Let me start by saying that I believe cars were meant to be driven. Hard. And what better way to do this than by running your classic through 2,200 miles of Mexico's finest roads. I first read about "The Mexican Road Race" while in my first year of university in 1989. Race your classic car through Mexico. Unbelievable! I told myself that one day I must do this race.
The La Carrera Panamericana is a classic-cars-only, 2,200-mile, 7-day road rally that starts just north of the Guatemala border and runs the entire length of Mexico to the Texas border. It consists of transit sections run on open roads with traffic and special stages run on closed-road sections for full-out racing. There are several different classes depending on what kind of car you have and its modifications. The bonus is stopping in a different city every night for a fiesta!
My car of choice was, of course, a Corvette. What other car from the '60s has American V-8 power plus four-wheel independent suspension and four-wheel disc brakes? My '67 Corvette is licensed for the street, but it had to be modified for road racing. To start, I contracted with Steve and Rick's Racing in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada, to build the engine. The engine consists of a four-bolt main small-block, an Eagle 4340 steel crank and "H" connecting rods, forged JE pistons, ported and polished Dart heads, a solid roller cam with roller rockers and stud girdles, an Edelbrock aluminum Victor Jr. intake, a Holley carb, a MSD ignition and billet distributor, Hooker full-length headers, and a 3-inch exhaust to the back. A Griffin aluminum radiator with electric fans keeps things cool. This setup netted 515 horsepower at 7,000 rpm on the engine dyno.
My good friend Lee Monson rebuilt my stock Muncie M20. I retained the stock 3.55:1 gears. A full VB&P suspension, including heavy-duty upper and lower control arms, a fiberglass front spring, a rear dual-mounted fiberglass spring, and huge front and rear anti-roll bars, was installed. The brakes, which were donated by Noble Precision Tooling, are power-assist with SSBC Force 10 aluminum front calipers and slotted discs all around. For safety, a six-point roll cage, race seats, and five-point harness belts were installed. Corbett Signs donated the logos for the car.
This whole setup had proven to be very reliable as the car had just finished the 1,500-mile 2003 Targa Newfoundland Rally in eastern Canada three weeks before the Mexican Road Race and, other than an oil change and a few adjustments, was ready to go.
Borrowing a service/tow vehicle to drive from Canada to Mexico was another matter. The only way I was going to convince my good friend Aldo Mauro to lend me his loaded '03 GMC Yukon Denali and put over 8,000 miles through three countries was to offer him my daily-driver Corvette-an '02, Z51/six-speed coupe. He agreed to the exchange.
After hooking up the car hauler with the '67 and loading and packing the Denali with a lot of spares and tools, my sponsor/navigator Kyle Pickering, service vehicle driver Steve Parent, and I were on our way. We left Hamilton, Ontario, Canada, on October 17th, and after a 4,000-mile, 62-hour drive (not including hotel stops and customs inspections), we were at the starting point of the race in Tuxtla Gutierrez, Mexico-about an hour's drive from the Guatemala border.
After three relaxing days to catch up on sleep and hang out with the other racers, we were ready to start the rally.