[I Flip For Carl]

We live about an hour west of the North Carolina state line . On the weekend we sometimes get up early in the morning to go to a flea market that is closer to NC .

Well this morning we saw 3 Busch hauler's coming down the interstate coming back from Indiana . My b/f said that they came down 75 . It was the Clorox hauler for Jon Wood,the Kingsford Charcoal hauler for Marcos Ambrose and The Super Cuts hauler for Mike Bliss

[Racer Duck]

hauler drivers are always anxious to get home .. remember they left before anybody else for the track and it takes them longer to get home. as soon as they can, they leave .. which is why you can sometimes see them pulling out during a race when their car was DNF'd. those that don't qualify are gone before the race even starts.

[Quality88]

Originally Posted by Racer Duck

hauler drivers are always anxious to get home .. remember they left before anybody else for the track and it takes them longer to get home. as soon as they can, they leave .. which is why you can sometimes see them pulling out during a race when their car was DNF'd. those that don't qualify are gone before the race even starts.

Yep your right.... it's worse for the drivers that go to the mexico race... their gone for about two weeks

[Racer Duck]

I've had the experience of taking a race car into Mexico. We were going to Monterey. before we left home (San Antonio at the time) we contacted the race promoter (in Mexico City) for instructions on where to cross. he told us which governor and subbordinate officials he had paid off and that so-and-so was where we should cross. when we got there, the border officials didn't like the fact that the race car owner and the tow truck owner was the same guy (my brother), so we "signed" the race car over to one of our crew (a mexican named Rene who couldn't speak a word of his parents native language - we never let him live that down.) anyway, then they made us "drive" the car over the bridge from Texas into Mexico - quite a trick at 2:30 in the morning with a plexiglass windshield with the paper still on it, and it was oh so loud. oh yeah, Rene had to drive it .. Rene was about 5'5', my brother 6'4" .. don't think Rene's bottom ever touched the seat. well, as we were getting reloaded they decided we had to inventory all our spare parts (didn't want us selling black market parts in Mexico.) finally, we're all inventoried and it's about 6AM. in the meantime another race team (from KC) has showed up, gone thru inspection and evidently bribed someone more than we did. they got waved on while we were held up for some "missing paperwork". one of the KC team flipped one of the guards the bird as they were driving away .. p***ed the guard off, he tells his sargent, sargent tells the "comandant" .. comandant closes the border crossing to all race teams .. we're stuck. phone calls to the promoter in Mexico City, he calls his contacts, bad words back and forth, local comandant finally relents (bribe got high enough to soothe ruffled feathers) and he releases us and the other 6 teams sitting there. our 8 hour trip took almost 24. we returned via a different crossing.

later at the track we were talking to one of the racers from Mexico City. he told us he couldn't get the race tires in Mexico, so had to buy them in the US. said $600 in tires (back then that was about 3 sets) cost him over $1000 in bribes just to get them back to Mexico City.

but there's been some regime changes since then, so maybe it isn't so big a deal (and I think having Felix Sabatas in-country before hand holding hands, kissing babies, etc. helped grease the skids for NASCAR.) still I wouldn't want to drive a hauler all the way to Mexico City...

[Quality88]

Originally Posted by Racer Duck

I've had the experience of taking a race car into Mexico. We were going to Monterey. before we left home (San Antonio at the time) we contacted the race promoter (in Mexico City) for instructions on where to cross. he told us which governor and subbordinate officials he had paid off and that so-and-so was where we should cross. when we got there, the border officials didn't like the fact that the race car owner and the tow truck owner was the same guy (my brother), so we "signed" the race car over to one of our crew (a mexican named Rene who couldn't speak a word of his parents native language - we never let him live that down.) anyway, then they made us "drive" the car over the bridge from Texas into Mexico - quite a trick at 2:30 in the morning with a plexiglass windshield with the paper still on it, and it was oh so loud. oh yeah, Rene had to drive it .. Rene was about 5'5', my brother 6'4" .. don't think Rene's bottom ever touched the seat. well, as we were getting reloaded they decided we had to inventory all our spare parts (didn't want us selling black market parts in Mexico.) finally, we're all inventoried and it's about 6AM. in the meantime another race team (from KC) has showed up, gone thru inspection and evidently bribed someone more than we did. they got waved on while we were held up for some "missing paperwork". one of the KC team flipped one of the guards the bird as they were driving away .. p***ed the guard off, he tells his sargent, sargent tells the "comandant" .. comandant closes the border crossing to all race teams .. we're stuck. phone calls to the promoter in Mexico City, he calls his contacts, bad words back and forth, local comandant finally relents (bribe got high enough to soothe ruffled feathers) and he releases us and the other 6 teams sitting there. our 8 hour trip took almost 24. we returned via a different crossing.

later at the track we were talking to one of the racers from Mexico City. he told us he couldn't get the race tires in Mexico, so had to buy them in the US. said $600 in tires (back then that was about 3 sets) cost him over $1000 in bribes just to get them back to Mexico City.

but there's been some regime changes since then, so maybe it isn't so big a deal (and I think having Felix Sabatas in-country before hand holding hands, kissing babies, etc. helped grease the skids for NASCAR.) still I wouldn't want to drive a hauler all the way to Mexico City...

Wow.... hell of a story. Bribing... in Mexico... I would've never guessed it Bet that was an interesting time though.

[Racer Duck]

Originally Posted by Quality88

Wow.... hell of a story. Bribing... in Mexico... I would've never guessed it Bet that was an interesting time though.

actually it was more like high priced tipping .. everybody expected it.

[Quality88]

Originally Posted by Racer Duck

actually it was more like high priced tipping .. everybody expected it.

hehe, that's funny, I don't care who you are that's funny right there.