Friday, Pre-race
Over a steaming plate of chorizo and eggs, I am staring at Ford's WRC driver, Marcus Grnholm. He seems to be deep in concentration, reviewing pace notes; I'm trying to figure out where I have seen him before. His lean features, piercing stare, and creased brow seem eerily familiar. Is he scanning for the best line through a tricky set of corners, or devising a way to disarm a bomb with a paper clip and half of a candy bar? I look again, and it's the mullet that clues me in: Marcus Grnholm looks exactly like MacGyver.
This isn't the first and certainly not the last revelation I will have during my very first WRC event, the 2006 Corona Rally Mexico. I'm traveling with Subaru USA in support of the Subaru World Rally Team (SWRT) and we've made it to Guanajuato, Mexico, a 2-hour plane ride south of Houston. SWRT has two teams in the race, Petter Solberg and his co-driver Phil Mills, as well as Chris Atkinson and co-driver Glenn Macneall. Solberg and Mills are favored to win, having led the 2005 Rally Mexico from start to finish. The reigning WRC champion, Citroen driver Sbastien Loeb, cannot be discounted however, nor can the current Championship leader (at the time of this writing) "MacGyver" Grnholm.
The WRC teams have been in town for the last few days, getting acclimated and running the important pre-race reconnaissance, or "recce." Rally Mexico is the third stop of sixteen on the World Rally Championship circuit. It is one of the newest venues and some say the hardest. Like the legendary Acropolis Rally in Greece, Rally Mexico has blistering heat and knife-edged stones that chew through tire and chassis alike. But the Guanajuato region further torments competitors with a power-sapping elevation: 6,500 feet above sea level. Over the next three days and 17 stages, WRC teams will wind through the cities of Len, Guanajuato, and Silao and over more than 200 miles of rough desert terrain. With any luck, I'll be right there with them.
SS3, El Cubilete
The first stage of the day starts just after 9:30 a.m., and to catch it, we would have to leave our hotel around 7 a.m. to get in the right spot. Road closures and detours, not to mention simply navigating the outskirts of this large, mostly industrial city make getting anywhere a tricky proposition. We're also jetlagged, so we decide to skip the first two stages and head to Stage 3, El Cubilete. Before leaving, we sit down for breakfast at the hotel and encounter our first surprise; several of the teams are staying in our hotel, since it's one of the few nice ones in town. I try to be blas about it and elbow Loeb's co-driver, Daniel Elena, in the buffet line.
Like most rallies, you can basically stand anywhere you like along the route to watch; it just depends how much you want to sweat to get there. Straights are boring. At full chat, the WRC cars blow by so fast that spectating is akin to watching cars on the freeway. Knowing this, rally junkies tend to clump together at switchbacks, corners, jumps, water-hazards- anywhere that has exciting views of the cars in transition or the potential for gnarly accidents. Other popular spots are city sections, where the cars blast through narrow streets at highly irresponsible speeds.
We head to a section that is halfway up a mountain, below the peak's haphazard array of radio attennaes and a huge statue of Jesus Christ. The spot is just a cobblestone covered switchback, bordered on both sides by empty concrete food stalls that we stand on to watch the action. But it's quaint enough and offers two luxuries we won't see at future stages: shade and flush toilets.
Coming into SS3, Petter is showing his dominance on gravel and signs of a repeat performance, despite reporting flu-like symptoms and bouts of Montezuma's revenge. Through the first two stages he leads second place Mikko Hirvonen and his Ford Focus RS by 8.1 seconds.
Anticipation builds as we hear the buzzing and the popping of WRC cars on approach. At every stage, the first to leave are the fastest cars and the most skilled drivers, top factory teams from the likes of Subaru, Ford, and Peugeot. With the elevation, drivers complain that the cars feel short about 100 hp, but you could never tell by the way they roar past. Grnholm shoots the gap first, affording me my first view of WRC at wide-open throttle. Like a lion on a polished wood floor, Grnholm's Focus RS snarls and scrabbles over the cobblestones, lunging forward once the gravel tires bite down. Then Frenchman Sbastien Loeb charges through, threading around buildings, fans, and telephone poles as though they were traffic cones. He is followed by a bunch of guys with equally weird names like Manfred, Xavier, and Henning. I don't know who they are, but they are all damn impressive drivers.
SS5, Guanajuato 2
Despite having several maps and the actual WRC route book, we are tired, frustrated, and totally lost. We can't find the next spectator area and have spent two hours crisscrossing a mountain road. But this is part of the adventure of rallying; even WRC rally drivers have the same problems. Just getting to the next stage on time can be the challenge.
When we finally do arrive, the upside is that we have but a few moments to wait before the safety car rolls through, pre-running the course and signaling its impending start. While we wait, we get an update from a group of rabid, face-painted Solberg fans who have traveled all the way from Norway. Via the miracle of tri-band phones and text messaging, they received word that Marcus Grnholm is out of the race with a broken driveshaft. Guess he only looks like MacGyver. In contrast, Solberg is en fuego. Heading into SS5, he has set four consecutive fastest stage times and has grown his lead to 11.7 seconds over Hirvonen.
The spot we've picked is much different from the El Cubilete stage. We're far off the beaten path, standing just off the side of what looks to be a rutted fire road under some large trees. The wind is at our backs, so the spectators standing on the opposite side of the corner get covered in the fine brown sand every time the cars scream past. We point and laugh.
SS7, Nextel SuperEspecial 1
This is stage I've been waiting for. If you've seen WRC on TV you know that Super Special Stages are about as close to heaven as it gets for a motorsports nut. As fun as it is to trudge through the brush, dodging cow shit and cacti, nothing beats head-to-head racing happening right before your eyes.
That is the premise of Super Special Stages. Think of a giant slot car track mixed with a steeplechase- complete with jumps and water hazards, and terrain ranging from soft dirt to gravel to tarmac- all staged in a stadium. The cars run side-by-side through most of the course, separated by only a barrier wall, and often take separate hazards and jumps, before switching positions and running again. Done right, it's the ultimate car control showcase served with ice-cold beer, nachos, and beautiful Corona campaign girls strutting around in navel-baring outfits. Purists may whine about the essence of rallying being diluted, but it's the Super Special Stages that will turn rallying into a legit spectator sport for the MTV generation.
Unless, of course, the Super Specials turn out to be like the ones at Rally Mexico. Quite frankly, this was the most disappointing aspect of my first WRC race. With my expectations set so high, I figured I'd need a hot towel and a smoke after my first SSS. But the first tip-off should have been the water truck.