Uploading photos is turning out to be a bit of a challenge from rural Sicily, so those will follow later, and hopefully be plentiful.
While Mike and Brendan have been off tracing the history of Mikes car and drinking in the history of the Targa, Johnny and I have been involved in some unexpectedly serious competition.
What we had anticipated to be a relaxed tour for classic cars around the island has turned out to be fierce and fast road racing... And all the better for it!
Last night the Giro started at 8pm from right in the centre of Palermo.
For the first few kilometres we had to press through an endless narrow tunnel of cheering locals, then headed out of town and up into the mountain roads, west along the coast.
It was dark and fast. A mix of sweeping long stages, punctuated by twisties with sheer drops to the sea.
Every other town we passed had a timed checkpoint, and last night everyone and their mother was out in the streets cheering, clapping and taking photos. A true carnival atmosphere.
In some towns we have special timed stages through the narrow streets: it's pretty good fun getting the back end out on the cobbles, rounding ancient town squares replete with fountains and centuries old churches
Although officially we are meant to be obeying the speed limits, the police seem to be treating it as a legalised road race, holding traffic back and taking photos themselves as competitors push on by. As a result most of us are going flat flat out.
Our car has been running very strong, despite a tendency to backfire dramatically on the overrun. Running a 2.7MFI 911 makes us one of the quickest cars in the line up (of almost 200 runners!), but we can't hold a match to 2 locals in their Stingray, who seem intent on breaking some kind of record for derring do.
Last night we finished about 1am, and I almost fell asleep fully dressed as soon as we got to the hotel.
Today we ran for about 8hrs: fantastic driving roads, with a backdrop of mountains and sea that has to be seen to be believed. We also took in a special stage en route on the Valle de Templi race track.
We are now half way through the event. A full day again tomorrow, and then a half day on Sunday finishing at the Piccolo Madonie circuit.
Despite our performance advantage over a lot of the field, we don't expect to finish anywhere but near the bottom, as it is still on paper a regularity rally, and there are a lot of Halda Tripmaster experts out there letting the rest of us hare off, while they carefully arrive at every checkpoint within milliseconds of the target time in the road book.
I know photos say 100 words, but hopefully this post will help paint a picture of what it's been like, until we can upload something more jpeg shaped.
Have worn a DDK shirt every day so far, flying the flag for the Maverick Massive
