Day 4 of this trip and the race still hadn’t started yet. The waiting…ughh. Ted and I tried to get acclimated to the time zone. We slept until 8:30 am, ate breakfast at the lavish resort breakfast buffet, and went back to bed and slept another three hours. I did an interview with Ted on camera for potential movie footage.
We went to registration and tech inspection at 5:30 pm. Smooth. The media knew who I was and was glad I was there. They knew about my Into the Dust movies on YouTube and were hoping we’d feature this race in a movie. They knew it would be great publicity. We do have 5 million views on Into the Dust on YouTube after all. They gave us a deal on helicopter and drone footage. Drones are not allowed to be brought into Morocco for some reason. We were lucky we got all the lithium-ion batteries for the cameras in. They hand-searched us at every airport. Ted pushed up to the rules, but didn’t exceed them.
That night there was a drivers meeting and a rookie briefing – mostly in French. But they did have translator gadgets for the Anglophones like me. Whenever you’re in a crowd of people who know what they are doing, and you don’t, you feel like an imposter of sorts – like you don’t belong. But that is just how you come to expand – you intentionally put yourself in that position. Then you listen, ask questions, and listen some more. You are out of your comfort zone – literally uncomfortable. That’s what growth feels like. When you do it a lot, you know you’ll be ok.
I was anxious to get racing.
Patience…
Good Morning Larry from Wisco on a chilly 23 degree morning! I love your racing stories!