The $500 Craigslist rally car returns to MexicoBill Caswell made history a year ago when his old, thrown-together $500 Craigslist BMW triumphed over $400K race cars to make the podium at the WRC Rally Mexico. For Caswell, our story about his exploits changed his life and made him a semi-star. A year later, Caswell returned to Rally Mexico a celebrity with an equally slapdash machine. Our original story was titled "How a $500 Craigslist car beat $400K rally racers." This year Caswell and his co-driver didn't podium, but somehow had a better time. So perhaps it's best to call this version "How a $500 Craigslist team got robbed, laid, drunk, and fast while being beaten by $400K rally racers." In the style set forth by our original telling of the story, I'm just going to insert bits from Caswell's retelling with comments in between. But let me preface it this way: Bill Caswell is insane. The emails he sends are full of the kind of myopic energy few, other than perhaps coked-up cheerleaders, posses. And now, to the story� Getting robbed by Mexican cops
Yes, he just ended a story about getting robbed by saying "I love it." Also worth noting that Bill is a gearhead's gearhead and spend a lot of time — usually at the last minute — getting his car together. If you call him he's likely to be in his mom's garage outside Chicago welding his car. Preparing for the race
Note, right after re-re-reading this I noticed an e-mail from Bill making more ridiculous requests. So, yeah, sorry Rhys. It happens. Opening ceremony
We're going to eventually going to get Bill drunk enough to tell that story on camera. Whether he knows it or not. A big leap
Still reading? Good, me too. We normally wouldn't print something this long. It's much, much longer than anything we regularly publish. But what can you do? It's Mexico. Someone in the comments is going to write "TL:DR" and, you know what. FUCK YOU. Stickers, stickers, and more stickers
If you've skipped this entire thing now would be the time to start reading again. There are girls. Or, at least one girl a few times. I'm looking through the photos trying to determine just how many there are. Also, given Bill's engagement (is that still on?) they're all Ron's. Go Ron. The Girls of MexicoUnfortunately, I missed that the rear subframe ripped out of the car and on the second stage or so on Saturday, the car's rear suspension fell out. So once again we spent a day in hanging out on the side of a mountain in the Mexican sun drinking beers. Every pickup in Mexico seems to have a cooler full of beer in it so when we ran out we would just leave our tree and go down to the road for more beers or sandwiches if the WRC vans were coming by � they carry these awesome ham and cheese croissants with spicy mayo that are amazing. Sunday! Sunday! Sunday!With the motor finally running right and the subframe welded back into the car, we are ready for the first stage of the day when it gets canceled for safety or something. But only one of us got an alternate route book so we all followed that car who proceeded to drive like a madman so everyone could check in on time. The time interval between cars is a good idea, a pack of rally cars in traffic, trying to make up time is never a good thing. One of the cars has video of it which I really need to see.I don't have much to say other than I made an obnoxious snorting noise when I read the next bit. Super High Quality Dirty OilI ran into the local stores and bought all their oil but it was only 3 quarts, so I gave 700 pesos to a guy in the crowd and sent him to locate as much oil as possible before we entered the control. He came back with a lot of oil and even a half used quart with grime all over it � hell, I would have filled it with vegetable oil at that point. Build, Race, PartyWe started the last stage and drove as fast as we could. The subframe tore out about three quarters of the way through the stage but we decided to keep going till the car wouldn't run anymore as it was the last stage. We made it through and were substantially faster than our Rally America competition who were taking it easy to ensure a finish, but the top cars were still running flat out for final points awarded to the fastest times on the last stage.If you haven't noticed so far, whenever Bill casually mentions "Ken" he's talking about Internet celebrity/WRC driver/Him-khana himself Ken Block. Now just "Party"Talked with Ken for a while. I am so jealous, he is living the dream. 5 years from his first rally to WRC. Some day I'll have a real WRC ride but until then Ken's the man I'm cheering for. He told me his guys on the stages said I looked good, crazy sideways, but good. And I was like right on, sweet, and then Ken's like "and slow" The Way HomeThe rest is all pretty uneventful, except for these ridiculous tacos outside the hotel on this town square that are the best I have ever tasted. Ron had to fly home to take a final exam for college so I towed back solo. Stayed at this cool hotel in Matehuala with this awesome restaurant recommended by Ponce who was a fellow competitor from 2010. I kept texting him and he would be like "get gas here because they have great food then take the turnoff 2km later and�." It was great, made it so much easier to get there and back. |
The $500 Craigslist rally car returns to Mexico
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