July 21st, 2010

Dispatch from the road: Rally London-Mongolia, Part 6

Drive Like A Woman Editor-in-Chief, Michele Shapiro is setting off on a rally from London to Mongolia. She will be driving with Parag Khanna, Mikhail Zeldovich and Jen Mueller. Jen will be starting with the team in London and Michele will be meeting the team in Moscow and will switch places with Jen. The team will be driving a 1991 Land Rover Defender ambulance. Upon arrival in Mongolia the team will donate the ambulance to a local hospital. Drive Like A Woman will be posting dispatches from the journey.

Click here to read Part 1.

Lithuania-Moscow:
-Written by Jen Mueller

This is the story of how we woke up in Trakai, Lithuania and 24 hours later pulled into Moscow, Russia. As with any extended period of sleepless activity, at a certain point time begins to lose its narrative flow. Let me therefore summarize our trip with this set of pointers, reflections, and insights for those who may be contemplating a similar feat:

1. When the alarm goes off at 7:30 and you feel like you’ve been hit with a ton of bricks, stay in bed. You have a long drive ahead of you. The right time to get up is about the fifth time that Mikhail asks.

2. If you have a certain international-man-of-mystery charm about you, you can pay a Lithuanian lati hotel bill with an assortment of euros and pounds. (Kudos, Parag.)

3. Parking enforcement doesn’t patrol all that frequently in Trakai (hurrah). But you’re right, you do have a few coins left lying around that could have paid for it; you’ll find them four days later.

4. It takes roughly a half an hour to walk across two bridges to Trakai Castle, look at the ticket window, make a few witty comments, and walk back. (This can be accomplished more quickly if one of your number is not still nursing a broken foot.)

5. Do not leave your Blackberry on the dashboard of the car. It might go flying out the open window when you take a sharp turn.

6. Blackberries: surprisingly indestructible.

7. You didn’t forget your registration papers at the dealer in Poland; they’re wedged under the front driver seat. Definitely best to pull over and tear the car apart looking for them before driving to the border though.

8. Blackberry GPS is great, but it never hurts to run into the gas station to peek at one of their maps too (sorry, Misha).

9. If you must stop for lunch in Daugavpils, Latvia (Mikhail’s mother’s ancestral home), there’s a great gas station to the left off the main strip that features not only delicacies such as Mexican burritos, fresh carrot sticks, and yogurt shakes, but also a purple florescent bathroom with both adult and child-sized toilets. (Video coming soon.) Just accept that you will never understand why.

10. Get ready to take your Land Rover into its natural environment: extended stretches of the road to the border are not paved.

11. Just because you cruise past a few kilometers’ worth of parked trucks at the border, don’t expect that you are actually going anywhere.

12. If one of your team disappears to talk with fellow waiting motorists about the cause for the long delay at the border, he may have gone native by the time he returns. Feel free to remind him that his shirt does in fact have buttons.

13. When the cars in front of you start their engines, spring into action! Jump into the car! Slam the doors shut! Make sure no one tries to pass you! Drive forward three feet. Repeat.

14. You have filled out all of your forms wrong. Even if you filled them out correctly, it is still wrong. Don’t even think about crossing anything out; go back and do it again.

15. The guys you are traveling with may suggest that you try to work your feminine wiles on the border guards. This works better if (a) you are not covered in sweat and grime, (b) you can speak the language, and (c) the guards are not female.

16. For reasons best known to themselves, Latvians make it even harder to leave their country than Russians make it to enter. At least it makes all of the bureaucratic nightmares that you’ve gone through to get to this point worth it. When they insist that you need a document that you do not in fact need, it helps to have a Blackberry handy to pull up the relevant law. (Bravo, Misha.) They will change their tune quickly.

17. You buy insurance for Russian roads at the border. For a small truck for a month, the cost is roughly $55. Thanks to some of the aforementioned bureaucratic nightmares, you paid more than ten times that amount for less than a week in Europe. (“Life is clearly worth less in Russia!” Parag concludes.)

18. After clearing Latvian customs, prepare to wait another few hours for the Russian border guards to get to you. None of your teammates will agree to pass the time by making a movie of you crawling forward on your stomach through the long grass in a staged border assault. There will be some more inching forward drama though.

19. When the Russian guard searches your vehicle, make sure he quickly finds your teammate’s stash of mini bottles of artisanal liquors from a distillery in France; he will suddenly have eyes for nothing else. Before you bribe him with one of the bottles though, make sure it isn’t the one (the only one!) that the owner actually wants.

20. At 11:30 on a July night, it is just getting properly dark in Russia. It will start to get light again around 3am.

TO READ MORE POINTERS CLICK READ MORE…

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July 20th, 2010

New Syndicated Show for Lyn St. James

Legendary driver Lyn St. James will launch a new show called “Accelerate with Lyn St. James” which will appear on NewsProNet. NewsProNet provides syndicated video news to online media sources and local broadcasters.

The show will be comprised of 2 minute segments and will debut in January. St. James is not just the talent she will also be the co-producer and scriptwriter. The show will be produced 3 times a week for syndication.

The content of the show is mostly of a service nature such as “driving safely, auto maintenance and ownership.” We’ll definitely be tuning in!

July 19th, 2010

Dispatch from the Road: Rally London-Mongolia, Part 5

Drive Like A Woman Editor-in-Chief, Michele Shapiro is setting off on a rally from London to Mongolia. She will be driving with Parag Khanna, Mikhail Zeldovich and Jen Mueller. Jen will be starting with the team in London and Michele will be meeting the team in Moscow and will switch places with Jen. The team will be driving a 1991 Land Rover Defender ambulance. Upon arrival in Mongolia the team will donate the ambulance to a local hospital. Drive Like A Woman will be posting dispatches from the journey.

Click here to read Part 1.

Latvia:
-Written by Jen Mueller

“Misha, time check!”

“It is . . . “ he looked at his phone, “. . . 9:52.”

“And what does Googlemaps say?”

Out came the Blackberry.  “You’ve shaved another few minutes off our arrival time.  But we’re still not going to get there by 11.”

I stretched my shoulders and looked at the speedometer.  “Yes, we will.”

A little more gas, and the Land Rover shot down the country highway.

It’s amazing what the promise of a sit-down dinner with other people can do to a person.  My last one had been a week earlier, and now I was craving the restorative powers of conversation, laughter, and food.

And if that conversation should tackle the world’s problems and the food be classic eastern European game dishes and the laughter ring out in a fifteenth century stone cellar, all the better.

We needed a little restoration; that seemed to be the tacit understanding as we stumbled to the ambulance at 6:45 and went in search of a mechanic for the second morning in a row.  It was an easy drive to the Land Rover dealer and, as the dealer also happens to specialize in Jaguars and Aston Martins, a very comfortable wait for a service technician.

This time we were at sea linguistically.  A round-faced man in green overalls was eventually produced from the shop to serve as our translator.  They would take a look at the engine—yes, at the electrical too—and try to have an update for us in a few hours.

We left our phone number and took a cab back to the hotel.  At some point over the next four hours, we each found time to get some more sleep, hit the gym, do some work (including posting our first two blog entries), and indulge in the delicious Club Level breakfast (note to self:  look into becoming Starwood premiere member).  Thanks to our late checkout (ditto), we did not leave until around 1pm, when the dealer reported that they were finished looking things over.

We were anxious as we awaited the verdict (and the bill).  Finally a mechanic came out to where the ambulance sat incongruously parked in front of the showroom window and motioned for us to pop the hood.

“Was it a lot of work?”

“Yes,” he replied in thickly accented English.  “It was more than we thought.”

Uh oh.  We looked at each other.

“And did you find something?”

“There is cable, down there,” he pointed.  “Not one of top cables.  We gave you new one.”

We waited.  He looked at us.  We looked at him.

“And that’s it?”

“Yes, that is everything.”

So maybe it really had been the electrical system?  We were so used to bad news and failed theories that we weren’t sure what to think.  Relief?  Doubt?  Gratitude?  Even (dare we?) hope?

There was only one way to find out.  With profuse thanks, we paid the bill (not as bad as it could have been), collected a list of parts that they recommended we try to find in Moscow, had one last bubbly water in the air conditioned waiting room, and were on our way.

Parag drove us out of town.

“Moscow or bust, baby!”

Would the team make it to Moscow? Click Read More to find out…

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July 18th, 2010

Dispatch from the road: Rally London-Mongolia, Part 4

Drive Like A Woman Editor-in-Chief, Michele Shapiro is setting off on a rally from London to Mongolia. She will be driving with Parag Khanna, Mikhail Zeldovich and Jen Mueller. Jen will be starting with the team in London and Michele will be meeting the team in Moscow and will switch places with Jen. The team will be driving a 1991 Land Rover Defender ambulance. Upon arrival in Mongolia the team will donate the ambulance to a local hospital. Drive Like A Woman will be posting dispatches from the journey.

Click here to read Part 1.

Berlin
-Written by Jen Mueller

In some ways this was the day of false starts, but I prefer to think of it as the day of Misha’s magic fingers.

We set off in the morning with a clear plan:  find a Land Rover mechanic, get our problem diagnosed and fixed, and make it to Warsaw.  Sarah generously loaded us up with snacks for the road, and she and the kids waved goodbye as we pulled away from the curb.

Thanks to some legwork from a friend of mine in the States and Parag’s excellent German, we had located a Land Rover dealer who agreed to take a look at our ambulance.  We entered the address into Misha’s Blackberry and he navigated Parag across town through a convoluted series of highway exits and turns.

“OK, it should be right here,” he finally said.

We were looking at a vacant storefront.

Parag got back on the phone and quickly established that there were several streets with the same name; the one we actually wanted was, of course, right around the corner from the apartment we had just left.

“Well, this isn’t such a bad thing,” Misha rationalized as we worked our way back across down.  “At least we’ve used up more gas.”

The Land Rover dealer had told Parag on the phone that it would be difficult to diagnose our problem unless we were actually able to bring him a non-functioning vehicle.  In response to our theory that the problem lay with the gas tank, he explained that removing a full tank would be virtually impossible.  We had already stopped and picked up a number of canisters to transfer the gas into; now there would be less to siphon.

And maybe the ambulance would even break down on cue.

Once at the dealer, though, things seemed more complicated.  The mechanic that Parag spoke to—with Misha and me listening intently, interrupting frequently, and understanding virtually nothing—opined that the problem could be caused by one of several things.  Worse, he seemed skeptical of our gas tank theory.

Worse still, the earliest he could get us in for a full work-up was next Monday, a full week away.

“Look, if we can just confirm our theory, maybe we can get an appointment in Warsaw or Moscow to deal with it.” Misha said.

We turned big eyes to the mechanic (Parag tearing his from the new Land Rover Discovery parked next to us).  He agreed to take an hour to look for sediment in the tank and to check the spark plugs.

Misha and Parag waited in the local cafeteria and enjoyed a hearty German lunch; I ran to a Marriott and got online for the first time in four days.

When they picked me up, the mood in the car was muted.  They had found no sediment in the gas tank or any other obvious problem.

We agreed to head to Warsaw and to make sure we keep the tank mostly full.  After all, it hadn’t broken down with a full tank yet.

That was until we crossed the Polish border.

Guards still patrol the highway into Poland, and one of them flagged us down as we cruised by.  They were more curious than anything else.  A tall bald one spoke good colloquial English.  It was nearly 500 kilometers to Warsaw; could we expect to go 100 km an hour on the roads ahead of us?

“No way,” he laughed.

We took the opportunity to switch drivers.  I pulled away and shifted into second.  The car did not respond.

“No, no, no!  Not here!”

By this point slamming on the hazard lights was becoming instinct.

Because we had merged onto the highway from the checkpoint, we were in the fast lane.  I tried the ignition again, and again.  Cars whipped by us.

“We can’t stay here,” Parag said.

“Yeah, but there’s no way we can push ourselves up this hill,” Misha agreed.

“Maybe back downhill to the guard station?”  But we were just far enough away to make this impractical.

“Wait, that’s it!”  The shoulder had begun about 20 feet earlier.  “Downhill and into the shoulder!”

Parag eyed the angle.  “Jen, you’re really going to have to crank this.”  He eyed the oncoming traffic. “And we have to do this quickly.”

I hauled on the wheel and released the parking break.  “Ready!”

Misha hobbled out between the ambulance and oncoming cars and prepared wave them off. 

“Wait … wait … wait … ok, go!”

Parag heaved against the grill and strained.  I threw my weight against the steering wheel.  The ambulance began to roll.

“Go, go!”  We were perpendicular to the oncoming traffic.

“Cut it!  Hard!”

“Stop!”

Would they make it through, click read more to find out…

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July 17th, 2010

Dispatch from the road: Rally London-Mongolia, Part 3

Drive Like A Woman Editor-in-Chief, Michele Shapiro is setting off on a rally from London to Mongolia. She will be driving with Parag Khanna, Mikhail Zeldovich and Jen Mueller. Jen will be starting with the team in London and Michele will be meeting the team in Moscow and will switch places with Jen. The team will be driving a 1991 Land Rover Defender ambulance. Upon arrival in Mongolia the team will donate the ambulance to a local hospital. Drive Like A Woman will be posting dispatches from the journey.

Click here to read Part 1.

Belgium:
-Written by Jen Mueller

“YES!  You are badass!!”  Parag leapt from the back of the ambulance and raced around to give me a high five as I slid down out of the driver’s seat.

I stared at him as he approached.  Circles of dirt and sweat marked his shirt, and his navy blue shorts were far from crisp.

I realized that he was staring at me too.  I looked down at myself.  My khaki skirt was soaked through with sweat, and my shirt was sticking to me.  The bathroom mirror would show a flushed face surrounded by a halo of runaway hair.

“Wow, we’re a mess.”

But Parag was irrepressible.  “Berlin or bust, baby!”

There were a few things to which we could attribute his high spirits.  The hotel breakfast had been one of the finer continental breakfasts I’ve enjoyed.  (Belgium.  Pastries.  ‘Nuff said.)  Parag had sated his yen for a bratwurst with fries while watching Formula 1 at lunch.  Mikhail was walking more frequently without his crutches.  It was another sunny day.

But I suspect that the real reason for the good mood was that we had only broken down once the entire day, and that we had a workable theory on what might be wrong with the car.

Make no mistake; the breakdown was not fun.  I was once again driving (natch), and we were cruising up a hill when I realized that there was no response when I stepped on the gas.  After several hours of driving without incident, we had eased back into the conviction that our car troubles were behind us, at least so long as all the garages were all closed for Sunday.  The fates were not so kind.

As we paced the roadside we ticked off what we knew: the problem did not seem to be related to whether we were going fast or slow; the engine temperature gauge was fine; breakdowns had occurred both going up a hill and on flat stretches; the fuel pump and most major parts had been replaced within the last month; the car had (almost) always started on its own after resting for a while.

If only Click and Clack were available.

“You know, I don’t think it’s ever died with more than a half a tank of gas,” Misha said upon reflection.

Happily, there is an AAA affiliate in Germany too.  After several fruitless efforts to start the car ourselves, we called in our backup.

At which point, of course, it started right up.

By now we weren’t taking any chance.  We called the auto service back to cancel the tow, but asked if the service technician could meet us at a gas station at the next exit.

It was there that we indulged in our brats.  The guys earned theirs the hard way:  the ambulance conked out again about five feet short of the pump, and it was not an easy push to reach it.  I sat behind the wheel cranking the key and steering as they strained and grunted with effort, getting our beast over a small ditch before finally easing us into place.

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July 16th, 2010

Caitlin Johnston to Race Indy in Canada

Caitlin Johnston, 21, will race in the Canadian Tire Jump Start 100 on the streets of Toronto. The race takes place Saturday July 17, the day before the proper Indy race on the same course. She’ll join Danica Patrick, Milka Duno and Simona de Silvestro, among other Indy drivers, in the race.

Although the name might be new to many of you, Johnston is one to watch. She started racing karts when she was 13 and she is currently leading the Ontario Formula Ford (F1600) Championship. She started Formula Ford in 2007 and finished 10th in her rookie year, moving up to 6th in 2008 and 4th in 2009. She competed in her first NASCAR Canadian Tire Series at Mosport International Raceway and she came in 19th.

Good luck Caitlin!

July 15th, 2010

Dispatch from the road: Rally London-Mongolia, Part 2

Drive Like A Woman Editor-in-Chief, Michele Shapiro is setting off on a rally from London to Mongolia. She will be driving with Parag Khanna, Mikhail Zeldovich and Jen Mueller. Jen will be starting with the team in London and Michele will be meeting the team in Moscow and will switch places with Jen. The team will be driving a 1991 Land Rover Defender ambulance. Upon arrival in Mongolia the team will donate the ambulance to a local hospital. Drive Like A Woman will be posting dispatches from the journey.

Click here to read Part 1.

London: The Rally Begins
-Written by Jen Mueller

“Oh my God, it’s a giraffe.”

And there in the distance …?

“Rhinos!” Parag called happily.  “I LOVE rhinos!”

Day one of the rally was an absurdist’s dream.

Our team gathered at the ambulance—parked, somewhat conspicuously, on a shady suburban street—at 8:30 in the morning.  Parag and I had met for the first time the night before at Mikhail’s private club near Covent Garden (hey, this team parties in style).  We left the “when you’re in the middle of Russia” jokes to our friends, who were happy to supply them.  Parag was heading off to do some work before going to bed; I was finally clean, but exhausted from the day and, at 11pm, very much in need of dinner.

On Saturday morning we were in slightly better condition, and the excitement was contagious as we rumbled down the quiet London streets and onto the highway.  In addition to Mikhail, Parag, and me, our numbers included Misha’s fiancée Amanda and my friend Tonya, both along to send us off in style.

The launch was held at what the understated British might describe as an unlikely location:  a safari park on the grounds of a country estate about an hour north of the city. We were late for the pre-party, but we arrived in time for the main event:  a caravan tour of the park.  Including the gated lion enclosure, prominently marked with signs from its main sponsor:  Tiger Balm (no, no tigers were in evidence).
“This is so cool!  But . . . I don’t think they have lions in Mongolia,” I pondered as we watched a lioness watching us.

Behind us, a long line of our fellow vehicles stretched out, including two identical versions of our own Land Rover (their owner had also purchased them from Derrick, but had painted them solid white and cleaned them up; we looked like a country cousin), a Subaru, and a kitted-out jeep driven by two very excited Italians.

Back in the parking lot, they gathered us for an inspirational speech by a former rally participant.

Among his words of advice:  “You will be robbed as you head east!  And the robbers will all be wearing police uniforms.”  Also:  “That red line showing a nice straight road running from Russia into Ulaanbaatar is the greatest single lie in the history of cartography.”

Then it was time to start our engines.  The drivers, including me, took our places.  Parag was walking stiff-kneed after his two hours at the helm; the Land Rover seat is uncomfortably close to the steering wheel for my 5’6 frame; for his 6’1 form, driving was going to be painful.

A film crew that had spoken with us earlier was waiting at we processed past the exit.

“Alright guys, any last words?”  the reporter chirped.

“Mongolia or bust!” Misha cried.

“And those odds are about 50-50!” I chimed in from behind the wheel.  And we were off.

We were soon on the motorway heading down to Folkenstone, where we were going to take a car train through the Chunnel to the continent.  We were booked on the 4:50 train.  It was a drive that normally should take about 90 minutes.
“Oh no,” Mikhail said, looking at his Blackberry Googlemaps application.  (This will serve as our GPS for the European part of the trip.)  “Two stretches of bad traffic ahead.”

We were through the first stretch and going about 55mph up a hill when I realized that the engine wasn’t responding again.  I steered her into the shoulder and we coasted to a stop.

“Oh, shizzle.”  Parag climbed out of the back.  We popped the hood and ran through the same fluid checks we had performed the evening before.  We tried to simulate our experience with the cops by pushing it, but no luck.

I kept trying the ignition.  Suddenly there was a cough, and the engine caught.  I pressed the gas, and she roared to life.  Parag and Misha sprang to action.

“Get in, get in!”

We merged back into traffic, spirits improbably high again.

“It will be tight with the traffic, but we should still make our train,” Misha announced.  That was before we hit the standstill traffic.

And then the engine went again.

Denial was turning out to be an unproductive tactic.

“You have got to be kidding.”

This time, waiting didn’t seem to help.  We called Derrick, who consulted with a mechanic friend and suggested that we should check our fuel relays. We opened the fuse box and wiggled the connections.  We popped the hood.  When a passing Dutch Land Rover driver pulled off to help, we borrowed one of his parts to check to see if we had a faulty connection.

Never before has AAA seemed like such a good investment, though we had to wait a long time before the tow truck made it through the traffic jam.  The cab of the tow truck was wide and clean and air-conditioned.

Ah.

Our very nice driver deposited us at a rest area parking lot with the promise that a service technician would be with us . . . eventually.  With this being Saturday evening and everything closed on Sunday, the technician was our best hope at an answer.

So there we sat in our 1991 Land Rover.  Parag surfed the internet.  Misha made a few calls.  I worked on the team blog from my computer.  All this technology and we weren’t going anywhere.

One AA van after another came to the parking lot, but none had us on their service queue.  We had rescheduled our train for 7:50, but at this point it was unlikely we would even be seen before then.

“Are you waiting for help?”  A technician called over.

“Yes!”  I hopped off the back of the ambulance and went over to explain the situation.  We weren’t on his list, but he came over after helping another car.  He asked me to try the ignition, then rummaged around his van and sprayed something into the engine.  I tried again.  It turned over.

We were flummoxed.  “What IS that stuff?”

He handed me a can labeled Easy Start.  “Be careful with this.  You just spray it here—“ he indicated “—and it should help.  But this is a temporary solution, right?  You still need to get this looked at.”

We were on our way again.  “I’m beginning to love this car!” Parag declared as we drove up to the train terminal.

“You were meant to be here ages ago,” the woman checking us in complained.  But she put us in the queue for the next train.

The car died for the fourth time as we were driving down the ramp into the train car.

“No, no, no!  We are so close!”

“This is only supposed to happen when Jen is driving!”

“Do you guys need mechanical assistance?”  One of the train workers was heading over to us.  “We can arrange a tow.”

“No, we can get it going!”  We sprayed the magic spray into the engine.  Nothing happened.  And again.

“Look, if your car is disabled then I can’t let you on,” the attendant said.

DID THE CAR MAKE IT ON THE TRAIN? CLICK READ MORE TO FIND OUT…

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