This morning was focused on getting the NAVI going. Aaron found a place to purchase 22 inch tires at 7AM in Chicago, and had both the rear tires replaced which were shredded from the inside sidewalls about 12 inches long. I assume this was from all his hard driving in the “gumball lane” but that is the price to pay for top 3 finishes every day. I fixed the Lotus exhaust by removing the exhaust top that sheared clean off due to vibration. So the car is simply louder now-so what. Today seemed like a long one with a lot of action and the night not done yet. We started off with a quick run to breakfast at Lake Shore motorcars about 30 miles from the House of blues in Chicago. It was an exotic car place and they even checked out vehicles to make sure they were ok on fluids etc. We hung out there for about an hour and then the famous Cuban Brothers did the funniest dance act I have seen in a long time just before we launched.We then waited for the Bullrun helicopter to come which is did after about a 15 minute delay, and then we all launched. We got cards saying to head to St Louis which was about 250 miles and almost all on the same route I 55 which I knew would bring trouble. The Navi decided it would be better to break away and go off route another 30 miles which in the end proved very smart indeed. Since we were a front runner we decided to stay on route figuring by the time they saw us, they would be organizing for the chase pack. Overall that was true but not entirely.
A Team called AMG Dolls in an E55 which I is supposed to be an all girl team did some of the stupidest moves I have seen and deserve to probably be arrested. We stayed a little ways back and after things thinned out, we were probably in the top 20. Because the range on the Lotus is only about 175 miles, we were at a disadvantage once again and stopped for fuel. Shortly after that, the police had time to organize and were everywhere. We then had one pass us and basically pace in front of us to slow us down which was effective and which I had no problem with. We then hit a construction zone, that was backed up for 10 miles and they were selectively pulling over cars that were reported to be driving erratic, Peter and Bulent in the GT3rs were concerned because they were perhaps running at speeds they should not and pulled off. We cleared the construction zone, and there was another cop that jumped on the ramp in front of us and I was shocked and pissed when he pulled me over. I was not speeding and I was being careful. He then told me I was speeding although he did not have me on radar since he was in front, and I was following too close, and did an unsafe lane change. To top it off all the equipment on the dash which included navigation, camera on a mount and scanner were illegal because they obstructed the view. This was also untrue. There was no point in arguing, because he just wanted to pull me over so I was very nice recorded all the action with my rear view cameras built in the car, and after he checked my record and determined I was clean, he wrote me three warnings, and only gave me a ticket for an illegal lane change, so I will not complain.
This is much luckier then others such as the Black Brabus CL65 which apparently we heard has quite the small time criminal record including multiple Cannibas violations, and small offenses. We havn’t seen him since but do not believe he actually went to jail. I did find it interesting that the cops knew he had both a UK and a US drivers licence. After that stop , we kept getting reports of police in front of us every 5 miles or so just picking people off. Rob Ferretti in the GT40 was pulled at least once, and we made it to the Anheiser Bush factory in 13th place, which out of 100 cars ( not sure how many really left) is pretty good. We were then gassed up real quick, were forced to see a silly tour before getting the route card and were off. This game is really one of attrition and we kept getting reports of the front runners who skipped the tour, getting pulled including the Collin brothers, an Evo, and another CLS Mercedes. The Darkcyd GT3, Lambo, and us all run together and were almost assured all top 10 finishes with reports of the Darkcyd Navi in 3rd place. Cops Cops and more Cops (maybe 50 in total) forced us to chill out and do strictly the speed limit for the balance, when we arrived at the hotel we were surprised that the Navi lost one spot and ended up 3rd, and we came in 12th and 13 for the GT# and Lotus. Alex rolled in a little behind to still round out the top 20. The Darkcyd Bentley still has not made it yet.
The first car to make it was an Rs4 Audi, the red GT2 was second, and Rob Ferreti in the Gt40 third.
Tommorow is supposed to be a 700 mile hall and I believe I know where we are headed but for now, mums the word.
Cheers,
Robb
