Foster insisted I qualify the super Omni despite my concerns that the powerplant was going to make piston soup under my right foot. In honor of the host country, Porfirio Gutierrez, aka "El Coyote," launched his Fox body Mustang into the course with a gush of smoke from the Cooper Cobras and the sounds of an American V8. Nomexed up, Foster and I were belted into the Omni, which was refusing to start just as we needed to pull to the line. Each twist of the key was met with the sounds of a Coke can full of Legos. As fellow Californian Bill Nation and his co-driver gave us a shove, I vowed to not turn the cursed beast off until we were back in California.
The green flag dropped. With the full pride of the turbo Dodge community on my shoulders, I mashed the gas for the first time and roasted the 15-inch Kumhos. The first half mile or so of the 4-mile qualifying course was relatively straight and by the time I got to a corner, the Omni had built a frightful head of steam. I thought to myself, that's it, you're putting this thing in a ditch on the first turn, but it turned out Carroll Shelby was on to something when he slapped his name on Chrysler's econo-hatch 20 years ago. The damned thing actually handled. And after only a few turns I was actually confident. Sure, it twisted and squirmed in protest as its structure tried to keep up with the loads generated by modern tires and the infusion of power from the L-body goons. But it really did work.
Unfortunately, the fun came to a stop faster than you can say "la cucaracha." Power dropped off in direct proportion to the super Omni's climbing water temperature. Soon enough we realized we'd be lucky if the Omni crested the next hill without ventilating its crankcase. Not wanting to walk home, I nursed it over the crest, slowed to a crawl for a third of the course and made it to the end.
Past the finish the Omni spilled a few quarts of oil into the Mexican soil and sounded like a cooling nuclear reactor when I shut it down, but our problems were minor compared to the troubles of the team racing the fiberglass-bodied, tube frame Chevrolet Berretta parked next to us. It was on fire.
Initially, the blaze produced little response from anybody. Then, as the flames grew and it became obvious the hood was bolted to the car, there was a flurry of fire extinguisher activity. The fire was eventually brought under control, but only after the third fire bottle was emptied through the Berretta's grille. Still, no one even looked concerned. I love this country.
As we watched the toasty Chevy smolder in shame, we met Loyal Truesdale, a true legend among open-road racers and former organizer of the La Carrera Panamericana, probably the most famous of all modern open-road races. The guy is a legend. He even completed the original Cannonball Run on a motorcycle. Running into him in the Mexican desert momentarily restored my faith in this being a good idea.
That night, on the way to the mandatory driver's meeting, we embarked on a mad search for a smaller intercooler. With "yonkes" (junkyards) on every other block in Ensenada and L-bodies being the national car of Mexico, it should've been easy to find a stock intercooler that wouldn't entirely block the radiator. Not so. Despite visiting six yonkes we couldn't come up with one intercooler that would do the trick. The locals, of course, insisted that any radiator would work and tried to sell us one at every stop.
At the driver's meeting we found out super Omni really was fast. We qualified 18th out of 33 cars despite our problems. And we outqualified a Corvette and a Pantera. The B team was frightfully close in 23rd.
Race morning dawned with a stink of raw sewage that let you know you might be at a beach resort, but you were still in Mexico. Luckily, the eggs ranchero were the best we ever had, which reinforced our love/hate relationship with the land that modern plumbing forgot.
I wanted Foster behind the wheel when the Omni's engine went boom, so I insisted he drive for the first of the event's six back-and-fourth legs over a 16-mile, two-lane stretch of public road. At this point the underside of the Omni looked like a bad day on the Exxon Valdez and it was beginning to suffer rough combustion under boost. It still had the overheating problem, it had been overboosting and the cockpit stank like burning oil above 60 mph. Did I want to drive? After you, Mr. Foster.