Day 69

8. July 2000, Newark to Marrakech (by plane)

On our last day in North America there is not much to report about as we are waiting for our plane in the afternoon. To summarize, North America has been great. We have seen wonderful wildlife, beautiful landscapes, great cities, have met nice people and have gained new impressions of USA and Canada. And at the same time we were always able to sleep in hotels with reasonable comfort, watch TV, go to the cinema, go to laundromats, use the Internet and eat out without being too concerned about food safety. Things we did not always have until Beijing. We weren't always happy with the American route choice though, as the balance of interesting roads and challenging roads was not kept as we (and almost everyone else) had hoped for. The route layout for the following days has been supervised by Dave Whittock again, so we should have the same pace that we had until Beijing - which is good.

Overall 1 hour 47 minutes penalty

The official results can be looked up on this website

 

Cars lined up, the officials will be driving them into the Antonov plane later - Newark airport

queuing ...

car 42, Manhattan skyline and Antonov nose

Michael and Kaya in front of car 42, Antonov

 

 

... for the Antonov

Car number 16 needs to get towed to the airport. Later, the officials had to push it into the plane.
The Bentley of Helmut (from Germany) with navigator Don (U.S.A.) had a part broken on the engine. From Morocco, the car was flown back to London (where the plane was heading anyway) where it will get the necessary repairs and number 16 will try to rejoin the rally as soon as the problem is resolved. We wish them best luck.

USA - land of choice, land of plenty: How about a Lincoln sports utility vehicle in stretch version? Must be a pain with the rising gas prices, though.

We take a plain bus to JFK airport.