Day 12

Many of the competitors with car problems decided they would drive directly to Novosibirsk and get a head start on their repairs. As our spare part is only arriving on Saturday, we don’t have much of an advantage by driving directly. We thus decided to drive to Novokuznetsk as planned, but once again took a direct route.

It seems like since we broke the spring Mario has become a new person! We are stopping for lunch, we bought honey from the side of the road and he even suggested I take more photos!! I wonder what will happen once the car is fixed. Will his racer alter ego return? Or is he secretly enjoying the more leisurely trip as well?

As we set off early, we again arrived early at our hotel. There were hundreds of people waiting for the cars to arrive and it got even busier the later it became. People of all ages had waited in the hot sun to see the old cars up and close.