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Stage 4 , June 29
Today started out with a bang - literally.
Thundershowers descended on the middle section of the pack
as we began our timed run. The '32 Ford Racer in front
of us was caught unprepared and as we were hit by rain
so heavy the wipers could not keep up, we saw a blue blur
in front of us and barely had time to drive around the
Racer - parked in the middle of the road and putting their
rain gear on. The Rover held on well and maintained speeds
and turns to stay on course and on speed. We were running
with only the top over us, flaps rolled up and no windows,
and amazingly stayed reasonably dry throughout. Ten minutes
later it was over and the sun came out and it was hot and
sticky again. Amazing. We Southern Californians just can't
relate. Our rain lasts for weeks...but we only see it one
year out of ten!
Meanwhile, we finished a challenging course
through Illinois farmland (note to Jo at Disney: yes, the
corn is easily "knee-high
by 4th of July" - in fact most is over waist-high
and some even taller!) and came into a somewhat disappointing
brunch stop to find that a significant part of the front
half of the field had been detoured by a road closure that
had opened up by the time we got there (we ran at #50 today).
So they ended up throwing out the first two legs (one of
which we had a score of 2 seconds on).
Then, the sparks flew in the second half
of the day as every possible thing happened to the most
unlikely teams. Experts and pros alike ended up with leg
scores of a minute or more due to missed signs, wrong turns,
breakdowns...(we even saw Jack Roush on the side of the
road under the hood of a car!) and unfortunately your intrepid
Team British Pacific did not escape. We had a delay of
8 seconds pulling out onto a highway due to cross traffic,
then made a quick turn and as we were making up our lost
time, missed a speed limit sign which created a compounding
series of errors, as follows:
1) We passed a checkpoint down the road
going much too fast
2) We filed a time delay thinking we were
going the correct speed and hadn't made up our time yet
so made ourselves even earlier at that checkpoint
3) We were still looking for the speed limit
sign so missed the turn we needed to make and ended up
down a road with no outlet - then realized our mistake
to find the course just took a few turns and ran right
by that same checkpoint. So we drove "with alacrity", scared the Mustang
behind us half to death as we passed him in the left lane
at a stop sign, and at least got back to our checkpoint
only 43 seconds late. Sigh..........
So, total score today was :55 after they
threw out the first two legs. Otherwise, we would have
had quite a competitive score. The finish was held at Six
Flags Great America in Gurnee and it was nice to come in
a couple hours earlier than usual and enjoy the park for
those who were in the frame of mind to do so. The rest
of us stood around and swapped horror stories of the day.
There was a second thunderstorm that had hit the tail end
of the field, not to mention part of a leg that was cancelled
at the end as we were to drive through the Abraham Lincoln
National Cemetery. Problem is, they tend to have funerals
in cemeteries. So after the second one fouled up a bunch
of racers (wait, think maybe it wasn't the best idea for
us to be there in the first place???) they cancelled the
rest of the route and sent us on to the finish.
All that to say, it was a bizarre day but
we're still turning good legs on an individual basis. Now
we need to put all of them together in one day. Since it's
a somewhat earlier evening than usual, we'll sign off and
try to start refreshed in the morning.
Steve and Janet for Team BP
BP
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