Johnny Glynn, motoring journalist extraordinaire here with round 2 of the WEVO Blogjack! I’ve got the reins of the wonderful WEVO blog while Hayden sits next to our newest amigo, Alastair Caldwell, for the 2011 Budapest to Bamako rally.

It’s 10.07 AM here in the UK and I’ve just received a text from Hayden, on the road in Europe.

“Car 39 enjoying fantastic weather (not!) as we scoot across Belgium, Germany and Austria, and converge on Parc Ferme along with our fellow Budapest to Bamako competitors. ETA morning of the 13th”.

I’ll try to keep you up to date with the boys’ progress as the rally unfolds, but they are likely to have an hilarious trip. Alastair and Hayden are a good match in what makes them laugh and there’s potential for a solid technical and strategic team approach in the cockpit also: they are both ultra-competitive, but appreciate the benefits of a cunning long-term game. So the rally should be a lot of fun.

We’ll see what happens next!

Anyone familiar with our operational model at WEVO is familiar with how valuable I believe our carefully chosen supply vendors are. These companies we work with are instrumental in the ongoing development of the WEVO brand and the high quality associated with the products in the WEVO range.

Those same vendors are part of our custom car building process and it’s their capacity to make short runs of parts and R&D style experiements that has always been the foundation of our product development.

Lola, the Peking to Paris 356 is a combination of carefully prepared original equipment and carefully designed an manufactured WEVO systems to complete the Marathon Rally specification of the car.

These companies are all commercial partners of Windrush – so we pay for their services, but I should add that we always enjoy special treatment and value when we are involved in projects cars like the Peking to Paris 356. This is in part due to the fact that these companies are run by gear heads just like me, but also they enjoy the challenge and opportunity to be involved in something special and be a part of the process and the success.

In no particular order, a big thankyou to;

Performance Fabrication, San Carlos CA. For the manufacture of the 26 liter long range fuel tank that is nested under the original spare wheel (where the battery was originally located). Fabricated in Aluminum with a motorcycle style filler cap, this long range tank allowed us to achieve over 720km range on the highway.

Rustworks, San Carlos CA. For the water-jet cutting on various parts, tow hooks, fuel pump brackets, etc, etc. Plus hands-on assistance from Jeromy Brians as my wing man at midnight one night when I was procrastinating about blasting a hole through the right rear fender to execute the incomplete tailpipe….

ARE, Brisbane, Australia. For the custom engine oil cooler unit nested into the engine decklid. We have worked with Richard and Val at ARE for the past 6 years on a variety of production, custom and experimental coolers. On each and every occasion their work has been superb quality, accurate to drawing and on-time. The absence of the doghouse cooler on this 356 motor put total reliance on the remote cooler. The remote filter and thermostat also played a part in keeping the engine oil clean and a fast warm-up on the sub zero mornings in Mongolia. On the steepest climb, mid 20′s (°C) ambient and over 2200m altitude, the oil temp barely made it to the middle of the gauge. This decklid cooler installation has all the hallmarks of a forthcoming WEVO 356 product – with over 16,000km testing already completed! You had better make a fixture Richard….

Edwards Machining and Manufacturing, Longmont CO. Doug Edwards is one of our long suffering and most prolific suppliers. For Lola, Doug churned out the prototype fuel pre-filter housings, fuel delivery block, front upper damper mounts, damper tops for the custom Ohlins dampers, etc, etc. All short runs and all perfect to drawing, then perfect in functionality on the rally.

Quiet Horsepower, Newark CA. Pete Weber came to our rescue after a very nicely manufactured system delivered from the East Coast failed to meet our requirements and had to be discarded. We ran my Bursch 912 exhaust on Lola while we coordinated for Pete to have the car for a short period and for him to fabricate a custom system with the muffler mounted in the right rear fender. Pressed for time, Pete had to give back the car without completing the tailpipe. Hence - thanks to Jeromy Brians (above) for helping me to finish that necessity. Ultimately in complete contrast to my doubts about the configuration and durability of Pete’s system, it gave zero issues and allowed Lola to ford the deepest water we encountered without concern. Never have I been so happy to be wrong about a component and once we made it through the very rough first 7 days of the event, it barely crossed my mind again. Thanks to Pete for knocking out a functional system in short order and working a Sunday too. The “through the fender” tailpipe drew lot’s of compliments and with my passenger window down, the crackle of the tailpipe against canyon walls and freeway armco is a sound that will forever remind me of the Peking to Paris 356.

Maxsport Competition tyres, Rhayader, Wales UK. Purely a phone and fax relationship with Maxsport Competition Tyres. Their RB3D2 tire being one of the only choices I could find in the 175/70-15 size we needed for the 356. A larger diameter tire would have helped our ground clearance, but a larger diameter tire was going to prevent us from having the two tires under the hood – the two RB3D2 tires barely fit with the top one deflated!  Maxsports could not validate the longevity of the tires, the most extreme test previous had been on a Classic SAAB managing just 5000km on a set. We bought the last remaining 12 tyres in existence and distributed them across Asia hoping we would rendezvous with the tires before we needed them.
Ironically we logged over 6000km on the first set on the way to Almaty and these were only about 25% worn. We had no punctures and although the front tires both had significant bruises and sidewall scars from rocks, they were still completely serviceable. We changed to our 4 spare tires in Alamaty and those tires took us to Paris and beyond, another 10,000km without being more than about 40% worn.
Maxsport Competition tyres are racing re-tread tires, so if you ever had a doubt about the durability of a re-tread tire, I can assure you that Maxsport company knows how to make a competition tire. The tires were potentially one of the most troublesome pieces of equipment on the event and thanks to Maxsport Competition Tyres, another one of our zero issue decisions.

Harvey Weidman, Oroville CA. Faced with the knowledge that steel wheels can be repaired just about anywhere with the simplest of tools, we had to choose between 4.5 x 15″ wheels and 5.5 x15″ steel wheels. The 4.5′s took it with a weight advantage that tallied 21lbs over the 6 wheels we would be carrying. We then rounded up seven 4.5″ wheels, all in the thicker gauge early 911 configuration and sent them to Harvey for his blessing. Harvey restored all the wheels to correct roundness and run-out, then blitzed them with a light spray can silver to ward off rust. We dented the Right rear somewhere in Mongolia, probably as we ran without dampers for several hundred kilometers. Even the dented wheel was working fine, we eventually cycled that wheel out of service when we swapped tires in Almaty. Other cars had split wheels, cracked wheels, broken spokes, shattered hubs…..our 40 something year old Porsche wheels were fine with our modest size tires.

Dan Acker Leatherworks, San Francisco CA. First time working with Dan after countless recommendations from others. We chose a late 70′s Recaro seats, then treated them to new leather with black Mohair velour inserts. Dan refurbished the cushions and Pirelli webbing to make the seats safe and comfortable. Our office chairs for over 300 hours, the seats were marvelous. The Mohair acted as velcro and only once was I dislodged clear from my seat and hanging in the belts when we nose-dived onto a huge rock in Mongolia.

Thanks once again to you all for your contribution to our Peking to Paris experience.

The Peking to Paris Marathon event would not have been successful for Steven and I without the assistance of dozens of people. The fact that the 356 was able to carry us across the 11 nations (12 including the UK afterwards) is a real testament to the design and manufacture of the original car and it’s modern preparation and support during the event.

So without any hierarchy a big thank you goes to the following people for their role in our adventure;

My wife Tracey for being on stand-by to discover ways to ship parts on short notice to countries neither of us could spell 9 months ago. Also for holding the WEVO fort during my 45 day absence.

The staff at Steven Harris Architects in Manhattan, NY for helping Steven arrange all the event logistics, paperwork, insurance, payments etc as we prepared for the event.

Alan Klingman at “The Stable” in San Francisco – Alan located the 1964 356C when we started looking for one. Alan built us a fantastic and appropriate motor and the transmission, plus provided hours of 356 specific technical guidance and advice while we made decisions about how to prepare the car for the Peking to Paris challenges. Alan also responded like lightning after I called him on a Satellite phone from the middle of the desert in Uliastay, Mongolia to tell him we needed new swing axle tubes after the suspension breakages that day. Between Alan, his fabricators at Hasselgren Racing and Tracey, the necessary kit of repair parts were shipped within hours by TNT and beat us into Almaty, Kazakhstan by 48 hours, where we had scheduled to install the new parts. Alan sprung to service a second time, finding a spare 12 volt generator to send to Istanbul, once again between Alan, Tracey and TNT, the parts beat us by a generous margin and we had no concerns about intercepting our spare parts. (unlike some of our fellow competitors who chased late arriving spares all across central Asia).

John Glynn for Blogjacking this site on a regular basis, taking scant reports from various media and making them into webentertainment for those wanting to keep up with our adventure. John also played a logistic role in delivering our spare tires to Almaty and Istanbul, plus in an emergency move John located and couriered some spare generator brushes to Mrs Louisa Gosden in London (wife of Adrian – Aston Martin DB5 # 98) who was en route to Alamaty for a “romantic weekend” – and most importantly as express courier of a half dozen more rear dampers to feed the Aston’s continuous appetite for rear suspension parts.
John also came down to Paris for the end of the Rally and made sure I didn’t get into trouble at the prize giving or subsequent late night partying. Unfortunately I wasn’t there for John when he inadvertently sent a text intended for me to his wife at 3.30am in the morning – “taxi told us it was an all night dance club….turned out to be a brothel, I’m heading back to the hotel, see you for breakfast”. Finally, John for meeting me at Heathrow last Wednesday, suffering the last of my post Rally decompression babble and taking Lola away to test drive and form his opinions for an upcoming article about this wonderful car.

Gwendolyne Indjoudjian in Almaty, Kazakhstan for being our central Asia point of contact and receiving agent for tires and suspension parts. I had never met Gwendolyne, she was introduced via email as a friend of a client of Steven’s. Gwendolyne’s willingness to help us in a foreign country and at significant inconvenience to herself was a lovely act of charity. In true rally fashion, I spent just a few minutes totally inappropriately dressed and filthy dirty in the lobby of a 5 star hotel thanking Gwendolyne while her fiance, Steven and his clients prepared to dine locally. Thanks also to Gwendolyne’s Aunt, who allowed us to store 4 tires and a box of suspension parts in her garage so that Gwendolyne did not need to drag them up the stairs into her small apartment….

Kim Cramer for stepping up as our 24hr emergency contact and data feed while we were in the Eastern Hemisphere. Kim was fully equipped with every policy number, every name, every number and copies of legal documents and passports. Thankfully none of this was needed, but being prepared as thoroughly and with an expert on stand-by this allowed us to draw on Murphy’s law and need no crisis support.
Kim was feeding me constant data as we encountered our first emergency on day 8 and were limping into Uliastay. Names and locations of local repair shops, possible alternatives and local signage to guide us to the resource. I took great comfort in knowing we had found the most appropriate repair shop in the town – horror at the fact that they would be unlikely to repair our damage. It turned out that once I reflected on our situation and put faith in the ingenuity of the locals, that they probably could fix the car, it was more my lack of “how do we get there from here” state of mind that was the obstruction. A few hours later when Kim’s intelligence had confirmed the resources of Uliastay (or lack of) I was able to resign to watching a craftsman with a stick welder, rods of unknown alloy, earth strap of tattered braid puddle the rear suspension of the 356 back into a whole assembly.

Brian Kirkis our Technician at WEVO and Derek Bosman, our summer intern who both worked long hours and prepared every element of the car to the level of zero faults. It was critical to embrace the reality that this car was going into an environment where a 356 should not be taken and needed to survive without any real support system beyond great preparation and the tools and spares on board. The fact that every system on the car performed exactly as designed, intended and prepared is true illustration of the attention to detail necessary to prepare competent and competitive cars.
Thanks also to Derek for visiting Place Vendome at the finish line and seeing the car in Europe and to admire his work again after the car completed the event – good luck with your Engineering studies at Delft.
Brian can look forwards to taking the whole car apart again when it returns and to see just how much harm was inflicted on the 356 in 37 days.

Garrick Staples and Robert McClements who were our “spark buddies” for 8 days straight from Belokurikha to Samarkand, making sure we were never short of voltage, they shadowed our progress to converge on a daily, mid-day schedule so we could swap our depleted battery into the VW and take their fully charged battery to completed the day. They also provided the guiding light when we needed to run the last 200km into Belokurikha with no lights at all, generator dead, running on battery alone, two little aircooled cars skimming over some perfect Russian asphalt roads under what was fortunately a full moon in the early morning hours.

Dave Staples, Garrick’s father who entered both 2007 and 2010. In late February, Dave met with Steven and I, offered very valuable intelligence about the 2007 event and some insights into how his preparation for 2010 was skewed by his 2007 experiences. We applied some of that logic directly to the preparation of the 356 and were very happy that we did.

Our new friends and competitors that we made on the Rally. A real sense of community develops as we moved en-masse across the far east, central Asia, eastern Europe and into the EU proper. In particular the help of Ahmet and Erdol from the Anadol was amazing. They had connections reaching into central Asia and without their corresponding connection to a 356 enthusiast in their native Turkey who surrendered his spare 12volt generator for a midnight trip to Tashkent (via yet another Turkish connection), we would have had to rely upon our “spark buddies” until Istanbul.

Every evening was a lesson in humility, there were always rally friends who had either a better or worse day than you had. For a group of people who often enjoy being over-achievers in their daily life, it was very rare to feel particularly extraordinary when everyone has made it into the end of day control and all share the same huge sense of accomplishment on a daily basis.

Thanks too for all those who participated in a more modest manner, enjoyed our adventure vicariously through the information on this site and others bolgsites. It was a great adventure and one that I would recommend to anyone who has the inclination to attempt something like this.

Well, this is it: my last post from the Peking to Paris Rally as the official WEVO blogjacker.

As I write, our boys are in France, safe and sound. Jamie Lipman and I have made our Chunnel plans to get to Paris for the black tie dinner on Saturday night, and bring Lola back to the UK the following day. I hope she’s still this dirty:

Hayden’s latest texts are fun. He and Steven are both really enjoying the last days of this magnificent event, and doing their best to be right there should anyone in front have a problem. Here’s Hayden:
October 13th: 

Apologies for the enforced blackout when we got my $1750 phone bill!

Only about 35 cars are still running the timed stages; the balance of the field is now just touring, autostrada and short cuts to get to the hotels and Paris.

The “A” Team, Aston, Andrew & Adrian are still hoping for a chance to beat the Anodol, another mistake or two by the Turks may open that door. We are unlikely to eclipse the FX Holden, so our remaining contest is to keep the Cadillac behind us, a 5-minute gap being the closest race of consequence on the Classics scoreboard. Whole day cancelled due to late ferry arrival, just heading up the A1 / A11 autostrada to get into Viareggio.

Hopefully day 35 will include some contests, or the thing will be a tour to Paris. Your prediction of rain is correct: light, heavy or gloomy so far all day.

October 14th:

Had a good day today, tough sections almost impossible to clean, but the kicker was a tight time control in the middle of the hard stuff. We lost 12 mins, the 102 Holden, only 9. But I am sure we gapped the Cadillac and made some inroads on Greg Newton. Not enough to change positions, but enough to cement them as-is. The Anodol lost some more time, I guess the Aston is hoping for a Hail Mary tomorrow…

OK, back to me.

Tomorrow is the last full day of rallying. I am going to miss reading all the different blogs, and their various uncensored opinions on events, and combining their feedback with what other information could be found, to piece together tales from the event. Thanks to all of you who followed my posts on this marvellous adventure.

Roll on Steven’s next big road trip: this one has been a thrill. Here’s to Saturday night, and some fun with our much-loved friends in fabulous France!

Best regards to you all,

John Glynn: Classic Porsche Blogger

What a surprise, I was doing a quick recce of the Superfast ferry and found an internet room with free access, as we were nearly first on the boat (meaning last off….) I beat the rush to find this room adn now have collared a terminal to get some words to the site and relive John of having to imagineer some of the strories that have filtered through.

The visit to Iran was totally underwhelming, I feel for the Iranian citizens that were so eager for us to have a wonderful experience, that was not completely possible, the split between utter friendliness and open hostility was such a contradiction, that it will take a while for me to really complete my opinion of Iran. The Azerbijan (sp?) region was the best of what we visited during our travels, but even so, I cant imagine needing to visit again soon. We met some great people, friendly,  welcoming and proud of their nation. These same people are clearly repressed and managed by a government that is strictly in control. I can best describe our visit as tolerated and will leave it as that for now.

Turkey by contrast was absolutely glorious, a few boisterous school boys throwing stones, but without the malice attached in Iran. The beatiful Turkish countryside, super smooth paving and long days made it a quck adventure, but worth every minute and the two days leading to our stay in Abant lake were the highlight of the rally so far. The unexpected snow, freezing rain and poor visibility were all challenging, but it felt like a real rally for two days, fast smooth transit sections and time trials on challenging roads in very challenging conditions. The 356 has been a great choice in these conditions, not as powerful up the hills as the Aston, but sure footed and nimble on the tight and twisty sections. The cancellation of our fist test was necessary after a scary but injury free incident with one of teh Alvis’s going over a 70m cliff and staying upright but stuck on a ledge half way into a ravine. Last night the driver recounted a story of the recovery with a bucket excavator that built a road to the car and carried it out without further damage. I am sure that will be covered elesewhere, perhaps on the official P2P website.

The transit into Greece, also meant the event is now conducted under FIA regulations and for our open road event, no faster than 50km/hr can be averaged. The tests are all formatted in a way that illustrates that 50Km/hr is the required average. The use of passage controls also determines correct route and some small hinderence to meeting the 50km/hr average. We had 3 tests yesterday and 3 today, we cleaned them easily, with Steven having a better appreciation today about how to manage time, pace and preserve the car to make the best of the test conditions. The same can not be said of our friends Ahmet and Erdol in the Anadol, having been been off the road twice in the last two days, losing 9 minutes yesterday while they were towed back onto the test road without damage, today, less fortunate, they skidded off the slippery road between tests, clobbered a tree and damaged their radiator. A new radiator is already enroute to Ancona via Rome, where we will say hi again to Erdol’s son who we met in Silviri at the Turkish Motor Club reception. He was also instrumental in getting the 356 generator to the airport and on the way to Tashkent…. On that note -  we also met Hurcle (sp?) who loaned us the new generator, his gearhead 10 year old son and his wife. Super enthusiastic and very happy to have been able to help and see the 356 motor through his countryside.

The tests in Greece are now over, the ferry is on the way to Italy and tomorrow we have another long day – late start something like 1230hrs for car 100, with a due time in Viareggio late after 2100hrs, must remember to clean the headlights in the morning.

For those of you wondering about the car – going great. No issues since the new generator was installed in Samarkand. The climbs in Iran and Turkey were hard work for the 1600cc motor and now we have a gentle knock from the crankcase to remind us of the 13,000km we have covered so far. The systems on the car are all continuing work flawlessly, with the exception of the Tachometer which went south long ago in Khazakstan or Uzbekistan. One morning a few minutes after we set off it started howling like it would explode. Unscrewing the drive cable quieted the noise and the motor has a very obvious power delivery curve and it has not really been missed.

We have changed engine oil four times, transmission oil twice, adjusted valves once, timing twice and air filters and oil filter once. A few slightly loose bolts have been tightened when needed and apart from the major component failures of the rear t