 Panama to Alaska Rally 2008 Roger Carey is taking the Mk III, prepared by Davron, on this exciting rally. If you have been following the progress of the rally, you can go straight to the latest blog snippets about Roger's progress. Roger says: This is quite a special year for me as I am off to Panama City to take part in a classic car rally from there to Anchorage in Alaska. My car, a 1958 Aston Martin is being shipped out and I hope is sufficiently well prepared for the 10 week, 11,500 mile trip. It is a demanding journey for man and machine (particularly the man!!) involving passing through 9 countries, over difficult terrain in places, in climates ranging from the tropics in Central America, through the arid heat of Monument Valley in the US and finally through the barren wastes of Northern Canada before finally reaching our Alaskan destination. There are 16 classic cars involved and we will be accompanied by 4x4 backup vehicles and a doctor (average age of participants is 60+!) which between them should improve our chances of finishing in one piece! My co-drivers/navigators on the trip will be my wife Margaret for the first half of the journey to Mexico City, then my younger son Julian (Mexico to Salt Lake City USA) and finally my elder son Richard (Salt Lake City to Anchorage) so it will be a real family affair provided we all get on in such a confined space for so many weeks!! Given the many challenges (breakdown, punctures, politics, poor fuel etc) I felt I should try to link the journey to a fund raising initiative and have chosen the Company of Chartered Surveyors’ (my livery) Charitable Fund but in particular its Training Trust as the principal beneficiary. The Trust was set up 25 years ago with the objective of raising funds to help 16 to 24 year olds often from deprived backgrounds and having under achieved at school, to secure a brighter future by training for the chartered surveying profession. So many children fall into this category and I have always been a keen supporter of the initiative. You can find more details of the Trust on www.cstt.org.uk. I intend to kick off the fund raising effort with a personal donation of £2000 and I hope you will be willing to make a contribution however large or small to help us to our target of £50,000 – as demanding as the trip but a worthwhile challenge!! You can make a donation to the Trust via www.justgiving.com/panama2alaskarally2008 or if you wish, send a cheque direct payable to Chartered Surveyors Training Trust, Downstream Building, 1 London Bridge, London SE1 9BG. You can also “bet” on the following: - Guess the exact total mileage Roger will cover from Panama City to Anchorage and donate minimum 1p per mile to enter. PS. He might get lost. - Guess the total number of US gallons of petrol that Roger’s car will use – entry is £5 - Guess how many punctures Roger’s car will suffer – entry is £5 - Offer a ‘bonus’ of say £50 if Roger’s car completes the rally The winners of the various sponsorship opportunities will get to see the car at a future Aston Martin Owners Club track day and will have a conducted drive around the circuit in a prepared race car. There will be a “BLOG” of the trip which can be viewed at any time via the Rally Website, www.globalrally.org.uk so you can see how we are getting on. To go directly to the reports page, go to http://globalrally.org.uk/panamatoalaska/html/report_index.html I do hope you can respond positively which will help to speed us on our way as well as help Trust beneficiaries to maybe do something similar one day. Snippets mentioned on the blog about Roger's progress: Report May 1/2: Kind police let the Careys off their speeding infringements since he loved their accents when they tried a little Spanish. 8th May: with passports and other documents to hand (all copied several times) and expecting the worst, we placed ourselves at the mercy of the “tramitadores”, now re-named “taramasalators”, to get us through the bureaucratic nightmare of the border crossing. To our surprise, everything went smoothly at first and the drivers were in high spirits, even managing a chorus or two of ‘When You’re Smiling’ in the Customs office, to the bemusement of the locals! Not everything went well however, as Angie and Stuart Hampson’s XK140 had to be pushed over the border as a result of an alternator problem and Roger faced a self imposed challenge of having to convince a rather frosty faced official that the green Aston Martin he was driving was the same car as the blue Aston Martin itemised on his log book (the result of a recent unrecorded respray ) which put a stop to his singing! 9th May: Everybody has been looking to try a different cuisine to what they’re used to at home – and friends of Margaret Carey will enjoy the photograph of her under the Golden Arches on the first day out of Panama being embraced by Ronald!
Roger Carey’s Aston looked as though it had a terminal problem, but with some lateral
thinking from Paul all that prevented him continuing was two bolts – which the Costa Rican
Car Club arranged to have specially fabricated while we were in Monteverde – what a great
example of friendship.
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