Sandblast Rally 2011 which severely damaged the car. We didn't want to rush the repairs and take an untested car to Mexico so we had to shelve our plans. Fast forward to January 2012 and we have WRC Rally Mexico 2012 in our sights. After months of preparation we use Sandblast Rally 2012 as a shakedown to make sure the car is ready for Mexico. The car runs well there and we take 1st in 2WD Light class. Andrew Frick kindly lends us extra parts and wheels that we take away from Sandblast. Mike Miller, our crew chief for Rally Mexico donates much of his time helping me prepare for Mexico. We inventory and pack tools, spares and wheels.

To minimize risk, and hopefully reduce costs, we are collaborating with two other teams, John and Mark Huebbe and Jason Wong/Yuji Otsuki, to transport our rally cars to Leon, Guanajuato in Mexico. Unfortunately that means I have to get the rally car, spares and tools to Laredo, Texas where a fellow racer, Ponce of World Rally Team is organizing the group transportation. An enclosed trailer will carry the three cars from Nuevo Laredo (on the Mexican side of the border). I've been invited to navigate the course opening car (car zero) at 100 Acre Wood Rally in Salem, Missouri which is a couple of weeks before Rally Mexico and kind of on the way from Raleigh, NC to Laredo, TX. The Zero Car is actually Mark and John Huebbe's Super Beetle that they are taking to Rally Mexico. John would normally

navigate that car but he is Rally Master for 100 Acre Wood rally and has other duties. This is the first time that I have met John and Mark and the first time for me in a Zero Car. It's quite a responsibility since we are the final decision-makers on the safe condition and readiness of each stage of the rally. Mark and I work well together and I think we do a fine job keeping the rally moving along. The cabin of the Beetle is more compact than even a Cessna 152 aircraft cockpit!

Mike Miller and I prepare the car for its journey to Missouri and then on to Texas. During our preparation we discover serious issues with the trailer chassis and suspension. Facing a total of over 3,000 miles in towing I need to be sure the trailer is as safe as possible. We rebuild the trailer's suspension mounts, all four wheel bearings and replace two of the 4 tires.

Additional unplanned expenses. Mark and John Huebbe in their rig and I in ours, we caravan down to Texas making it as far as San Antonio before stopping. Two to three more hours the next day gets us into Laredo where we meet up with Ponce and unload the cars. Ponce takes us over the border to secure the required temporary registration and customs paperwork to allow the cars into Mexico. Leaving my Sequoia and trailer in the (free) long term parking lot at Laredo airport, I fly home to Raleigh. A few days rest and then Kieran, Mike and I fly down to Leon, Mexico arriving late Sunday night.

The adventure begins as soon as we step off the plane. I have reserved a car with Budget and it's 10:30pm on Sunday. The girl working the Budget counter looks at me in alarm when I say we have a reservation and tells us she has no cars. What's the point of a reservation then?! So she starts negotiating with other rental car companies to find us a car. She finally finds one at Alamo and, given no alternative, we are obliged to go along. They rent us a well-used, Dodge branded Hyundai which became affectionately known as “that rental POS” or “the Dodge Craptitude” (it was a Dodge Attitude) for the rest of the week. More on this later. We arrive at the hotel (Howard Johnson – part of the rally package) around midnight.

After a very nice breakfast in the hotel restaurant on Monday, we head over to the Poliforum which is the central service park to register, and hopefully meet up with the truck bringing in our cars. The place is humming with activity as the WRC teams set up their service bays and management centers. We in the Rally América class are relegated to an outside area. The cars arrive unscathed and we establish our more modest service areas. We elect to take the rally car back to the hotel to work on it and apply the required decals etc. The hotel staff are excited to have a real rally car in their midst and later a photo op takes place with nearly every staff member either in or with the car. Disturbingly the rally car has started exhibiting low power and stalling issues which we try to diagnose and fix.

On Tuesday and Wednesday, Kieran and I head off to recce in the Dodge Craptitude leaving Mike to continue working on the rally car. He is scheduled to get the car through the stringent FIA scrutineering on Wednesday. Kieran and I have written our own stage/pace notes before but nothing on this scale with this level of danger – some of the roads simply cling to the edges of the mountains with sheer drop-offs and no guard rails. The recce schedule is very tight and we find ourselves rushing to some stages. Even then we know we won't be able to get 2 runs across every stage.

The first stage of the event is the famous Guanajuato street stage and we attempt to recce the stage that runs mostly in the tunnels under that city. We get hopelessly lost and, after struggling for nearly an hour, manage to escape the crazy, twisty, narrow, back roads of the city and return to the mountain stages. We'll have to borrow notes for that stage if we can.

Late in the day on Tuesday, at the start of one of the stages, another team points out a flat tire on the front right wheel of our car. Darn! So we hop out and change the wheel in record time. Getting back into the car, ready to start the next stage, I notice that the “POS rental” has a second flat tire on the front left wheel! We only had one spare wheel and we're high up in the mountains, miles from anywhere and not even a cell phone signal. We need to complete recce for two more long, dangerous stages. We do not want to run these stages blind, without notes. Before I head off to a local cantina to try to find a real telephone I notice that the only other car in the vicinity, a Chevrolet Chevy, has a similar bolt pattern as the Craptitude, albeit with a smaller rim. On a long shot I ask of the nearby recce control workers who owns that car and we meet Charro – complete with sombrero. He's here scouting places to photograph the cars during the rally. We beg him for the use of his spare wheel and, after much cajoling and reassurance that we will return it, he graciously lets us take it. So we plan to move a rear wheel to the front and mount his smaller wheel on the rear. In the

process of removing said rear wheel the Craptitude lives up (down?) to its name and reveals that one of the lug nuts was previously cross-threaded. Nothing to do but snap the damn thing off. So now we're running on a borrowed, smaller rim mounted to a hub with only 3 lug nuts and no spare wheel! Off we go to finish recce on that day although a bit more circumspectly since I have no more spares.

We return to the Poliforum having run all but one stage twice and on the one we missed we did get a good single pass. Mike suspects that the Idle Speed Control Valve might be the cause of our power and stalling issues so I head off to the nearest Ford dealer to try to find a replacement. Speaking very little spanish I struggle to get help until Fer

Hernandez, a young lady from the new car sales department, is appointed as a translator for me. I secure a replacement part and head back. Charro is waiting patiently there for his spare wheel which we return and remount one of the flat tires on the rental. I don't want to be stuck waiting for Alamo at the Poliforum so I carefully drive back the 2 miles to the hotel on the flat tire and then call Alamo for help while Mike and Kieran fit the new part on the rally car. Alamo have no other cars and the manager who comes out to help me takes the two flat wheels away leaving the car on its jack in the hotel driveway. An hour later he returns with one tire mounted and one entirely off the rim. The mounted tire, he says, is too dangerous to use as anything other than an emergency spare since the interior was badly damaged during the two mile journey back to the hotel. He showed me a bag full of rubber crumbs that were retrieved from the tire.

The unmounted tire, he says, has a tear in the sidewall and cannot be used at all. He has no replacements and essentially tells me I must buy two new tires before continuing to use the car!

We have another full day of recce that starts at 7 AM Wednesday; several hundred miles of rough mountain roads in a car with no spare and one suspect wheel. We do not want to head off into the mountains under such circumstances! Kieran and I are up and out by 6 AM the next day, looking for tires. Foreigners in a strange city with no real clue. Our worst case plan is to try the Walmart but they don't open until 9 AM – 2 hours after recce starts! The non-english speaking hotel staff have given us a poorly written map to some place that might help. After several aborted attempts to find it we seek the help of the local constabulary. The police officer speaks a little english and, with the help of his radio dispatch operator, leads us to a “Vulcanizadora”. A hole-in-the-wall, one-man operation, heaven-sent tire fixer! He can't help us with the mounted, emergency tire on which we're driving but does proceed to repair the torn side wall of the other tire! Hand cutting a chunk of rubber from some old motorcycle tire,

he vulcanizes it over the tear inside the tire, cooking it on a special hot iron. He repeats the process on the outside. Fifty minutes and 100 pesos (less than $10) later and we're on our way to recce day 2. The cop won't even take a tip for helping us! The suspect emergency tire goes into trunk and we're off on the repaired tire into the mountains, crossing our fingers.

The rest of recce proceeds with less drama although we end the second pass through the somewhat terrifying 54 km stage in the dark - cliffs to one side and hundred foot, unprotected drop-offs to the other! We return to meet Mike at the Poliforum, tired but satisfied that we've done the best we can with our stage notes under the circumstances. Scrutineering is running late but we hear that our car passes “Verificado” just as we arrive. Another worry falls away. However, the new Idle Speed Control Valve has not resolved the rally car's power loss and stalling issues. Perhaps the throttle position sensor (TPS) or a collapsed vacuum line (one looks suspicious). Getting a bit desperate now.

Thursday is the first real competition day. We have shakedown and the Guanajuato Street Stage but they are later in the day. As Kieran starts reworking our recce notes, Mike and I head back over to the

Ford dealership to chase down more parts and spend some more time with Fer. We make our needs known but they have to get the parts brought in from other locations. So we're in for a long, but pleasant, wait. Finally the needed parts are acquired and we rush back to install. No real time to test before Kieran and I must leave for the shakedown stage. Driving through the crowded, busy streets of Leon with the car stalling every time it goes to idle is very frustrating and presages our ongoing issues for the next couple of days. Shakedown goes well but the car is low on power too, more than can be explained by the 7,000 ft altitude of the stage. We return to the Poliforum to await the official start of the rally and post our frustrations online to our friends, family and fans.

Friday begins our first day of real competition. This year the Rally América class cars are only permitted to run the stages after the WRC and PWRC cars have completed them.

Many of those stages are run twice by the WRC cars so we are held back at the Poliforum while the WRC cars make their first passes across the day's stages.

So our first stage is actually stage 6, El Cubilete. A 22 km (13.6 mile) stage running north-east across the mountains west of Guanajuato. We've had a 30 minute service after Parc Fermé but not enough to identify and resolve our problems. You can see some of my frustration in the in-car video of that stage. This stage has a long paved (with cobblestone!) section that climbs a long way up to the plateau. I have the car in 1st and 2nd gear often at very high revs in order to make it as we zig-zag up the switchbacks. The engine temperature begins to climb.  Normally our Focus manages the heat and hard work very well but this is very taxing. And, of course, the higher we get the less dense the air becomes, robbing the car of even more power. As I top out of the climb and for the next few kilometers I ease back on the car and give it a chance to cool down before picking up the pace as best as I can, again. At pretty much every turn, miles from anywhere, we see many spectators. The mexicans really love this sport. Aside from performance problems we complete the stage with no issues.

T

here's a long transit to the start of the 15.21 km (9.4 mile), Las Minas stage 7 which runs east of Guanajuato. Very twisty with lots of unprotected drop-offs but fewer hard climbs than stage 6. Our stage notes are very good and I put a lot of trust in them although we lose our place in the notes briefly on this stage. The stage also winds through the narrow streets of the village of Mina Peregrina and then climbs again out the valley up some tight switchbacks. Some of the down sections are tight and loose with big drop-offs if we make a mistake. A very technical stage and I'm trying to make sure our car lasts the next 3 days.

A short transit this time to Los Mexicanos, stage 8 at 9.76 km (6 miles). Again tight and twisty and the car is still struggling to provide the power that I'm used to. Some incredible scenery though as can be seen in the in-car video. However, neither Kieran nor I are admiring the views! One brief distraction could mean the end of our rally! In one particularly rough section I feel a problem with our brakes which is quite alarming. The front-right brake seems to be binding and I suspect that we have a seized caliper. It continues to buck and bind on the transit back and through the next stage making a horrible noise as the differential tries to overcome the locked wheel.

Back to Leon and a run through the Monster Street Stage next to the Poliforum before a 45 minute

service. Entering the Poliforum all the rally cars get a brief pressure wash! During the service we investigate the brake issue and, disturbingly, find that one of the two bolts that hold the brake caliper in place is entirely missing and the other is loose! Had it completely failed on the mountain stages we would have had serious problems!

After the service, and at night now, we head over to the Autodromo for two runs at the Super Special stages 11 and 12 there. It is 2.2 km (1.3 mile) on a purpose built track with jumps, water splashes and mixed surfaces. Usually two cars are paired in the side by side tracks but we are the last car there and run the stage solo. Back again into Parc Fermé at the Poliforum looking forward to a good sleep.

Saturday starts like Friday with us waiting in Parc Fermé while the WRC cars make their first pass over the day's stages. These and Sunday's stages are run in the high mountains north of Leon. Late morning and we're released to a 30 minute service and then off to our first stage of the day. It is Ibarrilla, stage 15 and 29.9 km (18.5 miles) long. Up to now we've been running on Lassa 3 tires which I've been racing on for the previous 2 or 3 years. But we've also brought 4 new Dmack gravel tires. They are smaller and lighter than the Lassas so I'm not sure how they'll handle. They are also soft compound due to a problem in shipping but they're all we've got. However, I quickly adapt and find their grip is excellent despite the slightly smaller contact patch and the lower weight and size means more of my limited power gets converted into grip and torque. The powerful WRC cars ahead of us have really churned up the road in some sections but they've also carved out some of the inside cuts and I'm able to ditch-hook some of these to improve our speed. The tires put up with the punishment of the stages quite well. About half way through the stage (approximately 17:30 in the video) one especially big bump knocks out our auxiliary power which includes the rally computer and, much worse, our intercom! Kieran must shout the notes for the remainder of the stage. I am barely able to hear him but we managed to finish with no undue harm other than a sore throat for Kieran. In the transit we pull over and determine that a power lead had disconnected from the battery. We are able to repair it and continue.

After stage 15 it's directly on to the long Otates stage 16 which is the longest stage we've ever done at 41.88 kilometers (26 miles) which again climbs into the high mountains north of

Leon. After only 1 km we come across Brianne Corn's wrecked Subaru – she caught the front right wheel in a worn inside turn and rolled the car – they are OK but the car cannot continue.  Knowing I'm on soft compound tires which are not ideal for these conditions I pick carefully through the rougher sections to preserve the tires. About 6 or 7 km into the stage I come round a turn to find a large rock directly in my path and I cannot avoid it hitting it with the right wheel. The jarring knock shifts something in the geometry of that corner and the steering wheel is misaligned by about 20°. I continue on the stage but later we also find that the wheel has developed some severe negative camber. I think we've perhaps bent a tie rod. There's a lot more climbs and turns left on this stage so we press on, down on power and now with bent steering. This stage like most of the others is very technical and twisty with its fair share of dangerous drop offs. Talking with the Huebbes later we find we have a different approach in our notes to these sections. Whereas John will call “exposure” to Mark to indicate these hazardous turns, we use either “stay in” or “tidy”. Our intention is to keep me focused on the road where we want to be rather than the drop-off where we do not want to be. For the same reason we rarely call “rock outside” or “ditch” just the line to take to stay away from such hazards.

The uphill climbs are somewhat frustrating due to our lack of power but the downhill sections are a bit scary in places where the surface is very loose and ditches await the smallest mistakes. I feel that despite our handicaps we complete the stage satisfactorily. A couple of kilometers from the finish of this stage we are passed by Bill Caswell and Wyatt Knox in their more powerful BMW and we get to drive in their dust for a while. They arrived in Leon too late to participate in recce and we have given them the first draft of our notes (before Kieran rewrites them into our final notes). Later Bill and Wyatt tell us that the notes were excellent which corroborates our own opinion.

We return to Leon for service and then run Super Special Stages 18 and 19 (which have been combined into one) at the Autodromo track. We have received a suggestion from Michael Reilly that our stalling and power troubles might be alternator cabling issues so Mike Miller has acquired a bypass power lead that he runs directly from the alternator to battery.

It seems to make a difference and this time we are paired with the Lancer and give them a good run. A slight mistake early on as we understeer into one of the banks probably costs us the race since

we only lose to the Lancer by 1.8 seconds after 4.4 kms! Back to Leon and the final Parc Fermé.

Sunday morning and we're not held back by the WRC cars this time. The very first stage is another run through the super special stage at the Autodromo and then on to the brutally long Guanajuatito Stage 22 at 54.3 km (33.7 miles)! Yesterday's 41 km stage set a record for us and this stage is 30% longer! We steel ourselves for this long stage hoping we can maintain the absolute focus needed throughout. The car is finally giving more power after the previous day's repairs by Mike although we still have something crooked in

the front right geometry. The tie rod was not damaged and other parts seem intact too. I think we may actually have bent the frame. Nothing we can do about that so off we go. We are determined to finish the rally intact and the pressure to bring back a running car is not helped by the news from Ponce that when the cars return to Nuevo Laredo we must re-enter Mexico and drive them back across the border!

I challenge the reader to watch the stage 22 in-car video in its entirety and try to imagine driving that stage yourself. It's grueling enough just watching it! We are still on the Dmack tires that we ran all day Saturday. The inside edges of the front wheels took some wear from all the ditch hooking but the rear wheels had remarkably little wear. So we've swapped the wheels front to back for Sunday's stages. The first few kilometers are loose with some hairpins over sharp rocks so again I try to preserve the tires – we have over 71 km (44 miles) to complete today. If you're paying attention to the notes that Kieran is reading you may hear and be puzzled by our “mini disco” note that we use a couple of times. We've planned these calls at relatively safe sections in an attempt to wake and refresh the mind and body. To make sure we don't slip into the fog of repetition and become lackadaisical. It's hard to see but I actually attempt a quick disco dance at these times. It sounds crazy but I think it works well for us. The middle 20 kilometers of this stage seem to pass in a blur – we are really in the zone and you'll note that I am making very few comments to Kieran – a sign that I'm really trusting Kieran and our notes. He is calling the notes beautifully! It also appears that I'm carrying a good speed through this section. At about 41 minutes into the video you can see WRC driver Evgeny Novikov's Ford Fiesta on its roof following a roll. When Kieran announces that we're almost done we are both astonished that this long stage as passed seemingly so quickly. In the last few kilometers we begin to see the dust of the car ahead of us which means we've made over two minutes on their time – a boost to the ego finally.

Between the end of stage 22 and the start of 23 there is a remote refuel zone in the village of Neuvo Valle de Moreno. We spot the Huebbes investigating and trying to field-repair the steering linkage on their Beetle.

Stage 23, Derramadero, is 10.58 km (6.6 miles) long with some interesting soft, almost silt-like, sections that are a bit unnerving especially on the downhill portions. About half way there is an artificial jump that's been built over the fence. As usual I can't afford to take the jumps with much aggression. I look forward to the day when I can. There's a small group of fans at the finish control. Even though we're one of the last and slowest cars out there, we still get a lot of attention and affection from the fans. The children even start singing as we leave! There's a short transit from that stage to the start of stage 24.

The VW Power Stage at 5.46 km  (3.4 miles) is the shortest and final stage of the rally. The WRC winner of this stage scores additional championship points. Not for us though but we do still get to race on the stage. I do make one final error however. The car is not in gear at launch! The rest of the stage goes smoothly and the car is pulling strongly. I wish we'd had this power on all the stages. We can hardly believe we've completed every stage of this challenging rally - one of only three cars in the Rally América class to do so. Back to Leon for a brief final service before parading to the Finish Podium in front of thousands of more fans.

It's important that we point out the valuable contribution that Mike Miller, our entire crew team, has made to this experience. He never failed to give 100% of his effort and passion to make sure we stayed in the race. Thanks, Mike!

We join up with the Huebbes and Jason and Yuji to get our cars packed and loaded into the transport back to the US. Then we head over to the official post rally party at a nearby club where we meet our fellow competitors and exchange war stories. Late that night we go on a mission to rescue some of the rally banners that have been plastered across the city. Souvenirs of an incredible once-in-a-lifetime experience. Well, maybe not – perhaps we can raise the funds to go again sometime.

I'd also like to thank everyone else who, directly or indirectly, helped us along the way. Andrew Frick for the loan of his spares (which we fortunately did not need), Mike Reilly for his advice on our power and stalling issues, Ponce for his assistance in transporting the cars, our numerous fellow competitors who lent a hand when needed, and, of course, Rally America and Jerry's Artarama for their sponsorship of our Mission to Mexico.

On Monday I take Kieran and Mike to the airport. They are traveling directly home to Raleigh. I will fly to Laredo the next morning on a 5 AM flight to hopefully retrieve the rally car and begin the long tow home. I spend the day in Leon with Bill Caswell, Wyatt Knox and their crew. We take in some of the sights of the city and create a couple of our own.

I spend the night at the airport having decided that an additional hotel night is not worth it if I have to leave before 3 AM. The flight into Laredo is incident-free and I meet up with John and Mark Huebbe having retrieved the Sequoia and trailer which I've left in the airport long term parking section all this time. Instructions from Ponce are that the trailer with our cars is at the shippers location in Nuevo Laredo and we are to walk across the bridge into Mexico and get a taxi to their location. We do that and unload the cars from the trailer. There is another taxi waiting to lead us out and to carry the extra wheels and the Huebbe's floor jack across the border since there's no room in either of our cars. Before we can leave however a gunfight erupts between one of the local drug cartels and the military based authorities. The people at the shipping company advise to stay until the danger lessens. An armed helicopter is circling overhead – we seem to be in the hot zone. After an hour or two we hear reports that the city is returning to what they term normal and it's relatively safe for us to leave. So, following the taxi, John in the rally Beetle and me in our laden rally Focus head off. We first must stop at the customs building to cancel the temporary mexican registration and then off the the bridge. After a long delay we finally cross back into the US around 5:00 PM.

Simon Wright, USUK Racing Driver