I had a decent enough time in Mexico City, though I definitely felt small and alone amongst the hustle and bustle of 20-odd million Mexicans. It’s a hectic place, whether you are in the suburbs or in the Zona Rosa, and the traffic is amazing. It always keeps moving, but it never disappears and there are thousands upon thousands of bright green and white Volkswagen Beetle taxis that make up the bulk of it.
I braved about half a dozen rides in the “Vocchio” cabs, which were always driven energetically and enthusiastically. On my way to the Holiday Inn Oriente from the airport, my driver swung into a Pemex station for a full service pit stop that lasted less than a minute. In that time we got a clean windshield and ten liters of fuel, which took the gauge from well below ‘E’ to almost half.
I could have stayed at a different hotel where a few more people from the CART scene were staying, but I decided to return to the Holiday Inn where I stayed last year. My reason for doing so: a mall across the street, complete with the biggest Walmart I have ever seen – maybe twice the size of a U.S. Sam’s Club. I ventured over there three times during the course of my stay to stock my room with food and beverages – and of course to watch the people. Mexico City might be the make-out capital of the world, so if you’re averse to Public Displays of Affection, avoid the mall scene.
Unlike Bruno Junqueira, I never got sick during my four days in the Ciudad, probably because I stuck to my bland American diet of steaks, French fries and fried chicken – KFC ‘Familiare,’ which I took to mean Original Recipe. The other fascinating aspect of staying at this Holiday Inn was the street performers, in particular a guy who inhaled some kind of flammable gas and then blew a fireball out of his mouth. Totally insane, and I can only hope he was well compensated for his bravery/stupidity.
On Monday, Paul Webb and I flew to Los Angeles for a six-hour layover on our way to Australia. Better safe than sorry, and it turned out to be a good move because I later heard the LAX immigration lines were long in the evening. The wait wasn’t bad because our friend John Zimmermann met us at the airport and the three of us embarked to dinner at a fish restaurant in Venice Beach.
As usual, I dreaded the long flight to Australia. My seat was an aisle on the bulkhead, with the video screen right in front of me. It looked like sleep was going to be even more of a struggle than usual, but the gentleman next to me kindly gave me one of those eye-blinds that they give out in first and business class. It was a lifesaver and it turned out he was Rosko Dickinson, the fellow who runs the Miss Indy pageants at Surfers Paradise and Vancouver – a good fellow to know!
I felt reasonably good when we landed in Melbourne Wednesday at 9:30 a.m., surprising given that we had been traveling for nearly 30 hours. We then took a taxi ride to Ford headquarters where we picked up our wheels for the next five days – a bright purple Falcon GT, complete with 290-kilowatt (I’ll have to work that out in horsepower) V-8 engine and 5-speed manual gearbox.
“Be sure to give it the boot a couple of times,” said the Ford PR man as he sent us on his way. And we certainly did, first on the way to Warrnambool, a quiet coastal town about three hours outside of Melbourne. I booked us a couple of rooms there because I thought it might be relaxing to start recuperating outside of the bustling city, and it worked like a charm. We had a pleasant dinner and I got a good night of sleep.
On Thursday, we drove back to Melbourne on the Great Ocean Road, Australia’s equivalent of California Highway 1. Great scenery, including the Bay of Martyrs, the Twelve Apostles, and Bells Beach, one of the world’s great surfing beaches and scene of the climactic final scene in the Keanu Reeves movie Point Break.
In the afternoon, we journeyed to the southeast Melbourne suburb of Clayton where we received a tour of the Holden K-Mart Racing Team, fresh off a dominant victory in the Bathurst 1000 a few days before. I had a productive interview with drivers Greg Murphy and Rick Kelly and we also had the bonus of a walk through Holden Special Vehicles, where standard Holden products are upgraded to HSV status with engine, suspension, brake and interior modifications.
Friday was spent knocking around downtown Melbourne, and we walked to nearby Docklands Stadium in the evening and attended a Rugby World Cup match between New Zealand and Canada, with the All Blacks prevailing 68-6. Our hotel was a brand new Best Western that was the coldest and most sterile hotel I’ve ever experienced. I booked a two room suite which consisted of two rooms, one with a double bed and the other with two singles. Apart from a TV and a desk in each room and a single bathroom, that was it. Very bizarre.
We weren’t too unhappy to beat it on out of there Saturday morning. First we went to Albert Park, site of the Australian GP Formula 1 race. Ninety percent of the track is public roads, so we each took a slow lap in the Falcon. Then we headed north and west out of town and cruised through the Yarra Valley, one of Australia’s top wine districts. The California parallels continued, with this area much like the mid-northern part of the state. We made it to Eildon, which is as far as the roads went before hitting the Yarra Mountains.
Then we back-roaded it to Cranbourne, where for the first time in my life an internet booking failed. Don’t trust the Comfort Inn website for international bookings, it seems. Or perhaps it was my error. The people were very nice and they arranged a room at a Best Western in Frankston, some 20 minutes away.
I would have been much happier at the original place. The Best Western was noisy thanks to the neighborhood across the street with a persistent barking dog. As of about 2 a.m., the dog was joined by a chorus of birds and later in the night, by howling wind and slashing rain. Not a recipe for a good night of sleep.
Sunday morning we were off early to Phillip Island for the Australian GP motorcycle race. Saturday had been warm and beautiful, but the crappy weather followed us onto the island, and when we arrived at 7:15, it was about 55 degrees, windy and rainy. We napped and hung out at the car until 9:45 when we made an executive decision to bag it. It would have cost $70 to get in and at least that much more to buy clothing appropriate for the conditions (all I had was two sweatshirts). So we drove back to Melbourne and watched the race at the Airport Hilton. I ran into Dario Franchitti a few days later and he said that he left the track within ten minutes of arriving. I didn’t feel so bad after that!
We flew to Surfers Paradise on Monday morning and spent the day touring tropical New South Wales, including the obligatory stop in Nimbin, a little hippie village in the mountains where authorities pretty much turn a blind eye toward anything counterculture. Upon checking into the Hi-Surf, a 28-story apartment building smack in the middle of the circuit in downtown Surfers, it was a pleasure to know that I would actually be able to unpack my suitcase this time rather than leaving it on standby for the next leg of the journey. A great advantage of having an apartment for a week on the road was the ability to cook many of our own meals, as well as a nightly batch of stovetop popcorn.
Our apartment on the 27th floor of the Hi-Surf was ideal was ideal for photographers like Webb – a perfect scene-setter, overhead views of the cars coming and going up the track, with a convenience store a block away, and a Red Rooster rotisserie chicken restaurant even closer. All the luxuries of home, only 9,000 miles away…