Monday, Oct. 13. Day 3

Finally, a great night's rest. We woke up refreshed and rejuvenated to face the last day of the race.

We were pretty confident that we could make it to Vegas, and we were right, just not about the method and the time...






We started off by running through our usual cold-weather start-up procedure, although this time we had access to the shower in the motel room, so start-up went much quicker than the previous morning.

We bid Scott farewell, as he left with the Kristie's Flyer down south to Death Valley where the last two remaining competitors were.

Mom and Dad went down to Mammoth Lakes to pickup a new secondary fuel filter at Napa Auto Parts, as ours was pretty gunky. Thanks to Chris at Napa, they had one in stock.

After everything was set, we decided to utilize the Process of Elimination and test the car while running off the Newman Tank, to make sure nothing else was wrong besides the cold fuel in the main gas tank.

It started up perfectly again with the help of a jump-start. And it drove around town like nothing was wrong with it. It even powered up a steep logging road with no problems at all. So the problem was readily apparent, the problem was somewhere along the fuel line into the main gas tank and/or the oil itself.

We spent the next couple of hours checking our fuel filters along the fuel line.

While we were there, we helped a foreign visitor operate a gas pump, and even assisted another wary traveler by jump-starting his truck.

At around 1330, Dad came up with another plan. This time we needed more fuel hose.

So we hooked up the Newman Tank again, and headed on south to Mammoth Lakes, 10 miles at a time.

We were even checked on by a CHP officer.

Eventually, we made it to Mammoth Lakes and went back to the local Napa Auto Parts store.

Unfortunately, they didn't have long enough fuel hoses in stock. But they pointed us to where we could find one, at the "Do-It Center".

We pretty much spent the rest of the afternoon in the Do-It Center parking lot, pursuing different ideas to warm up our fuel enough to run in the engine.

Our first whacky idea was to run the fuel line out to the left side of the windshield, up along the roof and down into a 5 gallon tank in the rear-left passenger seat. We hoped the fuel would be warm enough on the inside and would keep warm when it got to the engine.

The plan had a chance, and it seemed as if it would work as fuel pumped through the clear hose. but alas, the fuel was getting cooled to quickly while outside the car and the fat was turning into lard in the filters.

What a major blow! We kept dismissing the Newman Tank, we weren't going to go almost 200 miles 10 miles at a time!

While biting into his tuna fish sandwich courtesy of Subway, dad got another idea.

"How about we coil the fuel line around the upper-radiator hose???"

Huzzah! Another plan that can't go wrong!

After running back into Do-It to get more hose, we put our plan together.

We then waited in bated breath as Dad turned the ignition key. The engine sputtered, revved, coughed, sputtered, then died.

GGGGAAAAAAHHHHH!!!!

It was almost sundown, icicles were forming on every overhang on every roof, we were hundreds of miles away from the finish line, and the car wouldn't start. The temptation to just give in and buy diesel was SO strong. But could we bring ourselves to do it?

We had just braved the Sierras, below-freezing temperatures, and highways clearly built for the suicidal, now we're just gonna give up???

Our only other option became oh-so-painfully clear...