MEXICAN HAT DANCE

The longer it goes on, the quicker it gets. That’s the traditional Mexican Hat Dance; and the same is true of La Carrera Panamericana, the great Mexican road-race, as it winds up the mountainous spine of central Mexico before plunging onto the endless straights of the northern cactus prairies. And this October, QuickSilver Exhausts is at the heart of the action, partnering Britcar racer Sarah Bennett-Baggs and car journo Johnny Tipler aboard their Porsche 914 racecar.

In 2006 and ’07 motoring author Johnny Tipler covered La Carrera Panamericana for several magazines and wrote a book on the 2,000-mile enduro, published by Veloce Publishing in 2008. Now he’s entered to drive the seven-day marathon this October, piloting a 2.0-litre Porsche 914, co-driven by glamorous Britcar BMW front-runner Sarah Bennett-Baggs (star of the recent Mille Miglia documentary) for California-based Team Pan-Am.

There’s virtually a class for any classic car you care to run in La Carrera, and their specially-built 914 isdown for Historica A+ where their main rivals are likely to be BMW 2000s, Datsuns and Alfa Romeo Giulia Supers. Powered by a 2.0-litre flat-4 VW motor, the Team Pan-Am 914 has the chassisset-up and flared wheelarches of the 914/6 that flowered briefly on the race- and rally circuit in 1971.

As wild and arduous as ever, La Carrera Panamericana relives the spirit of the great Mexican road-race thatfeatured on the World Sportscar Championship calendar in the early-1950s, when emerging European makes including Ferrari and old hands Mercedes-Benz vied for supremacy with American stock cars the length of the country on the new Panamerican highway. After its class win in 1953 Porsche borrowed the Carrera epithet for its top-line models.

The modern revival recreates much of the mood of those pioneering days, with classic NASCAR-spec’d ’50s Studebakers, Fords and Hudsons howling across the prairies, hitting 170mph on special stages as the retinue winds from Tuxtla-Gutierrez in the south up to the Texas border. Johnny and Sarah’s 914 won’t go that fast, but they hope to make up time with the agile mid-engined Targa-top roadster through the dangerous mountain passes of Mil Cumbres and La Bufa. Whatever, there’s respite at each day’s end in the heady fiesta atmosphere of the stopover city, and total carnival mode at race-ending Zacatecas where mariachi bands rule.Bring on the Mexican Hat Dance!

The 2011 Carrera Panamericana runs from 20th to 28th October. Look out for QuickSilver logos on Sarah and Johnny’s race-long blogging and post event feature articles.