DJ - Day 33 of Peking to Paris is about to begin and we welcome you to the update, being transmitted by a regular telephone. We are in Turkey and about to start our second and perhaps longest day of our travel. We are now 12,000km from Beijing and for Carl and I nearly 17,000km around the world. We have two very long days to get to Istanbul which is a major benchmark in our journey. Day 32 ended just the way that 33 is beginning and the word I would use for that is tired. The people are tired. The car is tired. Carl is tired. Don is tired. But we can't go back, we have to move forward. Sort of like life. Yesterday in Tabriz, Iran we awoke at 4:30am in order to meet our required starting time at 6:00. Today we are awake at 5:30am. Carl is asking "Why are we awake?" I am commenting that we love to rally. Now only for another ten days. That would hopefully get us to Paris. We'll park the car and take a taxi and maybe even an airplane.

Well we are moving along here into Turkey, the interior of Turkey. We should get to the center of Turkey, but it will take 710km of successful travel through so breathtaking geography to accomplish that. Our goal today, is a city that we spell for those who are following the travel in the center of Turkey. Yesterday upon entering Turkey we went through some rural communities where the first thing that I noticed that mud houses about half the size of an American automobile garage, were the principal dwellings of the rural people in remote Turkey. What was unique about these mud houses was that they had satellite dishes on the top of them. In Iran, we saw very few if any satellite dishes. It is our understanding that they are banned.

Here in Turkey as we mentioned there is this intense border situation with so many neighbors for Turkey and there is a lot military movement. Convoys of military vehicles occupy the highway along with commercial transportation trucks. As you drive through the countryside you see military encampments with tank and personal carriers off in installations. The terrain here is rugged, it is like the western United States. It is gorgeous. We have seen so much terrain and geography that you have to remind yourself that what you are seeing is really quite interesting.

We want to update you on our mechanical experiences. We want to tell you that we had a mechanical problem during the day of the 32nd day. In telling you about it we don't want to frighten anyone but we do honesty convey what we experience. We were blissfully riding along under the shadow of Mount Ararat. Carl was at the wheel and suddenly smoke began pouring from the dash of the 1954 Packard. We quickly pulled over, sourced our on-broad fire extinguisher which we did not need, as the smoke quickly subsided. We began an hour process of diagnosing the problem. It seems that some wiring became overheated underneath the dash. There were some note cards or small labels indicating the wiring and one of those notecards apparently became hot and ignited. But it also quickly extinguished. In the process of what ever caused an electrical short, some of the wiring melted together and so some of the instrumentation in the vehicle is not operating. The center console which contains the most critical piece of equipment on board the car, the CD player is inoperative. We were able to, with the assistance of the support crew, get the car running and make our way to Erzurum, where we are this morning where we are about to begin day number 33. Into the night with the assistance of some mechanics from the Birmingham, Alabama team, Andy Vann, we were able to determine for those who are mechanically aware that the tachometer was creating a grounding condition causing the car to short out at the coil under the distributor. So it was to say to take the tachometer out of the system until we were able to at another time straighten out the wiring. That is not about the best news for us because we need to monitor the rpm and using the transmission to make sure we are not over taxing the engine. We will have to use our good judgement and not rely on an instrument to tell us about that.

When you enter a new country, you have to begin to quickly digest and process your circumstances. New road surfaces, new signage, new language, new police procedures, police equipment, personnel, the likely movement of the other vehicles including horse drawn and donkey drawn carts, the movement of cattle and livestock across highways all of that has to quickly be understood as you find that every country has its different behaviors. That can be taxing as you move into a new country. We continue to be well treated by people that we encounter. We estimate that in the course of our travels between 2 and 3 million have come out to see the cars, to see the passing parade of remarkable motorized machinery. The parade can take about an hour to pass through a location. Consequently, like the Circus Parade in Milwaukee, people come out to watch. In many cities in Iran over the last two days, we had similar experiences like in China, where people clogged the streets and created almost a human wall and it was quite a necessity to drive directly into the people and then they part ways and barely allow room for the car to pass. We had that experience in the last 48 hours. But since leaving Beijing we estimate a staggering figure, that is 2 to 3 million, have lined the route and hundreds of thousands have attempted to touch the car. Children sort of taunt the cars as they go by and at times it is frightening as they race into the roadway and we were never certain if they were going to stop or not. But in any event, when you look back on the half a million people in Iran and Pakistan, half a million people in Nepal, and million in China and Tibet you begin to realize what is a most incomprehensible that you would have contact with 2 or 3 million people. For me that was something that I never expected when we undertook this journey.

Two cars were towed in on the 32nd day, yesterday, and everyday it is likely that some car is going to break. One has to muster the patience and perseverance to get the car to the next location and make repairs and move on. For those who are mechanically interested in some of the mechanical heroics, we recommend you to the Paris to Peking car net site or to our site, I am not sure of the exact location of the information bulletin from Graham Robson. Bulletin number 24, in that report it contains some details of mechanical heroics that have taken place just to cite a couple. I am aware that a Morris Minor had a hole in one of its pistons. They were able to weld up that hole and put theengine back together and the car is continuing on. I am aware that a MG YB, a pretty sophisticated sportscar, had a crank shaft reground and it had to be fitted with Toyota equipment in order to keep it running. Those who appreciate mechanical things marvel at the methods that are being used to keep many of these cars on the road. We recommend that you read about that in bulletin number 24 of the Paris to Peking car net site, which is linked from our site. It could also be contained somewhere on our site as well.

Well it is fall here in Turkey. Colors, I couldn't help but notice, as we entered Turkey remind one of the Rocky Mountains. Colors are beginning to change and days are becoming cooler. We are actually located overnight at a ski lodge, it is off season, near the city of Erzurum. As if the day was not long and hard enough we had to drive the car up a several kilometer steep grade in order to arrive at the lodge. We spent the night as a guest of the Dedeman organization of Turkey. Dedeman is a multi industry business similar to the Marriott Corporation. They operate a chain of hotels and motels throughout Turkey. We are their quests in Turkey. They are hosting the rally and have made the stay here very pleasing with excellent food and some wine with dinner which was a very nice treat. As has been mentioned, alcohol is not permitted in Iran. Well that describes what circumstances are like on this 33rd day which about to begin. Again, we will repeat tired describes the feeling. The tired automobiles that have been through an awful lot. Tired people who have been through a lot. I am not complaining but I think people are getting a little ragged and everybody is looking at the schedule and seeing that in two days, today and at the end of the day tomorrow, hopefully we will arrive safely in Istanbul, the bridge between the east and the west. Istanbul is our entry point into Europe and the third stage of the competition.

A brief word about the competition. It is beginning to heat up a little bit. As people will now begin to take notice of who is doing what as we approach Istanbul and the prospect of getting to Paris becomes more promising. We explained in the past, that the competition is like a golf tournament. There is a scorecard. Everyday the score has to be kept. At one time in the journey in our classification of classic automobiles we were in twelfth place. We have managed with quiet and steady progress to move up to sixth place at the moment, in our classification of classic automobiles. We repeated and will repeat that being serious about the competing and the competition was never a principal concern of ours or an objective. We are just having the fun of participating and watching the calculations. The Packard has come onto good highways and our timing has been pretty steady for the last several days and consequently we have been able to surpass some other automobiles. But at the top of the leader board, some interest is beginning to develop about who is in what position and why. We will just comment briefly so that you can watch and listen for new developments. There are a list of top five based on timing performance and as of the leader board, which is posted everyday at our location, the Iranian Team is in first place at the moment followed by a Great Britain team, driving a 1942 Ford Willys Jeep. The American team from Birmingham Alabama is right in the thick of the competition. Ted Thomas and Vic Zannis in the 1950 Ford Coupe and a Great Britain team driving a 1965 Ford Cortina is also right in the top. The team of John Jung and Andy Vann also in the second 1950 Ford Coupe are also in the top five. Now there is a little bit of behind the scenes chatter and conversation about what vehicles have legitimate claim to be in the competition based on the technical and mechanical heritage of the vehicles. We won't get into great detail but some questions are being asked and hoods are being looked under. Some of the equipment being used by some of the vehicles is being called into question, particularly as the competition is heating up. So we will leave it go at that. We would like you to know that like all things in life there is good spirited competition.

Finally, we have received the grouping of email messages from the last 24 hours. We want to acknowledge and thank Mohsen Salek of Cupertino California, a native of Iran who has commented that our description of our visit to his native country has made him swell up with pride and excitement hearing about Iran. I will be preparing a retrospective commentary on Iran in a couple of days. As we gain some distance and time from our visit to Iran and describe for you in an objective way what both I and other on the journey felt about Iran. Jerry Murphy of Boston Massachusetts tells us about his enjoyment of the Morgan and his awareness that the Morgan team from the Netherlands had to drop out of the competition. In response to his question "Will they be back?' that seems to be one car that was just brutalized by the road conditions in Pakistan. It is not likely that the Morgan will be able to recover and we have not seen the car for several days. We thank Roger Sattler for his commentary by email as well as Joe and Judith Berger of Fond du Lac who plan to be in Istanbul in October. Unfortunately, not on the date that we will be there. We also want to say hello to Nigel Challis in London, who was a competitor and had to return home from India. We are glad to know that Nigel will be in Paris and we want him to know that we shared his email with others at the dinner table. The competitors are pleased to hear from him and know that he is following the rally and participating.

I think that is a summary of where matters stand. We are on the far edge of Turkey. Beautiful, beautiful landscape and very rugged similar to the western United States. We don't know what to expect today but like everyday it is a whole new discovery of the tapestry and quilt of topography and geography. There likely will be some obstacles to be dealt with and we will proceed with the goal of getting to the over night destination in a village in central Turkey called Nevsehiv. It is very hard when you visit to know the pronunciation of these communities. Nevsehiv is a place where there are a lot of under ground caverns and a lot of history dating back to 2500 B.C. Well that is the update for the 33rd day of the Peking to Paris Motor Challenge. Thanks for joining us. Your call is one of 25,000 calls that have been made to the toll free numbers since we began this service. So long for Carl this is Don from Turkey. Until this time tomorrow.