Richard Tyzack drove 3,000 kilometers at breakneck speeds all day every day last week, and Thursday night he was ready to relax in Nuevo Laredo.”I’m feeling very hot and sweaty and I’d really love a hot shower,” Tyzack said.
He had just finished La Carrera Panamerica, a road race that started Oct. 26 in Oaxaca, Mexico, and concluded last night in downtown Nuevo Laredo. This was the race’s 20th anniversary. Out of 86 teams, Tyzack and his co-driver, Simon Jefferies, both of England, took fourth place. Their total driving time was 21 hours and 35 minutes.
Pierre de Thoisy and his co-pilot, Frederic Stoesser, of France, took first with a driving time of 19 hours and 31 minutes.
Several thousand spectators cheered on the teams as they paraded their cars down Boulevard Luis Donaldo Colosio in a sort of victory lap. Anybody who finished the automotive marathon certainly deserved congratulations.
Drivers sped down roads they had never seen before at speeds topping 130 mph for hours at a time, Tyzack said. There were plenty of challenges along the way, he said.
“We had to avoid several dead horses, with their legs sticking up in the air,” he said. “We drove around one dead cow, being calmly eaten by a dog, and five downed trees.”
On Tuesday, the team had engine problems. They stayed up until 3 a.m. swapping out the engine in Aguas Calientes, then hit the road again at 6:30 a.m.
“The adrenaline keeps you going,” he said.
One stage, La Bufa, has a reputation as being especially challenging.
“It is very dangerous. It’s fantastically twisty and has bloody drops,” Tyzack said.
He and his teammate had their hearts set on winning that stage, but went off the road near the end. They waited for a frustrating hour, until a school bus came and towed them back onto the road.
“What we’ve liked more than anything else is the friendliness of the people,” Tyzack said. “That would never happen in Great Britain.”
The entire race is known for the variety of obstacles presented to drivers. The elevation of the route varies by 3,000 meters, which requires frequent adjustments to the vehicles. Rough roads take their toll on the cars, and the sheer distance exhausts the teams.
“We’ve done races (in Europe) before,” Tyzack said. “They aren’t as long or arduous as this one. It was hard, hard, hard.”
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