Hayden has been quiet on the event, as not much story to tell. The rally was much tamer than Peking-Paris, or the madness that was London to Cape Town, so not a huge challenge for WEVO engineering or the emerging skills of our intrepid Harris/Burvill duo, combined with the fair Tracey.

“Not much to report, no challenge for Lola, me or Steven. Great scenery and a lovely introduction to Argentina, that will lead to future visits, hopefully on better rallies! The event is now officially finished: 1st in class, 2nd overall. Good fun being with T & S, great to be 54deg South.”

So ends another blogjack. Sorry it’s not been that exciting but there may be more pics to share when H is back at his desk in San Carlos. We’ll have to wait and see!

The danger does not come from Tracey’s driving: she’s a better driver than most blokes I know. The danger is in giving her a taste for winning these marathon events. How’s H going to vamoose for weeks at a time if his Mrs is better at rallying?

Tracey’s first day behind the wheel endorsed her ability. “T took over driving today until Mendoza, while Steven attends to matters in NY,” reports Hayden. “A tough 600-kilometre day of introduction went well.

“Tracey cleaned the first test – as did many – then was narrowly robbed of cleaning the second when cows blocked the road within sight of the finish line, while she was on target for a perfect result. The delay cost us a 22-second penalty, but Tracey’s performances today earned her the respect of her fellow rallyists.”

Mendoza is miles down the road. The rally arrives there on Day 25, by which time girl wonder will have clocked up more than 4,000 kilometres. Epic work by Mrs WEVO – I’m looking forward to the week ahead.

Thanks to Yellowbrick GPS technology carried on board the cars, you can track their progress on the rally home page under ‘results‘. Here are a few screen shots demonstrating what is possible.

Time now in Cusco is 08:35, and here is their current position. Untick everything except the Class C box to see the cars in their group.

This is a wider view of the route so far plotted by GPS: it likes to use a straight line to minimise data points stored. Bit of a pain when map data is overlaid but not much choice here.

By changing the scale and drilling into data, you can really get a feel for the route the boys are following. Not much Google Street View in Peru, but there is a little bit here and there.

Nice drive this morning, 0500hrs wake up to leave La Paz early enough to avoid road blockages by striking workers. Lovely drive and little barge crossing to Peru border, leaving beautiful but contradictory Bolivia behind. 

Great hotel on Lake Titicaca makes rest day tomorrow even more anticipated. Lola still faultless, but the Porsche 356 will get a greasing and general spanner check. That said, Lola needs new plugs again, as poor fuel has been hard on plugs in all the old cars. T is bringing three more sets to Cusco in 2 days.

We have run at over 14,300 feet without re-jetting the carbs, so very happy and proud of our sea level work and the choices Brian and I made in setting these up! Our faith in physics continues.

Yesterday on the way into La Paz, we sat at 120 km/h (72mph) for an hours or so at just over 3,900 metres, or almost 13,00 feet. Where else in the world can you do that? That’s like a highway joining all the high peaks of the Rockies. Amazing!

Today rest day, tomorrow Puno to Cusco, in the foothills south of Machu Picchu. Next day is another rest day to allow some exploring in the legendary Peruvian ruins, followed by a 600-kilometre drive to Arequipa, not Aeroquipa as per the rally notes.

Second biggest city in Peru, the historic centre of Arequipa has been granted UNESCO World Cultural Heritage status. The old town’s beautiful heart is balanced by some of the highest levels of solar radiation in all of South America, thanks to the nearby Atacama Desert and local air pollution. Break out the UV sunblock! More news when we get it.

Madam is doing well, which is more than can be said for Hayden. “Picked up a GT (generous traveler) flu on the way down from SF to Rio. I’m into the runny nose and hacking cough day and feeling pretty rough, but some spanner work on Lola will distract me and make me feel better.”

Hayden facebooked the top pic of Lola in bits for obvious servicing checks, carb tweaks and wiring in the Yellowbrick GPS tracker. There’s a good pic of Hayden’s rear end on Chuck Shwagger’s blog, tweaking something in the driver’s footwell: I’m sure he’s not backing out the throttle stop.

Today is Day 5 of the rally. They start at Foz do Iguacu (NE of the centre). The route heads north on secondary roads, skirting the Brazil/Paraguay border, formed by the Paraná River. The river is the second longest in South America, and takes its name from local words for “big as the sea”.

Paraná swallows the Paraguay River on its journey south, then merges with the Uruguay River and forms the vast Rio de la Plata before entering the Atlantic. The scale of the river as they travel north alongside it should be an eye-opener for the rallyistes.

The road continues to their overnight in Dourados on the fertile river plain: 503 kms in all today – about 300 miles. I don’t know what the stage plans are, but no doubt H will fill me in later.

Last used on the 2010 Peking to Paris Rally, Lola has undergone a programme of evolutionary improvements on her P2P spec. Steven also has a bit more experience under his belt and Hayden has done a few rallies with the competitive and experienced Alastair Caldwell, so is now a surgically precise co-driver navigator!

Team WEVOs hard-earned expertise broke cover for the first time yesterday, when Steven and Hayden took first place on the day’s sole special stage of 19 kilometres: the only car to clean the run. Lola took the complete day’s drive of 693 kilometres from Curitiba to the wonderful Foz de Iguacu waterfall on the Brazil/Argentina/Paraguay border in her stride, a minor misfire at the end of the day due to suspected dirt in a fuel jet.

Today is the first rest day of the event, so time to visit the falls, clean the car and the carburettors. The team can catch their breath after a rushed start to the event when Lola was delayed through customs, arriving at the start point (above) well after other competitors had finished packing their cars and stickering up.

So it was that Lola ran naked through the initial 488km transport stage from Rio to Campinas, skirting the edge of Sao Paolo in an enjoyable first day’s driving. Day 2 was another sub-500km run from Campinas to Curitiba, through the open plains of Brazil’s wheat bowl region, before climbing into the Apial Hills.

Today’s rest day will be mostly about settling into the marathon rally rhythm. These events are not just driving: there are rest/tourist days and fixit days, days to catch up with overseas news but any real downtime is about soaking up this new pace of life: a pace that will dominate the days until March 24th, when the rally finishes in Tierra del Fuego: South America’s southernmost point.

Thirty-nine days rallying in a Porsche 356. I think we could all go for that, right!?

JG