DJ - It's time now for this update with Carl and Don. This update comes to you from Iran where we have arrived in the evening on the 30th of September today in our part of the world, being Tuesday. The last 48 hours have been full of pain and adversity and tragedy as well. We want to report to our family that Carl and Don are doing just fine. The 1954 Packard continues to move across Pakistan and now into Iran and the engine and transmission being as strong and dependable as they are, keep the car going. In the last 48 hours there has been much that has occurred and we'll attempt to hit some of the important moments for you.

We must first begin by making you aware of what we ourselves only learned when we completed our lengthy day yesterday and arrived at our destination city of Quetta, Pakistan. We were informed at 2 o'clock in the morning that in the evening earlier, before our arrival, that there had been an accident involving one of the cars and one of the teams from Germany. The team was a father and son team from Germany, Josef and Rene Feit. They were driving a 1964 Volkswagen which had been modified for the Peking to Paris Motor Challenge. In the evening as they entered the city of Quetta, after a 600 kilometer drive, an accident occurred in which the Volkswagen came into direct impact and contact with a bus on the outskirts of the city of Quetta. Both Josef and his son, Rene, were killed in the accident. The shock and the tragedy of that caused a cancellation of the competition on the following day, this day, Tuesday, which we have just completed. The journey continued, but the rally timing competition was canceled. Apparently, Josef, at the end of a very long and tiring day was unable to avoid a head-on collision with the bus from Quetta, Pakistan. Both the father and the son were pronounced dead at the scene. Josef, who spoke no English, only his native language, German, had celebrated his birth date on the day of his death. We must share with you the difficult news of the loss of life of two persons in the course of Monday's Motor Challenge.

In addition to the personal injuries and death of Josef and his son Rene, several cars had mechanical failures and another car had an accident. A British car, operated by two Concord pilots, came in contact with a local pickup truck over the course of some of the mountains that we traveled. The car was disabled and retired from the event. A Morgan sports car from the Norway blew up its engine and was forced to retire. And two cars lost their transmission. One a Citroen station wagon from the Netherlands, and the second car escapes me at this time.

Since we updated you at Multan in central Pakistan, we have traveled 1,000 miles. Yesterday we traveled 600 miles over two mountain ranges to the city of Quetta. The landscape changed dramatically when we left Multan and became desert - camels and sand dunes. There were young boys shuffling herds of goats and sheep. Camels were moving about randomly as cows and horses in our part of the world. Today we traveled another 600/700 kilometers and the day ended as we crossed the Pakistan/Iranian border and arrived at the city of Zahedan, which is populated by 450,000 people. We being now seven days in Iran. Iran being, next to China, the second lengthiest stay in any country that we will visit.

A few words about Pakistan and then Carl is here to share his comments. Some adjectives that I would use to describe Pakistan are: zany, potentially hazardous, the people are fun loving and have a very good sense of humor people, but they are people who are very hardened by their environment and their circumstances, people who might be inclined to quote more for a Coke or a cab ride than what the normal price or fare might be. Pakistan is a fascinating place to visit because it is so unique. But, it is also very corky and one must be, I think, cautious. In the part of Pakistan that we've been in for the last two days, people carry a lot of weapons. We were within several miles of the Afghanistan border and the police of Pakistan were assisted by the military in guiding our route through the country safely. We had a very pleasant stay in Pakistan. A place, as Carl has said before, we might be inclined to want to go back. But Pakistan is a very difficult place to comprehend and to understand. We've been driving very, very hard - more than a thousand miles. Today we drove through our first sand storm, sand dunes, camels - hundreds of miles of desert highways and one is amazed at the frontier that exists between Pakistan and Iran, almost 500 miles of vacant land, similar to the distance between Kansas City and Denver, or Chicago and Pittsburgh, all a frontier, mostly unoccupied.

Well, here's Carl now to share his update and thoughts. It's been 48 hours since our last report in Multan and we are in Iran tonight. We're assisted by local citizens who gave us a digital cellular telephone to use in making this report because we found it almost impossible to make any kind of transmission or call from Quetta, Pakistan for reasons we haven't sorted out and didn't have the time to do so because of the length of our drive. Well now here's Carl.

CS - This is Carl and I want to say hello to all of our friends and relatives and everybody that has been E-Mailing us and wishing us God speed on this trip, which has been an awesome, awesome trip. To think that in such a short time we would go from snowstorms to sandstorms, from desolate sand areas to watching monkeys by the side of road, like pheasants in South Dakota. And today we saw one humped camels. These are the dromedary kind. If you recall listening last week when we were crossing outer Mongolia, we saw the two humped camels. The scenery has been one of desolation as we came across western Pakistan and entered into Iran. People in Iran have been extremely friendly and helpful. Greetings have been sincere. The people of Pakistan are very friendly. It is a very interesting country. We've had excellent accommodations. Road conditions were awesome. There were a number of car failures, but the Packard keeps on moving down the road. We had some brake problems, but got that solved and we have our shock absorber problems again. But the engine, transmission, power train just keeps plugging along. Now we have a chance to get the car cleaned up. Tomorrow we'll get the shocks going and then it's on through Iran on our way to Turkey. I think that's enough from me, so I'll turn you back to Don who has a great deal more information for you.

DJ - We want to assure all of our family and friends that we're both healthy. We have lost a nice amount of weight. Eating has not been one of the highlights of our experience. Many people have asked how we eat and some of the details of our experience. Yesterday, for example, we did not eat at all - not a single meal. We never eat lunch and if we're able to catch a bite of breakfast at a hotel, we do that and we generally arrive late in the evening and grab a snack. But every few days we get a hot meal and that makes up for it. So eating is not one of the things that we can brag about. We do drink and consume a lot of water. The doctor on the trip cautions about dehydration and we try to consume as much as a liter of water an hour. So we carry a lot of water in the car.

Being in the desert today, a very hazardous 120 degrees on the outside, 130 plus inside the car. Alan and Joe would be interested in knowing that the cooling system was running at a comfortable 180 and that the oil temperature was running 140. So the car performed superbly in the heat of the Pakistani desert, which covered a vast 500 miles.

We want to report that we crossed a major river in this part of the world and invite those who would care to do so to look and to research the river because it has, we're told, quite a bit of significance in ancient history. The river is called the Indus and it is a major river that traverses Pakistan from North to South along the Sulaiman range of mountains. And crossing the river, I couldn't help but notice that it was every bit as wide and every bit as significant in size as the Mississippi and so we add the Indus River in Pakistan to our experience of river crossings, along with the Ganges, the Yellow, and all of the wonderful rivers of North America that we crossed since we left New York.

We believe that six to eight cars are out of the competition as a result of mechanical failures or accidents and the number of competitors has dwindled. We've arrived in Iran now and our first impressions are that the highways are as fine or equivalent to the highways of the United States. For the first time, we've seen highways that have markings on them and signage that assists a driver. In all of Pakistan, India, Nepal, China we saw no highway markings - stripes, center lanes, things like that - or very little signage. So being in Iran, we were quite surprised and pleasantly so, to see a highway that was identical every way to US standards.

We're expecting to have an extraordinary visit in Iran. I say extraordinary because when we first became planning this trip, we were actually very anxious and I think, cautious and apprehensive about coming to Iran. Since learning more about Iran and talking to people and learning about the Iranian teams that are in the competition, we've come to believe that our time in Iran is going to be very special. And we'll share it with you as it transpires.

So I want to end this update, which has been 48 hours in the making by giving you some of the highlights of our experience. We, in the last days, have traveled 1,000 miles across some very barren, very desolate desert and two mountain ranges of Pakistan. The people of Pakistan, in that part of the country, are leery of strangers. They tend to be very suspicious and cautious. They're very jovial when approached and their apprehension is overcome. There are a lot of weapons about because of the vicinity of Afghanistan. And it is a very harsh kind of a place, but nonetheless people are very cordial and it's fun and zany, as I say, to be there. There also has been a fatal accident involving the loss of life of a father and son and a deep sense of loss and hurt being felt by all of the competitors as a result of the death of Josef and Rene Feit of Germany, whose Volkswagen, at the end of a very long day came in fatal contact with a bus on the outskirts of the city of Quetta, Pakistan. Our thoughts and prayers are with the Feit family.

That's the news of the Peking to Paris Motor Challenge, reaching you at this time from Iran. For an American to be in Iran is a very special feeling and to be driving an automobile is quite extraordinary. We assure our family and friends we're in good health and we're doing everything to keep the Packard on the road. We'll complete, now, this update and please let us hear any questions or comments that you have by way of E-Mail on the Guest Book. On behalf of Carl, this is Don saying so long from Iran.