The Contest Summary

The other way we were shown pre-trip love was through bets placed on Randal's final resting place. Our investors, as we began to affectionately call them, had varying degrees of confidence in Randal's longevity. Guesses ranged from Tennessee to Panama. The chart below shows the distribution of bets:

 
Early guesses like Tennessee had some validity since we experienced stalling right from the start. These stalls, however, were all while the car was idling, so they had little impact on the car's ability to cover vast distances at high speeds. As soon as we got on the road to San Antonio, the car ran well. The second day’s drive was also devoid of major mechanical issue. I soon rolled into Guanajuato, Mexico. After these first 2 days of driving, we already knocked out 13 of 25 of the choices presented in the contest details. Only one investor had selected these choices though, so nearly everyone still had a shot at the prize.

Mechanically, day 3 presented some challenges. It was the first time I got stuck in 3^rd gear. The stick only lasted about 30 miles before a toll booth slow down stalled the car and normalcy returned. For a moment, I though the guess of Mexico City might reward Esther Chon and Phil Karash, but the 3 day park in Mexico City provided Randal the rest needed to continue.

Southern Mexico, despite its high mountains and stretches of dense forest, didn’t present any issues for Randal. We quickly passed Matt Leonard’s guess of Chiapas. It wasn't until our unexpected crossing of El Salvador that issues began to arise. We started to experience the gear locking I wrote about before. I briefly wondered how betters would take to a breakdown in country we didn’t announce as a destination. In the end it wouldn't matter. We powered through the loss of 4^th gear, topping out around 60 mph and stopped for lunch when the engine started to overheat. With the same issues rearing up, we crossed Honduras and Nicaragua in much the same fashion. Sorry Jordan Barone and David Zurbochen, never say die.

The slower pace was apparent as we got into southern Nicaragua. 200 miles drives were taking half the day. Gas mileage was also a factor. The combination of these factors claimed Costa Rica as the final stop and transformed one Lindsey “Sunshine” Getches into a contest winner. Here is a picture of her sporting her newly acquired swag.

Hat and booze provided by Costa Rica

Over the course of the drive, we put 5,882 miles on the car. The odometer read 125,023 when we left it in San Jose. I estimate we probably averaged around 45 mph because even though we touched speeds of 90+ mph in Northern Mexico, once we hit Guatemala, engine issues and the omnipresent topes (large speed bumps) make it impossible to average more than 35 mph. In Mexico City, we were lucky to average 15 mph. This average speed means that we spent close to 130 hours in the car. The total mileage means that we racked up nearly 5% of the total car's mileage in 27 short days. In Clarence Rahn's terms, we accumulated 9.5% of his total driven distance from 17 years of use. Clarence totaled the 5,882 miles put up in 27 days every 19.5 months. That's a road trip.