Day 5 + 1 - June 6

Officially, Friday June 5 was the last day of the rally. On Saturday before heading to a race track for a drag racing grudge match sponsored by the 24 Hours of LeMons crew, we touristed a bit in New Orleans, going to the National World War II Museum, on the freakin' anniversary D-Day of all things! There was some equipment set up outside with reenactors, with some dressed up as Germans, though I saw no goose-stepping.

I couldn't resist taking a picture of this exhibit. In my world, 'Tojo', doesn't enjoy going over 35mph like 'Adolf' and 'Benito' do...

It turns out that former Governor of California Pete Wilson is the chairman of the National WWII museum. For those of you that don't know, and by misapplying genealogy terminology, as governor two governors ago, Pete Wilson would be the former governor of California twice removed, which of course makes Gray Davis the former governor of California once removed...

So, we had to get the Toyota from wherever it was valeted to, and the only reason I mention this is that when I got in it, the valet had set the parking brake, obviously thinking it actually worked. That's so cute. This car actually taught me NOT to set the parking brake because it would freeze up in the winter. I'm still nervous about setting in the Audi (without reason) and the Alfa Romeo (with reason; @!!@#*&$% rear calipers). Now, on to the grudge match drag racing. Yes, we drag raced the Toyota, though not before the Toyota had overheating issues on the way to the track. I considered tightening the belt to the water pump, because we had heard it squeal a few times and flopped around a bit at idle. But, I didn't feel like doing that on the side of the road. We only beat the times of a couple scooters, and an ancient Toyota RV that were on the Rally. Times were between 19.5 and 20 seconds, with trap speeds around 67 mph. Though I personally did not hear this, I heard that the announcer congratulated one car we went against by saying, 'Congratulations. You beat a Tercel.' As I was tightening up the belt before we left, the head BABE Rally guy took a few pictures of me (good thing it wasn't video with sound) and he thanked me for coming to the drag race because he had a 'really good laugh' with the Tercel out there.

Due to the overheating issues, we ran with the team that actually one the BABE Rally, aka Team 'Manwall' and 'Unintended Acceleration'. I actually had to borrow tools from the Manwall team, because the adjustment bolt for the alternator on Tojo wasn't metric! I had only brought metric tools with me... . But, we ran with them for a while before Tojo got too hot and we had to slow down, stopping in Hattiesburg, MS for the night.