We ran some very credible times and I was impressed by Mark's seriousness when performing his navigator duties. We were a team. Although mine was a tough old car, I knew we would need to make some improvements for safety and durability on the long event. First, we needed at least 22 gallons of gasoline to have enough range for each day's competition. A Fuel Safe fuel cell would carry this much gasoline safely and so we reconfigured the car's trunk floor to hold the big bulky tank.
Tires are critical, both for grip and for durability.
We chose a light truck specification Dueler design from Bridgestone and decided that two spare tires would get us through. A rollover bar and competition seats and seatbelts added more to the car's already formidable strength and safety. Eibach created three sets of special springs and Bilstein tuned and revalved some of its gas-pressure shock absorbers to match the heavy loads we would be carrying. Meanwhile, other details like visas, travel documents, product sponsorships, shipping arrangements and insurance occupied huge amounts of time. Travel in remote areas requires certain medical precautions and over a two-month period I ended up with more than a dozen vaccinations against everything from Polio and rabies to Japanese encephalitis.