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Dimpled Dan
Not all of the rally motorists are swimming in disposable income. In the spirit
of Charles Goddard, the penniless carnival barker who raced in the 1907 rally,
Daniel Orteu (right) and his sidekick John Davies (left) are hoping to survive by
their wits. "Some people say you have to plan everything, others say just go,"
says Orteu. "We're examples of the latter." The 20-something
management consultant was volunteering in Zimbabwe when a friend first
proposed going on the trip. But, after Orteu had already made several payments
to the Classic Rally Association, his partner dropped out of the race to get
married. Undeterred, Orteu scrapped together 8,000 pounds to buy and rebuild a
1962 Volvo Amazon. He even
handpainted the car bright blue with a large
logo for Raleigh International, the organization he worked for in Zimbabwe. The
group is sponsoring the team, says Orteu, but, being a non- profit, they have
more goodwill to spare than cash. Back to the
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Go Carr Go
Cars have secured Raymond Carr's place in history, or at least in the Guinness
Book of World Records. The unassuming 76-year-old holds three records for
driving across the United States in automobiles even older than he is. Three
years ago, Carr (right) drove a 1902 Northern Runabout with its 1-cylinder,
5-horsepower engine, from San Diego to Jekyll Island, Ga., averaging 20 mph. The next year
Carr crawled across North America in a 1912 Baker Electric, charging its 12
internal batteries with a portable generator. And last year, Carr drove a 1909
wooden frame Model E-2 Stanley Steamer 5,200 miles from Anchorage, Alaska, to Bar
Harbor, Maine. Both the Stanley and the Northern were designed to run on
50-octane gasoline, a big problem as gas today has a minimum rating of 85 octane.
Mike Wyka, Carr's trusty companion and a mechanic from Poland, came up with a
solution to the gassy dilemma: mix kerosene with gasoline to lower the octane.
Luckily for Carr, he has Wyka as his co-driver in the 1939 Ford convertible he's
using in the rally. If, and when, the two reach Paris, they will have traveled
around the world together. Back to the
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Auto-Addled Genny
As a reporter for Autoweek, Genevieve Obert infuses her coverage of
vintage cars with a sense of history -- "Since the Angles first battled the
Saxons, the British and the Germans have found reasons to quarrel". But Obert
will switch from observer to participant in the rally, driving a 1968 Hillman Hunter
with Linda Dodwell (above), also from San Francisco.
Combined, the pair has far more motor know-how than the other women-only team of
Francesca Sternberg and Jennifer Gillies. In addition to racing in various auto
rallies, Dodwell has spent a lot of time on two wheels, traveling with fellow
rally motorist Burt Richmond during his exotic long-distance motorcycle
expeditions.
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"Chic" Kleptz
Talk to Charles "Chic" Kleptz and you get the impression that he would be more
interested in the conversation if you had six cylinders or a fan belt. Chic's
wife and navigator Arlene is fairly chatty, but the entrepreneur from Ohio is
clearly more comfortable when under a hood or behind a wheel. The Kleptzes are
veteran auto rallyists who have driven vintage cars in numerous U.S. rallies and
have chosen the rare 1919 Marmon Model 34 to
make their international
debut. A Marmon collector, Kleptz is confident that his vehicle is one of the
best-engineered cars of its day and he has already driven one model, a 1917, to a
second-place finish in an American coast-to-coast rally. The 1919 Model 34 is the
last survivor of the 1,200 Marmon touring cars. Chic reassembled the vehicle from
parts he bought from a Philadelphia estate. The Marmon has only two brakes,
unlike the four of most modern cars, not ideal for a race requiring participants
to scale 17,000 feet Himalayan mountains. To account for the inevitable steep
declines, Chic is adapting pickup truck brakes to the Marmon's front axle. Of
course, the modified brakes won't help the car on its ascent. Back to the
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Biker Burt
Burt Richmond, aka "Mom," is a charismatic Chicago architect who makes a
living balanced on two-wheels. Obsessed with motorcycles -- he once owned more than 300
bikes -- Richmond leads RUBBIE (Rich Urban Biker) expeditions through far-flung
locales such as Nepal and Vietnam with his company, Lotus Tours. "Our motto is
'You provide the helmet, we provide the adventure ... and stay at the best places
there are,'" he says. Since his first international motorcycle trip to Nepal in
the '80s, Richmond has biked through Africa, Asia, South America, Australia and
New Zealand. Richmond's rally partner, Richard Newman, is the owner of a vehicle
rental business and shares the architect's motor-mania. The duo chose a 1953
Citroen 2CV for the rally. Back to the
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Lean, Mean & Neon-Green
Bart Rietbergen, a carpet executive from Vaassen, Holland, is a former Dutch
rallycross champion, and has driven in the Tulip Rally, the Liege-Rome-Liege and
the Monte Carlo Challenge. "He's been racing nearly all his life," says his wife
and partner, Jolyn. The Rietbergens chose their car carefully, trying out several
different makes before settling on a white 1965 PV 544 Volvo. The most
challenging leg of the race for the Volvo will be the mountains of Nepal, says
Jolyn, explaining the couple had been taking the car on test runs up smaller
peaks. "If the car takes that, it takes all." The Rietbergen's sponsor, a Dutch
packaging company, is banking on it. The company sank a tidy sum into the
couple's rally kitty. However, it wasn't without strings attached. As a condition
of the sponsorship, the Rietbergen's had to paint their Volvo a startling neon green. A week after its metamorphosis, the
upbeat Jolyn had nearly convinced herself that the flashy coat was a positive
development. "It's clear, it's bright and you can see it everywhere," she said.
"It's no problem when you get lost or anything, if anything happens
to you, everyone will see you." Back to the
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Capt. "Zen" O'Neill
Canadian John O'Neill is driving a 1960 Volkswagen Cabrio with
his daughter Susan
Tsicrycas. For the retired infantry captain, whose military career includes
service in World War II, Korea, and the Middle East, the rally is hardly an
adventure of a lifetime. And at age 75, O'Neill is grateful to be going, having
suffered an aneurysm in January. "I don't care if I'm last, first or anything,
I'll just enjoy the drive," he says. Back to the
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Pink Tank
John Stuttard (in yellow shirt), chairman of Coopers & Lybrand in China, has
invited a handful of consultant and embassy types to play musical chairs in his
1934 Rolls Royce 20/25. The
20/25 is one of the most durable of the Rolls Royce models, and can
travel 90 mph, says Stuttard. He dubbed the Rolls "Harrison" after learning that
the car's original owner Henry Harrison Stuttard was a distant relative.
Harrison, the car, was recently painted pink at the request of one Stuttard's
sponsors, the Financial Times. Not every fellow would be willing to paint
his car such a shade but Stuttard is used to thinking and doing the unthinkable.
It is a skill he acquired while privatizing England's national industries for
former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher.
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Pictures: Candide Media Works |
Copyright © 1997 Discovery Communications,
Inc. |
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