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> News > Torquenstein, GumBall 3000, Las Vegas, 5May06 |
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May 05, 2006 - NIWOT, CO -
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| London takeoff for the Gumball Rally 3000. Where was the Queen. We heard she was giving a send off. |
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| London prior to start. |
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| Mercedes RL500 with laser jamming and photo jamming |
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| Belgium was pulling every driver over by putting steel spikes in the road and forcing drivers to the side. They asked about the VF2 Photo Jammer and Tork explained that it was a license plate light. Well, it is, just a very special license plate light. |
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With legs one and two completed of the 2006 Gumball 3000 Rally, we are on the way to America. As with the first two legs of the rally, this should be a very interesting, but for different reasons. In Thailand we had no fear of tickets, fines, going to jail, or getting our vehicles impounded. Our team still decided to drive within our boundaries safely but some of the other teams seemed to push it that much harder with devastating results. Contrary to our belief at the time, we were actually in the front of the pack and we only saw 2 accidents. We’re not sure if there were more. We left Bangkok and stopped off in Japan. We are now on the way to Alaska and then to Salt Lake City. Many of the teams are concerned with the US police and their "no tolerance" policies, but we’re sure some drivers might forget that we’re not in Thailand or Europe any more where you can just pay the fines on the spot or run from the police. We were taking bets on how many Rally Racers will go to jail and have their vehicles confiscated. The Thailand leg of the rally was difficult because of a combination of factors. First, the navigation unit that we were using was very poor quality, slow, and unreliable. The other satalite navigation equiptment that we had used in Europe didn’t have detailer road maps in Asia so we were forced to use a poor quality unit. On the way out of Puhket, Thailand we keps getting lost, were running on fumes looking for a fuel station and we ended up 15 miles out of our way still with an empty tank. We ended up finding a fuel station and after getting our bearings (waiting 10 minutes for the GPS to catch up to approx our location and guessing our way through it) we headed north to Bangkok. In a small town we had a local on a motorbike run into our vehicle while turning at an intersection. He was fine and we continued on. After getting fuel the second time we were passed by 2 Lamborghini Murcielogo’s on the highway. We were making good speed but staying within safe limits. There were thousands of people on motor bikes and we didn’t want to enter blind corners or pass on the right shoulder in fear of injuring someone. We were over taken by the Lambo’s and within a minute as we were passing over a bridge we saw what looked like a tree in the road. We slowed down and saw the carnage. One of the Lamborghini’s (the Flash car from team Tango) had gone through a tree and ended up approximately 300 meters down the road on the side. We stopped to see if everyone was OK and thankfully they were. After checking on the medical condition of all people involved, I walked down the highway to slow down other Gumballers and direct other vehicles around the accident scene slowly. A group of some Ferrari’s, a slew of Porsche’s, some Nobles, and a Bently or 2 came through and continued on. Team Polizei came through and under heavy breaking ran over some debris that had come off the Lamborghini and that ended up causing damage to the teams Bentley Continental GT. After making sure the drivers of the car that crashed were going to be fine, we proceeded on. Within an hour or so later it started to rain (there is a tropical storm coming towards Thailand) and we slowed down just as the rain got hard. Within a mile or so, we came up on a Porsche GT2 that had passed us at the first accident scene spun out into the ditch. Again we stopped as these guys are our buddies and we helped recover their vehicle from the ditch. After the car was back on the road and we were ready to go the police showed up. We told the team that we would drive with them as our wingman for a while and make sure the car is road worthy because we were all pretty unsure of the drivability. They were fine and we proceeded on to Bangkok. By now, we thought for sure we’d be last getting to the end of the second leg of the rally. We slowed down, took it easy and finally made it in to Bangkok city. We got so lost again (thanks to our wonderful GPS) and spent an hour stuck in traffic as we neared the final check point. Finally after better than an hour we got to the hotel mostly by luck and parked. We looked around and asked where all the other cars were as we knew we were probably last place. They told us that there were only 7 other cars there and we finished 8th place. So after getting lost (a lot), stopping for approximately an hour at accident scenes, and giving up and slowing down we still placed in the top 10! Here’s an interesting statistic: 5 of the cars that finished in the top 10 were in accidents and still managed to make it to the end of the 2nd leg of the rally in the top 10 positions! We could really use your help! Since a lot of our fans are in the US, if you are monitoring the www.live.gumball3000.com site please phone us to let us know our current position. We might be periodically turning the tracking unit off or on depending on proximity of other cars but if you can see our location, please phone us. The past 5 days have been packed full of funny, amazing, dangerous, daring, stupid, cool, and/or wonderful stories that our friends, fans, and families will hear about for a long time to come. We keep being asked by other teams what our strategy is for the US and it’s fairly simple. We’re going to drive safely, within our boundaries and within the tolerance of the law, and smart. Of course we’d like to finish first but if there are other drivers that will do anything to win, that’s fine…we won’t chase after them. In the first leg at the end, we knew we’d be first by a huge margin and we were beaten by one team at the very last minute. In the second leg, we thought we were near the back of the pack but still pushed hard. Out of over 100 other cars we made the top 10 by coming in 8th. What we learned is that we should never assume anything in auto racing/rallying. We’re not totally the tortoise or the hair, but maybe a combination of both when appropriate. Dr. E Gruene, Mad Scientists. MD PhD |
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