have been waiting anxiously for Willet to arrive so that we can really try to teach these local people about how they can utilize waste cooking oil, which here in Mexico we're told is typically dumped into drains. Success finally came last night. Once of the mechanics from another team who is from Mexico took a liking to our idea and began tring to explain it to anybody who would listen. Within 20 minutes we had a crowd of Federales and other Tuxtla locals gathered around our car in wide eyed interest listening what this man was telling them. Among the giggles and handshakes of congratulations, as far as we could see, most of these people understood how important something like this could be to their area.

Later on in the evening, when most of the other teams had gone off to dinner and we were still tying up loose ends so that we could pass tech inspection the following day, it just kept getting better. A young engineering student who spoke some broken english was incredibly excited about this technology that he had never heard about before. He was very interested to see if we could figure out a way to help him get a waste vegetable oil grease kit that he could install in a diesel here and Tuxtla and use to help local mechanics develop their own kits to distribute to the local people. We've exchanged email addresses and are hoping to get put together some grant money when we return so that we can do exactly that. While I spent much of the evening talking with him and answering the questions that he was eagerly fireing my way, Kip was also deeply involved in a conversation with a local car enthusiast and his family. They were so excited about what we were doing that they started phoning their friends to see if they could help collect WVO for the race. They also set up a radio interview with the most popular station in Tuxtla and arranged to pick us up the following morning at 8:30. The day honestly could not have gone any better.

We woke up first thing this morning and drove to the radio station in this gentlemans 1954 Mercury. The radio interview also could not have gone better and we are half worried that the locals are going to show up with way more WVO that we can carry with us. Following the interview he drove us back the the fairgrouds where the car is parked, this time in his 1949 Lincoln(all original parts, this car is absolutely gorgeous).

As for the rest of the morning... We passed tech inspection!!!!! It would have been a long drive back to the states and no racing if we hadn't. During the inspection we were interviewed by 3 or 4 more local TV stations who again were all very excited to conver the story and wished us the best of luck. Unfortunately, luck won't have much to do with it. It takes straight grit, determination, and exterme focus to finish a race of this scale in any car. The rest of the day will be dedicated to stickering up the car and making last minute adjustments before tomorrow's prequalifying run. The race starts friday, so stay tuned... Saludos de Mexico.