9WERKS Radio : The Porsche and Car Podcast Dec 1, 2025

Tales from Mexico & winter prep

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Car

Porsche 356

The Porsche 356 is an old sports car made by Porsche that started being sold a long time ago, in 1948. It's important because it was the first car that Porsche made, and many people love it for how it looks and drives.

Concept

Carrera Panamericana

The Carrera Panamericana is a famous car race that happens in Mexico. It used to be a big event in the 1950s and has come back as a rally where people drive different types of cars.

Car

Porsche 718 Cayman GT4

The GT4 Club Sport is a special version of the Porsche Cayman made for racing. It has a stronger engine and is built to be lighter and faster on the track.

Term

engine drop

An engine drop is when you take the engine out of a car to fix or clean it. It's a big job that usually requires special tools.

Part

lollipop seat

A lollipop seat is a special car seat that helps keep you comfortable and supported while driving. It's designed to hold you in place better, especially when you're making sharp turns or driving for a long time.

Car

Porsche 911 GT3

The Porsche 911 GT3 is a special version of the Porsche 911 sports car that is built for speed and performance. It's designed to be very responsive and fun to drive, especially on racetracks.

Term

paint correction

Paint correction makes your car's paint look better by fixing scratches and dull spots. It's like giving your car a fresh coat of polish to make it shine again.

Term

super unleaded

Super unleaded is a type of gasoline that has a higher octane rating than regular gas. It's better for some cars because it helps them run more smoothly and efficiently.

Term

fuel stabilizer

A fuel stabilizer is a special liquid you add to your gas tank to keep the fuel fresh while the car is not being used. It helps prevent the gas from going bad and causing issues when you want to drive the car again.

Part

brake disc

The brake disc is a flat metal part that helps your car stop. When you press the brake pedal, the brake pads squeeze against this disc to slow down the car.

Term

parking brake

The parking brake is a special brake that keeps your car from rolling when it's parked. You pull it to make sure the car stays still.

Term

battery management

Battery management is about taking care of your car's battery to make sure it works well and lasts a long time. This includes checking its charge and keeping it in good condition.

Part

battery conditioner

A battery conditioner is a tool that keeps your car battery charged when you're not using the car, helping it last longer.

Company

SeaTech

SeaTech makes chargers that keep your car battery charged when you're not using your car for a while.

Company

Maypole

Maypole makes chargers that help keep your car battery healthy, especially when you don't drive it for a long time.

Term

smart charger

A smart charger is a type of battery charger that knows how to charge your battery safely without overdoing it.

Term

corrosion buildup

Corrosion buildup is when rust forms on metal parts of a car, like brakes. This can happen if the metal gets wet and isn't cleaned, and it can make the brakes work less effectively.

Part

brake pad

A brake pad is a part of the car's braking system that presses against the wheels to help stop the car. It's important for making sure the car can slow down safely.

Term

over inflate the tyres

Over inflating the tyres means putting too much air in them. This can help keep the tyres in good shape when a car is stored for a long time, but too much air can cause problems when driving.

Brand

Mercedes

Mercedes is a well-known car brand from Germany that makes luxury cars. They are famous for their high-quality vehicles and advanced technology.

Term

car cover

A car cover is like a blanket for your car that keeps it clean and safe when you're not driving it. Some are better for keeping dust off inside a garage, while others protect against rain and sun outside.

Car

Porsche

Porsche is a famous car brand from Germany that makes fast and stylish cars. They are well-known for their sports cars and have a long history in racing.

Car

Porsche Carrera

The Porsche Carrera is a fast sports car made by Porsche. The 2025 version is part of a long line of Carreras that are known for being powerful and fun to drive.

Term

V8

A V8 is an engine with eight cylinders that helps cars go faster and produce more power. It's commonly found in powerful American cars.

Term

brake horsepower

Brake horsepower is a way to measure how powerful an engine is before considering any energy lost to things like heat. It helps us understand how fast a car can go.

Term

sequential gearbox

A sequential gearbox is a special type of transmission that lets drivers change gears in a straight line, making it faster and easier to shift while driving, especially in racing cars.

Concept

Abu Dhabi Grand Prix

The Abu Dhabi Grand Prix is a big car race that happens every year in Abu Dhabi. It's special because it takes place at night and is usually the last race of the year in the Formula One series.

Brand

Penske

Penske is a famous American company that is involved in car racing. They participate in different types of racing, including Formula One, which is one of the most prestigious racing series in the world.

Concept

WRC

WRC is a global rally racing competition where drivers race on different types of roads. They have to follow speed limits when they're not racing, and there are penalties for speeding.

Car

Porsche 981 GT4 Club Sport

The Porsche 981 GT4 Club Sport is a special version of the Cayman sports car made for racing. It has upgrades that make it faster and better for the track.

Car

Porsche 718 Cayman GT4 Clubsport

The Porsche 718 Cayman GT4 Clubsport is a special racing version of the Cayman sports car. It's built for speed and performance on the racetrack.

Car

Porsche 911S

The Porsche 911 is a famous sports car that has been around since the 1960s. It's well-known for its unique shape and powerful engine, making it a favorite among car lovers.

Car

BMW M2

The BMW M2 is a sporty version of a smaller BMW car that came out in 2016. It's popular because it has a strong engine and is fun to drive, while still being practical for daily use.

Car

Porsche Boxster

The Porsche Boxster is a two-seater convertible sports car that started being sold in the late 1990s. It's loved for its great handling and fun driving experience, making it a more affordable option for people who want a Porsche.

Car

Porsche Panamera

The Porsche Panamera is a fancy four-door car that started being sold in 2009. It’s special because it combines the sporty feel of a Porsche with the comfort and space of a regular luxury car.

LIVE

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Hello Andy, how are you?

Very well, thank you sir. How are you?

Yeah, yeah, yeah, all good in the hood my friend, all good in the hood. Welcome

to everybody at home, welcome to Nymux Radio. It's the penultimate episode in the series

and indeed of 2025.

Oh, it's gone so quick, isn't it?

Yep, it has gone quick. We have a really cool guest this episode though where we're

going to be talking about the Carrera Panamericana, which is, I mean, one of the biggest

races of the global calendar year, although bizarrely, it's certainly one of the biggest

but not an event that not everybody knows about.

Yeah, it's kind of under the radar to a certain extent, isn't it? Almost, I think it's sort

of consigned to history and people don't realise that it's still going on today.

Yeah, yeah, but Rob's story is incredible. He's kind of, yeah, back and fresh from

the Carrera Panamericana in his GT4 club sport, expertly prepared by the guys at

Williams Crawford. And yeah, I think six weeks on now with the dust settling,

Rob's ready to reflect on what is just a really cool story.

Yeah, you've driven this car, haven't you? So there's a YouTube video on it and

we've also had Rob on before he went. So this is kind of telling us what the story

is like after how he got on this time.

Yeah, it was great as well keeping up with the race via, again, Williams Crawford

did a really nice blog on the car and had a bit of a vested interest in it

just having driven that car on roads around Cornwall and then seeing it

competing out in Mexico was pretty special. And I'm sure that sensation must

have been elevated even more so for Rob as the owner of the car.

So yeah, fantastic.

Yeah, very cool. Well, we'll talk about sunny Mexico and shenanigans over

there very shortly. But as we prepare to wrap up the podcast for the year,

we're heading into winter. You got much in the way of winter plans, Andy?

I've always got plans. I hope I get round to them.

I definitely need to do some work on my engine.

It's got a little leak somewhere.

I think it's on either the oil cooler or the the temperature sensor.

So I'm considering an engine drop and a sort of clean up and just make

sure everything's all OK.

That'll be something you'll do yourself, though, isn't it?

Yeah, yeah, I'll be doing that at home.

I hope you all goes well.

You've got the talent for that.

So I think so. Yeah, I think so.

And I've also got my seat project that seems to have been put on a backburner.

I need to get my arcing gear seems to be doing too much podcast

editing and not enough actual working on the car.

So I'm going to try and get that done this year so that, yeah,

I can try and get that lollipop seat in and get myself

some side support for those road trips later on in next year.

OK, yeah, yeah.

Not withstanding your engine out and patch up,

does the SC go exclusively off road over the winter months?

No, it will probably pop out here and there.

I'm not totally adverse to getting out.

I mean, the sort is definitely down on the roads.

I live on a little hill here and you quite often see the sorting

truck go past where on the route, which always sort of

gives me a bit of dread when I see the orange lights flash flashing parts

and the the noise of the salt hitting the cars as it goes through.

Yeah. But I'm not adverse to getting it out

and then giving it a good old clean off afterwards.

I think that's the thing.

Just make sure you you don't let it sit and fester.

Yeah, yeah. I guess in Little Irish is there's no chance of that.

It's the it's the daily war truck, isn't it?

Yeah, yeah, really, the world has a great description, Andy.

It really is that just, yeah, come what may, that car is is out and about.

Although, yes, I was on the way back from Williams Crawford actually.

A couple of Monday just gone, funny enough.

Yeah, really beautiful sunny day in Cornwall,

but it's kind of traipsing back towards Dorset.

Daylight gone and I saw the yellow

yellow lights of the salt truck coming in the opposite direction.

And I remember thinking just as the salt hit the side of the car,

it kind of sounds like a crisp packet folding up, doesn't it?

You know, when it hits and I just thought at that moment,

well, that's no more GT3 driving this year then.

Yeah, so you'll you'll put that away, have you now?

Yeah, yeah, that'll that'll be off the road.

Just where there's like less under seal on those cars anyway.

It's just always they've got nothing way more susceptible anyway.

And and yeah, also

just with it being the most expensive thing I own side from the house.

I just want to protect it a little bit more, but little Irish will certainly battle on.

So how have you enjoyed your few weeks of GT3 ownership?

Loved it so much, Andy, loved it so much.

It's in a way, yeah, buying a GT car at the end of October

when, you know, you're going to garage it is is quite frustrating, actually.

So you're trying to get as many miles in as you can before

the before the ax falls, if you like.

So we're six hundred miles in six hundred miles in a month, really.

But I personally detest January, February and March as it is.

But I already know I can't wait until April falls.

They bring it on, you know, the first sniff of sniff of sun.

And that that car is absolutely going to be back out again

and really looking forward to the drive next year.

Got any plans to do anything on that?

Well, not on that.

So no, little Irish needs a headlight refurb of that.

Yeah, there is no doubt.

I've also noticed because I think that car has been painted

for six, it's done six full years now, really.

Yeah, and that's quite a lot of miles as well as hell of a lot of miles.

And yeah, I think it's at least 80,000 in that time.

So the paint work at the very least, it needs a very good detail and paint correction.

I actually think it might need some paint in a couple of areas, to be honest with you.

And again, by virtue of the fact that it's just driven all the time.

So I'll probably look into that, perhaps.

So, yeah, hello, charade, accident repair.

Yeah, yeah.

But yeah, the GT feel just sit at home.

I know a lot of listeners, majority are driven or hidden.

Some people, yeah, do put their car into storage.

And for those who do store their car or are interested in storing their car,

there is a bit of a science and an art to it.

So we have spoken to the very best person to speak to on this subject.

It's our good friend, John.

He's over at Tour Down Garage Services over in Exeter.

John is a member of the Driven or Hidden Collective.

He is very particular about his car.

So this is no exaggeration when you say he's the very best person to ask about this.

So we said, John, if you're thinking of storing your car over the winter months,

what should you consider?

And here is what he had to say.

Hello, it's John Emery here from Tour Down Storage in Devon.

Please ask me to pass on a few tips in relation to looking after your cars

through the winter period when you may not be using them as much

as normal throughout the summer period.

Before I lay any vehicles up over the winter period,

I like to do a few checks on them first just to make sure that they're all OK

and ready to be stored.

Checks to start off with checking the lights and the levels,

making sure that everything is ready.

I fully fuel the cars with super un-ledded.

And if the vehicle is going to be stored for longer than the winter period,

then I would normally add a fuel stabilizer to the to the fuel tank.

The one that I recommend is made by a company called Stabil.

They've been going a very long time and they're really, really recommended for adding in.

It helps to compensate the the fuel additives that are put into the fuel

at the pumps that, unfortunately, we can't do anything about now.

I like to give the car a really good clean before it's put away

and empty everything out.

So this is, you know, if it's a customer's car,

then I recommend that they empty it beforehand.

If it's my own car, then I take everything out personally.

I avoid leaving anything on the seats themselves

as these can leave sort of impression marks over time.

And then the once the vehicle has had a really good clean,

I then drive the vehicle just a short distance

just to make sure that the brakes are all cleaned off.

And then there's no residual water, which would then

corrode the brake disc to the brake pad,

which can then end up with breaking balance problems

when you come to use the vehicle in the springtime.

I always leave the vehicle with the parking brake off.

And this then helps to make sure that the parking brake doesn't stick on

when you then come to to drive away in the springtime.

The next thing we need to think about is battery management.

How are we going to look after our batteries

within our cars over the winter period

when they're not being used?

The way we do this is with the connection of a battery conditioner.

I would either use the SeaTech charger

for most of our vehicles, the MXS5 is a five amp charging unit.

Or another one that I would recommend is the Maypole four amp smart charger,

which has a really nice voltage display on the front of the unit.

And it goes red when it's charging and it's green when it's in its sleep mode.

And this I find is a really easy

charger to use throughout the winter period.

And it can be easily viewed from quite a distance

so that when you're just walking past the vehicle, you can have a quick look

and immediately identify the condition of your battery

whilst you're just walking past.

Without a battery conditioner fitted to your vehicle,

the chances are within a couple of months

there will be irreparable damage caused to your battery.

And unfortunately, then it will be time to replace it in the spring.

Once the vehicle has been fully cleaned,

I then normally leave the vehicle for about a day.

The following day, I will then move the vehicle again

just to make sure that there is no corrosion buildup

between the brake pad and the brake disc.

Then the vehicle is ready to be stored.

Depending on how long the vehicle is going to be stored for,

I would usually over inflate the tyres.

This was a tip that I picked up from Mercedes and Porsche

when I was working at the main dealers.

New cars, when they were sent through from the factories in Germany,

they would be sometimes in store for many months at a time

whilst they were being transported.

And they came through with over inflated tyres,

sometimes as high as 50, 55, 60 psi.

And I would look to do something similar

for my own and my customers' vehicles.

Depending on your storage environment,

you may want to think about putting a dehumidifying container

within your vehicle.

These can be easily bought off Amazon.

They're normally about a pound each.

I am often asked by my customers,

what sort of car cover is best for my car?

I prefer the soft, stretchy, breathable car covers

for indoor storage are easy to take on and off.

And also they're small enough that can be washed

within a domestic washing machine after the storage period.

So now that your car is in store, what happens next?

At least weekly, I'm going around and looking at all of the battery

conditioners to make sure that they're charging,

to make sure that all the LEDs are illuminated correctly

and also checking the voltages on the battery

conditioners that have that voltage function

that I was describing earlier.

I'm also looking for anything unusual around the building.

I'm looking for any signs of any rodent activity

or water ingress, basically anything that might be detrimental

to the health of the vehicle whilst it's in store.

Once a month, then it's time to take the covers off the vehicle

and have then a really good look around the car

to make sure that it is all OK.

Once a month, we will then start the engines

and run them up to temperature, checking for any leaks,

having a good look on the underside of the vehicle as well

with the torch, just to make sure that there's nothing dripping down.

I also have a quick look around the brakes

just to make sure that there's no surface corrosion

that is maybe building up on the actual face of the brake discs themselves.

And if it's a nice dry day, I would be recommending to

just take the vehicle out of the garage and just move it around

so that the brakes and the tyres get a chance to be rotated.

This gives you opportunity to operate the brakes

and also gives the tyres to be moved into a different spot

so that this helps to minimize the tyres from having flat spots.

On older vehicles, I would recommend operating some of the switches

within the car, operating the heater, indicators, lights.

This helps to keep the relays and the electrical components

in good health as well.

I also find it really useful, especially if you have a number of vehicles

to run a sort of a diary log of what you do.

You will often find that the days, weeks, months tick on

and having a diary to work back through

as to what checks have been done and when is really useful.

Finally, when your vehicle is not being used for an extended period of time,

you may as well put your vehicle on sawn

and claim back the road fun license that you may have paid.

Make sure that you do this before the end of the month.

Otherwise, you will lose the full month up until the last day of the month.

One item that is often forgotten is insurance

whilst vehicles are being stored.

No change to insurance if the vehicle is being stored

at its normal location, but if it is going off to a independent

storage facility, then you really should let your insurance company

know the new location of your vehicle whilst it's being stored.

That's pretty much about it.

If you need any further tips, then please message me on the WhatsApp group.

Big on detail, generous in time.

John, thank you very much for yours

and imparting such great knowledge on the Nomux Radio listenership.

Top tips. Thanks, John.

Nice. Nice.

With that in mind then, shall we cross over to Rob

and chat about the Carrera Panamericana

and what it's like to race in this most prestigious of events

from behind the wheel of a Porsche.

Can't wait to hear this story.

Rob, welcome to Nomux Radio.

Thank you so much in advance for sharing your story.

You are, I guess it's six weeks since returning from Mexico now.

Yeah, about that.

It seems it seems an awful long time.

She's a distant memory, to be honest.

Yes, it probably is six weeks.

Yeah. OK.

Well, we're really looking forward to diving into this

and your story in great detail,

but straight off the bat,

so six months of having the dust settling.

How do you look back on your 2025 Carrera Panamericana experience?

With a little bit of regret

because we had a we had a small incident

where we where we left the road and did a bit of damage to the car.

So our overall result was 15th officially.

But in reality, we were running top 10 most of the time.

And top five or six in the latter days

when we were going to find out all the issues.

So.

But but we're also very proud of what we did.

You know, it's a it's a big event.

It's a massive undertaking.

There was some gold post move before we arrived,

which meant that we were a little bit under pressure

as soon as we got into Mexico,

which I can tell you a bit more detail later on.

But yeah, so so overall really, really happy.

We'd love to do the event again if we can make it happen.

It's it's an expensive event.

So, you know, there's that type of thing to take into consideration

and also your way along time, you know, a couple of weeks from your family,

which which is never easy.

So yeah, but if we could if we could do it,

Ryan's up for it, if we can do it again,

you know, I'd love to do it again.

Love that. That was going to be my question.

I was going to interrupt then and say, would you do it again?

And yes, it is must have been good.

Yeah, definitely do it again.

There's a there's an old chap who I don't want to say old,

but he is 85.

So I guess he falls off that gas grid.

85 young, 85 years young chap called Doug Mocker

is a bit of a legend of the event.

He's done it something like maybe 33 times

about the 35 or 36 times it's run and the car was an original car.

So that's also, you know, that's done it more times as well.

And and he's still running at 85

and he's still running in the top 10.

So yeah, incredible, incredible chap.

Wow. What was his name?

He's called Doug Mocker. Doug Mocker.

I got to look that up.

Yeah. And he drives an old automobile,

which is like a massive, great old American V8 car.

I mean, essentially, it looks like something off of

off of Greece back in the day.

But underneath, it's all, you know, it's all modern suspension,

something probably like five or six hundred breakwater power,

you know, the big breaks, sequential box, etc.

So it's a real piece of kit, but it looks like a, you know,

to the untrained eye, it looks like an old car on the outside.

I was having a chat with him on one of the little villages

we stopped in for a sort of coffee break and said,

Oh, what's what's next for you?

And he said, Oh, well, we're we're doing a or I'm doing

a support race to the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix

in a Penske Formula One car, which he's driving

and then he's doing classic Monaco afterwards.

So there's hope for us all that we can still carry on

going into our 80s. Yeah, that is inspiring.

Yeah. Yeah. Can we get his number?

Have a chat.

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, he's a really lovely guy as well.

Well, this this surely is a part of participating

in an event like this that it's all about, really,

when you've got petrol running through your veins, you know.

So, yeah, Rob, this is the second time this year

that we've been fortunate to have you on non-march radio

because you gave us a little bit of a run up to

kind of pre-event, but just to touch base

for those that perhaps didn't quite hear

that earlier rendition of the podcast, you know,

what is it about this famous race in Mexico

that draws you all the way from the UK to participate?

So so we originally heard about it.

I watched the watch the thing on YouTube,

our video on YouTube that was about the event.

And it just seemed incredible, you know, seven is a long event.

So that's a lot of driving for anybody who likes driving.

It's, you know, that's an immediate draw.

But when you when you actually get there,

I mean, the people are incredible, the amount of fans

and supporters and who come out to see it is is unbelievable.

I mean, I haven't done a massive amount of rallying.

I'm not to say I'm still an obvious, really.

But, you know, Ryan, who who's been with me

the last two times, he's done a lot of rallying over his years.

And even he found it incredible there in amount of support,

the camaraderie amongst the competitors, everybody.

Firstly, genuinely wants more and more competitors to come

from UK and the rest of Europe and outside of Mexico.

And secondly, they genuinely want you to finish,

which which is not always the case over here or in Europe.

You know, it's, you know, it's, I guess, because it's an annual event.

It's not a championship as such.

So it's got a different vibe to it.

But so there's so there's the the fans who come out, the competitors,

the whole spirit of adventure and being in a completely different country,

traversing, you know, across parts of, you know, from from.

scenery, which seems like it's come from the spaghetti Western

to almost like you're in the Amazon and then you could be on a road in Cornwall,

which, you know, it's such a vast travel, such a length for the country.

And the the the scenery is so different from one end to the other.

And, you know, all the town, you know, a lot of the towns and cities

that you go into a to a very Spanish orientated and very sort of, you know,

the architect is amazing.

I mean, that's about the only time you really get

much headspace to take it in is when you come into the finishing arches.

And when you start in the morning and you sort of see it once you actually

get up and rolling during the day is there's an awful lot going on.

So it's there's a lot of time to sort of.

Let it all sink in.

It's only when you get home and perhaps watch some videos and stuff

and some of the photos that have been taken that you actually,

you know, really starts to sink in what you know, what you've experienced.

Yeah. Amazing.

What's the what are the facts and figures?

How many days, how many miles, how many hours a day are you driving?

Yeah. So so normally it's a it's a seven day event plus qualification.

This year, they chucked it because it was the 75th anniversary of the event.

And they chucked in another day, which did kind of messes up a little bit.

But so it was this year, it was eight days

and four thousand kilometres of which approximately about a thousand kilometres

of that is is closed stages.

That's full, you know, three to one go as fast as you can.

And then the other three thousand kilometres are on open roads.

But

you couldn't say it's lawless because all the citizens are

abiding by the by the law.

But in the race, it seems like you're exempt.

So you see it encouraged and encouraged.

Yeah, genuinely, you know, we we.

We came out a couple of cities in the morning and the police

or all the cities in the morning, the police are closing off roads

and waving you through red lights.

Occasionally you'll get like a like a police escort,

maybe motorcycles or something clearing the way on the way out in the

mornings and sometimes the same in the evenings.

But you, you know, you and the transit stages,

which is the stages between the competitive bits.

You've given a very high average speed to keep up.

So like 100 kilometres an hour, so 60 miles an hour.

But that that includes going through lots of towns and little villages

with speed bumps and stuff like that.

So you can't necessarily do those speeds in the in the little villages.

And you also have to stop fuel.

So actually, you know, there's a day, there's a day.

I can't remember if it's day four or day five.

We had a two hour transit.

And I think for an hour or more of that, we didn't dip below 110 mile an hour.

And that's an open traffic, you know, with with with other cars.

And then you go into some of the cities, you know, trying to trying

to keep up or trying to get to the finish arts in time.

And you're traversing, you know, or four lane carriageways first,

a hard shoulder, you're going from the outside lane to the hard shoulder,

overtaking traffic, you know, is is is incredible.

And the police are the police are like.

They'll go, I think I said this previously, they'll go ahead of you

to clear the traffic.

And as soon as they get, you know, they get rid of everybody,

they just they just wave you on.

So it is something else.

What an experience.

Yeah, yeah, I can I can see why you love it so much, Rob.

And again, it kind of goes without saying I would say that previously.

But there's only especially in this day and age, there's only certain places

in the world where this sort of event can take place really.

And it does require a sort of, yeah, you know, not so much lawless,

but laissez-faire attitude in a way, particularly when when it's

away from the closed off sections of the course.

I mean, the the the Mexican competitors say that this is the only

the only week of the year they can do this.

So it's not it's not a case of, you know, that it's

acceptable all year round.

And it's only acceptable for the people in the rally.

But but you, you know, you you're coming up behind people at 100,

you know, on single carriageway roads, you're coming up behind people

at sort of 100 mile an hour plus.

And they're and they're pulling over onto the hard shoulder to let you go through.

What, you know, it's just this.

I think I think from Ryan's experience, the only other place

where experience anything close to it is in Kenya, where where they're

allowed to to the push on in the road sections.

Is that the East African safari rally?

Yes, that's right. Yeah.

But most other rallies, the stuff I've done here and done in Europe,

you know, once you get once you come out of the stage, it's helmets off.

And you have to abide by the by the rules of, you know, by the rules of the road.

So if it's a 30 mile an hour, it's 30 mile an hour, and that's it.

And and actually now, I think, even on WRC, the cars are tracked by GPS.

And if they go over the speed limits outside the stages and heavily penalised.

Yeah, it's a very, very different, very different way of doing it.

I mean, again, just from a European perspective, as we said on the previous podcast,

the only thing that sort of comes anywhere near close, certainly

reputationally, is the Targo Floreo.

But as you rightly point out, away from the way it is, a lot of it is timed

anyway, as a like regulation.

So yeah, speed limits have to be adhered to.

So I think it's fair to say that the race that you've just done, Rob,

there truly is nothing else like it in the world, which again, is a key reason

as to why you've gone in for the experience.

You did it last year, but that was in a rental car.

You went back this year with your 981 GT4 club sport,

which Williams Crawford helped prepare for you.

What were the main differences really?

Well, we did the rental in 2023.

Firstly, we didn't know the team that we were going to be working with.

I don't need to have emailed and had a couple of brief conversations.

We'd never seen the car in the flesh.

We didn't see the car until six o'clock the night before the race started.

And we had like a 10 minute drive around Veracruz before we went off to qualification.

So whereas the 981, although I hadn't driven the club sport that much,

I'd driven a road going 981, so everything seemed familiar.

So it was a lot more...

Yeah, I'd never even driven an American car before we went to Mexico the first time.

So all those things this time seemed sort of familiar, actually.

Adrian quite often mentions, he used to work with a guy called Rob Wilson,

who's quite a famous Formula One coach.

And he used to say about having $10 to spend.

And things like that.

And he used to say about having $10 to spend and things like being familiar with the car

or some of the things that you spend if you jump into a car that you don't know,

your head's already using up some of its capacity to deal with all of that.

Whereas if you're jumping in something you're familiar with,

you've got a little bit extra to spend on concentrating on trying to drive a bit quicker.

Yeah, I wonder if there was any further feeling to when you first saw the GT4 club sport in Mexico

having seen it off at the port in the UK.

And I remember standing next to you and the car when it was outside Williams Crawford

when you very kindly lent it to NineWorks for us to do a video for the day.

Seeing that same car a long, long way away must have been a pretty cool experience.

Yeah, it was a cool experience.

We were slightly on the back foot.

So as I said earlier that when we originally put all the flights and the plan to trip,

the race was originally seven days plus a day's qualification.

But the organizers added on another day.

So the qualification was brought forward a day closer to our arrival time.

And so we were due to arrive in Mexico City.

Originally we had a day's breathing space, but as it happened we were meant to arrive

in Mexico City in the evening, fly straight down to where the start was,

do our registration early doors and then go off and do the qualification.

But we got held up in Mexico City, one of my bags was laid off the plane.

And he got hauled into customs.

It seemed to be having a bit of a purge on everybody.

So it was like hundreds of people being sent through customs,

which meant we missed our connecting flights.

We had to stay in Mexico City the first night when we were shipped down by the start.

So we never made qualifications.

So when we turned up, there was a really cool feeling to see in our car there,

but it was also tarnished a little bit by the fact that we were going to miss qualification

and we still had a fair bit of admin to do.

So yeah, so that put it a little bit on the back foot at the beginning.

These are the sort of background stories that one just wouldn't otherwise appreciate

unless we're hearing it from you and you're a privateer outfit.

There's not a huge team of people behind you doing all of this admin for you, I guess.

So it's really, really good to hear.

What was it like then lining up at the start?

I imagine fairly nervous and it's also worth pointing out,

which I'm sure will go into, your competitors, your 981 GT4 Club Sport,

that your competitors had like far superior horsepower to play with, I guess.

Yeah, so we didn't do qualification, but they don't stick you at the back.

So they keep it reasonably sensible.

So I think we started 13th overall out of maybe 55 to 60 cars.

But yeah, you're quite right.

Although the majority of the cars are vintage looking.

So it's 50s, 60s and 70s, mainly some 80s and 90s stuff.

The Studevakers, which are kind of the cars which have won it most overall over the years,

they're a 1950s design.

So they were in the original races.

But underneath the plastic body, they're effectively space frame NASCAR type stuff.

Oh yeah, with modern suspension, sequential boxes, proper brakes,

somewhere in a region of 600 plus brake horsepower.

I don't know how much they weigh, but they won't weigh massive amount, I guess.

And even the 911s, which are kind of more familiar to us,

all the 911s in the B plus category are 3.8.

These are motors somewhere near 400 brake horsepower and about 1,000 kilos.

So the 981 seems reasonably competitive outside of that.

But when you actually put it into context, it's got less power probably than the 1970s,

slash 80s, 911s that are there and heavier and significantly less power than the Studevakers.

There are two other cars which were kind of in our mix.

One was a BMW M2, which was about 500 brake horsepower driven by a local legend

and a couple of American guys who had met on the 2023 event.

But they did the 2023, 24 and 25, but they were in a 991 GT2 club sport,

which again is a very rare car, I think they made about 200 of them.

But that's somewhere around 700 brake horsepower and they were in our class,

so they were our main competitor. We knew them from the previous event

and they're good friends, really nice guys. So although there was some sort of healthy

competition amongst us, they deserved their class win.

They got away from us on several occasions, particularly in the high speed stuff,

but they didn't put a foot on the whole event.

Adds to the flavour of the adventure, doesn't it? I guess.

Again, I know you've had the experience of doing it in the rental a couple of years prior,

but I'd be interested to know how you prepared for it and your co-driver as well.

Yeah, well Ryan's very experienced. It's another day in the office for him to be honest.

He's doing stuff all the time. He's going to be doing the classics car again in a few weeks' time.

For me, it's quite different because I am pretty inexperienced. So

preparation-wise, I did spend a bit of time this year trying to get myself in better shape,

just because it's such a long event. It's quite grueling.

But other than that, other than doing a few hill climbs and track days and stuff like that,

I didn't really do that much. I did a bit of go-kart in, but no real specific

preparation for the race. I love it, Rob, because you're coming across as such an

adventurist here. I love it. I absolutely love it. I really enjoy as well, Ryan,

your co-driver is surname's Champion. I mean, if that doesn't set you up for success.

I don't know what will alongside the Williams Crawford prepared car as well.

Are you able to just talk us through the adventure of the first day?

Yes. To be honest, we're absolutely exhausted because we'd arrived late,

but we got to the start. The start was amazing. Another beautiful city,

loads and loads of people there supporting. To be honest, I don't know if it's just me,

but once you get there, you don't think about it really. You just kind of

try and get your head down and get on with it. I think we were ninth overall on the first day,

which, to be honest, was incredible. Absolutely.

Was it 55, 60 cars?

Something like that. When we set off, we kind of give ourselves a little bit of a goal,

not to try and, obviously, the main goal is to finish, but finishing 18th previously in a

rental, we wanted to be somewhere between 15th and 10th would have been acceptable,

and then anything if we could get into the top 10 was incredible. To finish ninth on the first day,

and we'd literally, we'd only been there a few hours really, was quite a thing. We were pretty

chuffed the last time, to be honest. That was the first day. The first day was pretty good,

to be fair. You are rewarded for each day you finish as well, which, again,

this really is like a battle of attrition.

Yeah. At the end of every day, there's a gala dinner with presentations, and there's awards

for each class every day. Although it's essentially one rally, it's almost like

seven or eight rallies as well. You can get awards for every day. You get a medal every day,

finish, and if you finish in the top three in the class, you get an award every day.

From that side, if you do have a problem like we did on day two, there is still stuff to play

for for the rest of the rally. I think that's quite unusual. I don't know if they do that

in other rallies. No, I know. I imagine as well, it must curtail the bubbly if you've got to be

back on the start line for nine or eight whatever it is. Yeah, to be honest, I'd not been drinking

much before we went away. So I was trying to add a bit on the plane, which was probably a mistake,

but when we got to Mexico, I was adamant that I wasn't going to drink to start with.

So I maintained that for day one.

And then full throttle on the tequila.

Well, yeah, with that in mind, can we move on to day two, because that was incident packed,

wasn't it? And again, this is kind of where the reality of such an event can kind of come

to fruition or bite really. Yeah, yeah. So we said, obviously, we were ninth on day one,

we sat off on day two. And so we reduced launch control on the GT4 to get away,

try and get away as quickly as possible on all the starts and reduce it on day one and add

no knee issues. And then we set off on the first stage on day two. And we got about, I don't know,

maybe a kilometer into the stage and the dashboard lit up with a gearbox error.

What if I hadn't noticed with it also? So on that car, the ABS has got an adjustable ABS,

you can turn it almost off, but it's still in the background. So the ABS also went out,

which I didn't notice to be fair. And it was quite a technical stage, but it was,

there's lots of gravel, if you got offline. Anyway, we managed to get a fair way into the

stage of carrying, sorry, also the gearbox issue knocked into like a limp mode. So it's not

probably like 100 horsepower off the car. So it was slow up the hills, but we managed to maintain

quite a lot of speed through the corners. So we probably hadn't dropped more than three or four

seconds in the stage as far as we got. And then, but it was a, and this is part of my

sort of inexperience, if you like, it was constantly

playing on my mind about this issue. So it was distracting me.

Anyway, whether I miss her to call or didn't listen, whatever, I missed a call on the corner.

I didn't get the severity of the corner. And we went in far too fast to be honest.

But with the ABS out as well, that didn't sort of, so the car locked up, I managed to get off

and on again. But we, but we got offline as soon as we got offline, we got onto the gravel, and

then that was, we were pretty much a passenger. It wasn't a, it wasn't a hard shunt, but we went

up this, went up this sort of soft bank, went through a little drain ditch and up through

a soft bank. The most worrying thing was, there was a couple of spectators, one was

filming some stuff for his YouTube channel. And honestly, his legs flashed past my

side windows, went through and I was sure we'd run them over. But we hadn't tortured

me, which was massive release. So was that him just jumping out the way to get out?

He did jump out the way, unfortunately. I mean, it must have been pretty quick, because I literally

saw his legs flash past the window. And I said to Ryan, when we've stopped, so I think we've

run him over and get out quick. So we've both jumped out of the car as quick as we could,

but he was all right, fortunately. So, and the car looked sort of okay-ish to manage to

reverse it back off the bank and then drove it in because it was right on the corner. So

it was in a dangerous place. I managed to pull it over the other side of the road

into a little lay-by, but then some fluids started to run out. So we caught a radiator

and one of the wheels wasn't attached anymore. So we had to wait for everybody to go through

the stage and then we got picked up by a low loader and taken back to the service

to sort of assess the damage. So we thought we'd both have steering arm or something,

but turns out slightly more than that. We'd actually sheared off a piece of the front sub-frame

where the suspension or the steering arm was attached to. So that was potentially a bit of a

game changer. Game over, almost. Yeah, game over, potentially. So that was always going to...

The team that we went with were the guys that we used last time, lovely people, but mainly

servicing more vintage race cars. So we knew that if we had either a serious mechanical

problem or some sort of accident, we might be a little bit exposed. So we'd already

contacted another team prior to getting there who had run some 718 GT4s previously.

Another lovely, really lovely guy who we had a beer with... Well, I did another Coke,

because I wasn't drinking the first night, but we had a beer with him the first night.

And he said, you know, he was more than happy to help us. We had any issues. So anyway,

we got back to our team and found it was a sub-frame, which was potentially possible to

to weld up. But it's an extremely important part of the suspension. And if it wasn't welded

correctly on the other side of the road, then the team weren't really comfortable doing that.

And we weren't comfortable driving it after that, to be fair. But this other team did have a spare

sub-frame that they could use for us. But it meant the car had to go to Mexico City,

which was about six or six hours or so, maybe seven hours away from us. So we were definitely out

that day, the rest of the day. And then there was a small hope that we might get it done overnight.

But it turned out we lost the next day as well. So that cost us about, I think, an hour in

penalties. So effectively, our hopes of being top 10 overall finishes was dead in the water then.

So we just had to hope that we could get the car repaired and see what we could do for the rest

of the race. So the car got taken all the way to Mexico City, which was how far away? Six hours

away? Six hours, yeah. The repair was done there. So they swapped out the sub-frame,

etc. And then come back on the... Well, it didn't need to come back, actually, because we were moving

up closer to Mexico City. So actually, the day or the night they finished it, the following morning,

the start was in Mexico City. So we got the car dropped to the hotel and then we started

from the Mexico City stage. How lucky was that? You brought it on the right day?

Yeah, yeah. Well, if it hadn't have been, we would have been shipping it somewhere else.

But it was lucky that it was... It would have been luckier if we could have got it fixed the first

night, because we had only lost half the amount of time. But we were lucky to get it fixed. And

there's a saying with this event, and they call it the spirit of lacquer era, which is,

I mean, there's numerous stories of people getting on bikes and traveling thousands of miles to go

and get parts and people breaking their own cars at home to give people parts. And it really is

true. And the team that helped us normally have cars in our category, but they're still happy to

help. And other competitors who were in our category offered to help. So it definitely is

a different spirit, a different vibe with that event. I'm sure that does happen here,

but it's definitely part of the event that people really want to help out and get to the end.

That's brilliant, because it's over the other side of the world, but essentially from the UK,

you're relying on the spirit and compassion and kindness of strangers ultimately. It's incredible.

And there's not many... I don't think there's any 981 club sports in Mexico. There were the

three or four 718s there. But we were lucky that the part that we broke was interchangeable,

because not all of it, there's not actually that much that's interchangeable between 981 and 718.

So we were very lucky to get back there.

Yeah. Was there ever a moment, Rob, where you were thinking this might not be able to

continue? The car may be done. Yeah. As soon as you go off, you think,

I've buggered this up, because ultimately it was my mistake. So you feel guilty,

feel disappointed for yourself, but you also feel guilty. Ryan's got young families,

given up time to come and do this event. And people like William Crawford at

back home who've supported us and helped us get there. You don't feel...

And our family as well, who've let me go. So you do feel like there's a lot of responsibility.

And you do feel that you are in a country where this car is not prevalent and that you could be

out on day two, which would be a... But you've just got to keep positive and try and think

that try and find the best way out. And Ryan's very good at... He's got a lot of experience rallying

all over the world where you're in the middle of Africa. And you haven't got access to all this

stuff. And having a positive attitude and having somebody like Ryan there who's able to just

think, well, let's just get the car to Mexico City. And those types of things help.

And to be fair, our team who we were with, who they could recognise that they weren't the best

people to sort the car out in the state it was in and weren't resistant to ascending it to another

team to get fixed, which some teams might have said, oh, no, no, you're with us. We can fix it.

And we might not have got going if that has been the case. So it's a massive team effort

from two teams and everybody involved together is going, which is incredible.

Yeah, yeah. Obviously, less than ideal, because I'm sure rather that you'd have stayed on the

road. But at the same time, it is all kind of part of the adventure, Rob, isn't it? Ultimately,

you're there because you choose to be. And yes, there are pressures associated with it,

as you've just pointed out, your time, Ryan's time, the financial investment to ship the

car from the UK over there and everything else. But like it is, it is one great adventure.

And it's, yeah, if not quite how you plan, still an adventure nevertheless.

But these things, if they were easy, they wouldn't be rewarding, would they?

Yeah, yeah. The adversity adds to it all, doesn't it?

Well, it does, yeah.

Yeah. And it's a story to tell. We wouldn't be focusing on this little part.

Yeah. It would sound a little bit boring if you had 10, 8 days of, oh, yeah, it was easy.

Yeah, exactly. Well, hopefully if we manage to get to that again, it will be easy and we'll have

a different story to tell.

I'll be keen to know, Rob, did your approach change and Ryan's approach change from day

four onwards, essentially? Because obviously, if you've missed three, so you're on the

start line for four, thinking, well, we're lucky to be here.

No, the only, I wouldn't say the approach change, the only recalibration was, well,

firstly, I had to make sure that I didn't make any more errors. That was the first thing.

So day four, when we actually got back, we took it reasonably easy because,

A, we weren't sure that the car was, you know, we had to have to get confidence back in the car

that it was all back together, not saying they wouldn't have done a good job. But,

you know, there's things that they might not have found. We found that we buckled

the rear wheel, actually, which was, I mean, it wasn't catastrophic, but it was a, you

know, so it was that I didn't want to make another mistake. But I think the main thing,

really, was just to focus on trying to make each day count for each day, rather than

trying to worry about what position we're going to finish in overall in the rally,

because clearly, you know, any dreams of being top 10 had gone at that point. I think

when we started back on day four, I think we were 44th. So yeah, there was a fair bit of work to do,

to get back up into the top 20, for sure. Yeah, it must have been a highly pleasurable experience,

though, seeing your position rise as the days went on. From, you know, you said 44th to finish

like 15th overall is a monumental achievement, really. Yeah, it was. Yeah. And honestly,

apart from feeling like we could have done better, which is kind of human nature, I guess.

Yeah, we were pretty proud of what we achieved. And day four, we still had some,

actually, day four was okay. We seemed to run okay, although we would try not to push too hard,

because we want to make sure that we didn't make any mistakes and the car was okay.

But then day five, we had some more issues.

We had a buckled wheel, which didn't transpire, didn't seem to cause us a problem on day four.

And then we had some coolant issues, and we had this gearbox fault come up again,

which I think we were seventh on day four, and I think we were sixth or seventh on day five,

which was okay, considering we were still lining up problems. So we had three days at the end,

basically, where we were trouble-free and able to push a bit harder.

Perhaps not as hard as I might have wanted me to push, but as much as I could muster.

Yeah, yeah. I'm just trying to place in my head, really, just like the standard of the madness

really of what you've got up to. Now, again, regular listeners will know I dabbled with a

one-race or a double-headed race of Boxster Cup, and that's from memory, it's like a 20-minute race.

And your eyes are on stalks for 20 minutes. You just go into overdrive in terms of your

senses and responses. But ultimately, you are in a controlled environment because it's

a racetrack that you do lap after lap after lap. There aren't people crossing the road

ahead of you. There aren't people on the way to Tesco. So you've got this kind of similar

sensation that is over many hours on a day on a route that you kind of blitz through once.

It's just, I'm just trying to comprehend it. It's just utterly, utterly ludicrous. It sounds

fantastic. Yeah, well, there's two elements. So the speed stages, which are closed roads,

other than like this happened last time, but at the beginning of one of the stages,

you're just about to go. I don't know. There might be two cars in front of you. So you're

a minute and a half before you go, and they come up to you and say, there's cows on the roads

on the way. They don't tell you where. So you're now going into a 10-kilometre stage,

as fast as you can, thinking that you might go around the corner and there's going to be a

load of cows. So other than those types of issues and maybe a bit of a landslide or something,

the closed stages are relatively controlled, albeit it's not like going round and round a

circuit. You don't get to learn it. Every corner is an adventure to a point.

But the road sections, the transit sections are probably more dangerous in a way because you

are travelling very quickly through a lot of the country with people on their daily,

you know, going to Tescos and going to work and going to take the cow to market or whatever,

all this sort of stuff. And sometimes you're travelling at 50 or 60 or 70 miles an hour

faster than they are, and you're just trying to read what's going on. So you are constantly

concentrating from the time you leave the start arch in the morning, which is anywhere between

seven and eight o'clock in the morning, generally, to the time you get to the finished arch, which is

somewhere between six and seven at night. So you're 11, 12 hours, pretty much

on, you know, on edge or not on edge, but focused all day. There isn't any time that

you move in that you can't really concentrate. So it's quite demanding.

Yeah. And then you must be absolutely shattered at the end of the day. And then you've got to go

to a gala and go have dinner. And then the next day, and I'm certain, you know, you wake up

in the morning and you've got to do it all again. But somehow physically, your body just

picks itself up. And again, come that start line, your eyes are on stalks, and then you're

ready to go. It just must be such a huge monumental cycle of emotions and energy and fatigue.

Yeah. Well, I got, I had one of these fitness bands, I was trying to get sort of in shape before

I went away. And it gives you like your recovery and stuff. Well, I looked at it for the first

couple of days, and it was red constantly. I thought, I can't stop looking at it.

Just stressing me out. I've had no sleep, no, you know, no recovery. And you, you know,

better off not knowing, to be honest. Yeah. How much sleep did you get on average? Do you

reckon? I guess by the time you get back to the hotel, it's 10, 11 o'clock. And then

you're leaving at six o'clock in the morning. So five, six hours, maybe if you're lucky.

And a couple of, actually, this time, there were a couple of later starts,

so a couple of eight, nine o'clock starts, but you're still,

if you've got six or seven hours that you're doing well, you don't normally get that.

And is that good sleep? Is it because you're so knackered you get good sleep? Or are you,

are you still sort of conscious? Yeah. Yeah. Normally, if I, if I go to do a track day

or something, I can't sleep the night before, you know, track day or, or a hill climb or

something. But actually, like you say, you're so exhausted by the time you get back to the

hotel, you've, you've got your gear out to the morning, have a shower and gone to bed,

and that's about it. And then you wake up again and you're off, you're off before you, before

you know it really. Yeah. And why, why you're like off to the, the gala dinner to celebrate,

and it really is a celebration, isn't it? As you've said, you know, celebrating another day

having and got, got through it. And, and, and all of the adversity that comes with it.

You know, what happens to the car? So is, is, you know, what prep does that have for the next day?

I assume like a refuelling. Well, we're doing the refueling during the days. So normally,

the team doesn't do that unless, unless we've, unless we had a problem and couldn't, couldn't

fill up at the end. But just wheels off, check brakes and tires, it might have, might swap

tires. I don't know what to do with you, honestly, it's above my pay grade. Just hope it's ready

the next morning, but they are servicing them. You know, if there's been any damage, they'll be,

they'll be doing that. So, so the, the day that we, so day four was okay, but day five we had

issues with coolant and stuff. And it turned out that the, it's really difficult,

evidently believed the coolant systems in this night one. Yeah. And when, when they'd replace

one of the radiators, I think probably what happened is one of the other radiators was empty and they

performed a big airlock. And it must have jiggled around over day four and the beginning

of day five and then finally found its, the airlock found its way to a place where there was a

sensor and then it kicked off to say that it was out of fluid. So that night, the, the guys looked

up the proper procedure. So that was done by the other team, the changing the radiators, etc.

So our team looked up the correct procedure to, to completely bleed the system, which they did

and then we didn't have any issues with the coolant after that. And then we realised,

through a process of kind of deduction that, that it was probably the using the launch control,

which had caused the gearbox issues, which isn't a thing on road cars, but I don't know whether

it's something to do with the motorsport ABS or, but the other, I've spoken to some other

people who run club sports and they've also experienced the same issue. So I think it

is a thing. So we avoided using the launch control and the car work fine after that.

How big is the team that are looking after the car?

So I think the, how many people you had here? He had six, our team had six cars in the event.

So we generally, you've got two mechanics to your car, plus maybe one who's overseeing

two cars, so three really, I guess. But there's a massive logistical

task for them to get because they, they have to, you know, they have to get from the,

where they leave you in the morning to the service stage, which is at lunchtime generally.

And they've got to move all their equipment. There's no power. I mean, sometimes you're

in a petrol station, sometimes you're on the side of the road. You know, it's not,

it's not like going to Silverstone and getting your own pit box.

So it is properly in the middle of nowhere, a lot of it. So they've got to have,

obviously for the older cars that they've built themselves and they're running themselves,

they've got spare gearboxes and engines and all, all, you know, suspension, etc. for our car

for this, this, this year, you know, they had the spares we took and that was it. So yeah,

a lot of our stuff to be fair.

Yeah. And is that an English based team or is that Mexican?

No, it's a Mexican based team. The guy who owns it is a, it's a German chat.

Actually, he moved there. He went to do the event, was asked to do the event for a friend

2013, I think, 12 or 13, and then decided to move there and set up his own little shop

and he does, they do restoration and servicing during the year. And then they do

this event and it's another event, less known event that he runs as well for music supports.

Yeah. Be keen to know, Rob, what your feeling was, your overriding feeling was as you crossed

the finish line. Was it one of elation or utter exhaustion or anything else?

Oh, no, it's definitely elation to finish. And also, so we had three days of running

trouble free. So we were able to push on a bit harder. And we were running fifth and sixth

overall the last three days. And then the last day, it was kind of the final throw of the dice

really, we'd beaten the GT2 on a number of stages during the event, 18 roughly, not well counted.

But we hadn't beat, we'd nearly beaten him on one day and it was one day I can't remember which

day it was. I think we were, we were something like 14.9 seconds ahead of him going into the

last stage or the last two stages and he managed to pull 15.2 seconds back and beat

him on the days. That was a bit harsh. So the last day, we were comfortable with the car,

we were running reasonably well. So we just decided that we were just going to push on

and try and beat him because it was our last chance to get a day win class win.

So I think we were 30 or 35 seconds ahead of him at lunch overall. And then he took

a six seconds out of us on the first stage after lunch and 0.9 out of us on the next stage.

Then we beat him on the next stage. So it was kind of, he was kind of catching us up a little bit.

But we still had a fair margin. So we actually ended up, so we won our class on the last day,

which was incredible, to be honest, and we were fifth overall.

Fifth overall on the last day? Fifth overall on the last day. So in front of us were

three student makers, the overall winner of the race who is a Mexican rally champion.

So we've got a fair idea how to get the car going. Another couple, a French guy and his wife

who have won the event on numerous occasions. And then 17-year-old lad, I think quite catch

all the story, but I think he might be Mexican Formula 2 champion or he's some really up-and-coming

racing driver who they've all got their hopes pinned on have been the next pares. So those

three were in 600 brake horsepower student acres. And then there was the guy in the M2 in front of us

who also was another local legend. And that was it. And then it was us, Rob and Ryan from

Thomas and Yorkshire. Oh, what a day. You're our nine words local legends, I think.

Entertaining it, the whole concept is just, honestly, awesome. And I don't know about you,

Andy, but listening to the story, Rob, just want to go and do it as well.

How can we make that happen? Any sponsors out there?

The organisers are desperate to try and get more and more competitors from outside of Mexico,

so they're trying. I've had a chat with the lady who runs it since we've come back and

tried to give some further ideas that might help. But there's kind of only really two

routes in at the minute. So either do what we do or what we've done, which is

rent or take your own car. Take your own car is a big ask, to be honest, particularly for the

first time. Or rent a car over there and do an arrive and drive thing if you want to be in the

competition side. Or they do a thing which is called a sports tour, which

is not a race, but they do go through all the same stages as the competitors. It's only

a five-day event. So after all the competition cars have gone through, then the sports tour goes

through at their own pace of which some of them are pushing on a bit. So it's closed roads,

and they do all the same stages on the five days that the competitors do. So it's probably a less

and easier way to get into it if you wanted to dip your toe in the water.

But at the moment, I'm trying to figure out how people can maybe hire a car over there to do that.

It seems like Porsche Mexico are quite heavily involved in the event, and maybe they could rent

people cars to do sports tour. Because if you live in Mexico, you can take your own car, but if you

live outside, it's a bit more difficult. Yeah, a bit more limiting. It'd be nice to know,

Rob, to finish up. What's your thoughts really reflecting on the GT4

club sport experience? And also, where in the world is the car now?

The car's still in Mexico at the moment. We came back and

were keen to do the event again with the approval of my wife, I should say.

Have you asked yet? Yeah, yeah, I did. Now I've definitely asked.

But she actually suggested leaving the car there, which we did explore.

But because of the way that we imported the car into Mexico, it wasn't possible to leave

the car there. So the car is coming home. I hope it gets to the port tomorrow,

but it should be leaving next week or being well.

So then we've got to see if it's possible to do it any other way. There is a possibility to

rent a car over there. There are a couple of 718 GT4s that might be possible to rent,

or we could ship my car back. When we know my car works,

it's just whether we can get it back there in a cost-effective way.

Because the shipping was almost half the cost of the event this time.

So yeah, the car's coming home, but in an ideal world, it'd be nice if it could get

out there again and we could do it again. It's certainly punched well above its weight in terms

of competitors. As you did, Rob, by your own experience or saying that your previous

experiences, hill climbs and track days and some kind of grassroots motorsport,

as it's described on the Williams Crawford website, so just what an achievement for men

and machine as well? Yeah, I mean the car was amazing. It really was. I mean it was easy to

drive when you kept on the road. But yeah, it was easy to drive. The suspension was great.

Yeah, it's a good car to do it in. Yeah, definitely would like to do it again.

It'll be amazing when you see the car roll out of the port and going up to check it.

I'm sure it'll almost be one of those sorts of eyes where you think, did that really happen?

Was that a dream? And then you'll open the door and you'll see a little bit of

like Mexican sand in the footwear or something. It's so cool.

I asked them not to clean the car. Yeah, don't wash it.

Yeah, because it was like the last day. We were in a particular part of the country where it was

quite hot. I mean, you could barely see out the windscreen for all the dead bugs and stuff.

So it was, I mean, the cars had a bit of a battering with the speed dump and stuff like

that. The front bumper was a bit sad. And we had to put nose lift on

when the car arrived in Mexico because the team were so concerned that it wouldn't make it to

the end of the event if we didn't get some way of getting it raised up.

So yeah, hope it comes home safe and sound and we can either ship it back or maybe rent

something else. Yeah, yeah. Have you got, is there one particular memory of a person or a

situation over the whole rally that would sort of really sticks in the mind?

So I think one of the main things is how lucky I've been to experience this event,

such an amazing event and to have someone like Ryan along with me to help and encourage

and share his wealth of experience, to be honest. I feel very blessed to be in that situation.

So many incredible people you meet, the fans and the competitors. I'd say

the overall resounding thing from the event is the camaraderie between the competitors.

Bearing in mind, most of these people have only met once before. Yeah, all by one couple. I've

only met once before. And yet you turn up and they're like long lost friends. It's incredible

and it's also welcoming. I think because it, like they were saying earlier, it's such an adventure

everybody feels that it's almost like their responsibility to make sure they look after

each other, which is incredible. So that's, I guess that's on a personal level. That's the

resounding memory on a kind of competitive level, finishing Dave on the first encounter.

And fifth overall was another good memory to be honest. And just finishing, to be fair,

getting to the end. Yeah, this is so mega Robin. It's so lovely to

listen to you eulogize about the race. We're so lucky that you've given us the time because

it's not necessarily something that is on our radar as a predominantly UK podcast and with a

predominantly UK audience. But I think even our listeners, you know, stateside, I just don't

feel like it's the career of Panamericana in its modern form as permeated as far as it certainly

can do. So to get your experience for someone that's actually done the race, you know, twice,

and, you know, once in a Porsche might add as well, which is incredibly special.

It's just such a privilege to listen to your story.

Oh, thank you. It's just nice, nice for you to listen.

Because my wife is bored sick of it.

No, it's great. It's great. It's also awesome as well that, you know,

you and Ryan have come back safe. The car is coming back safe as well. That's like the most

important thing. The YouTuber is safe. He's going to have some great content, by the way.

Once he's counted both legs, he's quits in there, I think.

Yeah, there is a video online of his video doing spirals in the air.

Is there? Oh, we send that.

Because we, I will send it here, but we, as we went through it, but at this point,

you're a bit of a passenger, but we went through this drainage ditch and I saw

something right going towards the centre of the car. And I assumed it was like one of those

metal reinforcing rods. So I was expecting it to damage the car, but it's only afterwards

when we saw the video that I realised it was one of his cameras on the little spike

standing up and there's a video of it like spiraling through the air.

Yeah, wow. We're lucky. Yeah, we could, we can all live and laugh about the tail, I guess.

But yeah, lastly, there was something that you wanted to mention on the speeds,

the sheer speeds and pace involved in this race.

Yeah, so the, particularly in the latter days of the race, the train opened out,

so the roads were wider and became a lot faster. So it was hard to see what speeds we were doing,

but particularly in the last three days, there were stages where we were pulling

sixth gear in the GT4, which I don't know exactly what that equates to, but it seemed

pretty fast. The only one time I managed to glance down at the speedo as we were going

through a flying finish and we were doing just over 140, so it did seem quite quick.

Fantastic. I really feel that that sort of detail just helps relay to people the

the madness of it all, really. Yeah, because here, I mean, I keep saying,

but I haven't done an awful lot of rallying, but most of the rally cars in the UK are geared to

like 115 mile an hour. So to be doing 140 plus and a GT2 would have been doing faster than that,

I would imagine, is quite unusual even in the rallying situation.

It's it. I assume the club sport will be back at Williams Crawford at some stage,

and if it is, I'd love to see it personally, particularly as you said, covered in all that

Mexican dust. That really is so, so cool. So, Rob, congratulations on the achievement,

and yeah, best of luck for next year, because it sounds like mentally already.

I'm on the plane.

Rob, thank you so much for your time and joining us on Onmets Radio.

Yeah, thanks for your time as well. Thank you. Cheers.

What a story, Andy.

Epic. How do we sign up? Where do we get a plane ticket?

How do we get ourselves there? Can I cut a limb off? Can I donate an organ?

Yeah. Yeah, I'm there. You? 100%. Literally, while Rob was chatting, I just was thinking,

wow, this sounds amazing. How can we do it? How can we do it? So I, do you know what,

as well, I'd quite like to even just go and watch. I think that would be an adventure

on itself, trying to kind of keep up with the rally. And I wonder if you could just,

yeah, like hire a car, smash a round on the side, and just say you're part of it anyway.

You know, I've had to see some Fast and Furious-style traffic weaving, but it sounds

incredible. And yeah, watching it would be one thing. Doing it one day would be amazing,

because as we said during the conversations, I knew so many places in the world where you

could kind of get away with doing that in this day and age.

Yeah. It feels quite old school, doesn't it? It's going back into the 70s and 80s of,

I don't know, as a 17-year-old, it almost reminds me of what I managed to get away

with on the roads of the UK without dying or going to prison. Yeah, it almost feels like it's

possible again. Yeah, it's amazing stuff. So yeah, kudos to Rob. It really is. Congratulations as well

for competing. I should say that as well, he was great at telling the story. And I felt like

I was there and yeah, absolutely rooting for him and yeah, brilliant. Well played, Rob. Well said.

Absolutely. Yeah. And to the organisers of the Carrera Panamera Card, you know,

let's get us there and let's help tell the story in more detail going forward, because it's

something we would love to do. We're super passionate about it. Yeah, yeah.

A-O-B, Andy Brooks. Shall we do A Spread the Love?

Let's do A Spread the Love. I think it can only be one thing, can't it? And that is

to the organisers of the Panamericana rally. Is the rally the right word?

Well Carrera is race in Spanish. So you know, it's a race over a shed load of miles and a shed

load of days. Yeah. We'll make sure that we put the website address in the description so that

you can go and have a look and get your name on the list for next year.

Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. Great shout for Spread the Love for this penultimate episode of

the year. Can I do a Gem of the Week? Please do. Is it a 981 payment?

It probably should be if we were... I did that last week, didn't I?

Yeah, yeah. And if we were fully on message, we should and could and that would be fine.

But do you know what? And I have to say as well, Andy, I really mean this.

There is so much quality pour shot on the Nineworks marketplace right now. Like seriously,

we are blessed. We are blessed. Lots and lots of choice. So just top level very quickly.

I'm looking at a 991.2 GT3 Touring from RPM Technic, which we know in this country

is exceedingly rare. So an original Touring's on there. We've got a lovely 991 or 911 Carrera

4 GTS British Legends Edition over a Porsche Centre Bournemouth. That is a very rare car,

I think one of 15. This is in the Rothmans inspired colourway, so sapphire blue with the white and

red detailing down the side. So that's like the Derrick Bell car basically. But those that

don't know, there were three versions of that British Legends Edition GTS. One dedicated to

Derrick Bell, one to Richard Atwood and one to Nick Tandy, three of the four British Le Mans winners.

And yeah, Porsche Bournemouth's got a Derrick Bell car. That looks incredible. That's up for

99,950 quid. But the gem of the week for me is an absolute halo car. It's at Paragon.

It's a 997.1 RS in what in my opinion is the best colourway of black with the orange

detailing the orange wheels as well. There's got an orange cage inside. It looks absolutely

sensational. I love it. Do you think that will still be live by the time this podcast goes live?

As in still will it be still for sale? I can't see it being for sale sale.

It shouldn't be. I mean, it's got low mileage, 26,000 miles.

Let's just have a quick look. So, yeah, jet black. It's got Nomex bucket seats,

sport chrono pack. It's still got air conditioning. I think I've mentioned the

ceramic brakes, by the way, but also got cruise control in there. This car is just honestly,

for me, as good as it gets or near to as good as it gets from the water called Offering

of Porsche. And this is what plays my mind. I think these cars are still so cheap that

it's a fiver under 160K. And again, I've mentioned it recently, it's a rare car, right?

It's a particularly by modern standards. It's a super, super rare car that and I am certain

we'll look back in a few years time and go, wow, do you remember when they were only 160K?

I honestly believe it. Lovely, mate. Lovely choice.

Great choice. And as standard fare with Paragon, excellent prep and 12 months warranty.

Superb. Go and buy it. Please go and buy it, somebody. Please do. Please do. Absolutely.

So that and a host of other cars. And again, we're really sport for choice.

All available on the Nomeworks marketplace, which is available via nomeworks.co.uk.

Grand. I'll give you an update on the collective. I've got three new members

this week, all from Mexico. Not really. I was waiting for that to click then.

I've got Leicestershire, Swindon and Carlisle in Mexico.

So first up is Dave Smith in Leicestershire. So it's a difficult one to say Leicestershire,

isn't it? Recently sold his 996 Carrera 4 is now in a cobalt blue 997.1 manual Carrera S

with rebuilt engine. He highlights with the hard tech engine. He said he's had lots of

more powerful cars, but not as much fun as his Porsche's that he's had.

Mega. So good to have you. Next up is Matthew Boulton, who is based in Swindon,

which is in just in Wiltshire, isn't it? He is driving a 996.2 Carrera 4 in Lapis Blue.

Beautiful. Has recently got back into cars. He's been sort of not an enthusiastic about cars,

but back into it. And it's actually his wife that says she was missing out days of car shows,

etc., in the 20s. And that's what pushed him to get back into performance cars.

Ah, well, that's what an inspired choice that is.

What a good wife.

Yeah. Yeah. Very well done, Matthew. Indeed. John McCarron is up in Carlisle,

and he is another 996 owner. Same color, Lapis Blue, but a C4S this time.

Followed our YouTube channel and listened to our podcasts and thought I'd support you lads

as I think you do a good job. John, you're too kind. Thank you and welcome to the collective.

Indeed. That's it for this week. Amazing. I just want to say we've got some new car purchases.

Mentioned last episode about the DNHC propping up the car marketplace currently.

It's continuing. Is it still going on?

Yep. Carlisle bought a 924 Turbo. Simon, air called Simon, no less, has bought a 996 Carrera.

There is an asterisk next to that because I think he had it for about two and a half

hours and has then sold it again. He said he really enjoyed his ownership,

but we won't quite get him onto the podcast to discuss his insights. In fact, I think the SAS

have got a drill for that sort of behavior. It's called escape and evade, which is what he's done

with this 996 ownership. Water called Porsche ownership is short but sweet. Ben, I'm delighted

to say, is back into a Porsche, back into a 997. It didn't take him long and he's going

super charred with it. So, yeah, big congratulations to Carl, Simon and Ben for your purchases.

Yeah, congrats, guys. Nice. That'll do, Andy B.

What an episode. Absolutely loved it. Thank you again, Rob, for just telling the story of the

Panmericana blown me away. Yeah, absolutely. We'll see you next week where we'll wrap

up the series and the year with our reflections from a Porsche perspective on 2025.

Until then, Driven Not Hidden, have fun. See you, dude.

This episode is brought to you by the Driven Not Hidden Collective. If you'd like to join the

DNHC and unlock unique new experiences with your Porsche, visit nineworks.co.uk forward slash

join. You can also support us by leaving a five-star review on your favorite podcast app and Google reviews.

About this episode

A thrilling discussion unfolds as Rob shares his exhilarating experience at the Carrera Panamericana, one of the world's most challenging races. He recounts his journey in a Porsche GT4 Club Sport, detailing the highs of racing through stunning Mexican landscapes and the lows of a mid-race incident that nearly ended his competition. With insights into the camaraderie among racers and the unique spirit of the event, Rob's story captures the essence of adventure and passion for motorsport. The episode also covers winter car preparation tips, making it a rich listen for automotive enthusiasts.

Abu Dhabi Grand Prix battery conditioner battery management brake disc brake horsepower brake pad car cover Carrera Panamericana corrosion buildup engine drop

BMW M2 Porsche 356 Porsche 911 Porsche Boxster Porsche Carrera RS Porsche Cayman Porsche Panamera

Original notes

Lee & Andy are joined by Rob Kavanagh, fresh from an enthralling adventure racing his Porsche 981 GT4 Clubsport across Mexico in the 2025 Carrera Panamericana.

Rob’s fascinating story tells how he, his co-driver and his GT4 Clubsport - prepared in the UK by Williams Crawford - covered in excess of 3,000 fast kilometres… in just one week!

Featuring an incident which threatened to ruin the whole adventure on day two, Rob reveals all from his Mexican adventure at one of the world’s toughest races.

Elsewhere, the 9WERKS team discuss their respective winter project ideas.

Find your dream Porsche on the 9WERKS Marketplace: 9werks.co.uk/marketplace

Thanks to our friends heritagepartscentre.com for sponsoring this podcast, get up to 10% off your basket by entering the code ‘9WERKS10’ at the checkout on heritagepartscentre.com

‘9WERKS Radio’ @9werks.radio is your dedicated Porsche and car podcast, taking you closer than ever to the world’s finest sports cars and the culture and history behind them.

The show is brought to you by 9werks.co.uk, the innovative online platform for Porsche enthusiasts. Hosted by Porsche Journalist Lee Sibley @9werks_lee, and 911 owner and engineer Andy Brookes @993andy, with special input from friends and experts around the industry, including you, our valued listeners.

If you enjoy the podcast and would like to support us by joining the 9WERKS Driven Not Hidden Collective you can do so by hitting the link below, your support would be greatly appreciated.

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9WERKS Radio : The Porsche and Car Podcast

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