Volkswagen and the KTM motorcycle teams use German MAN trucks for their heavy-lifting needs. These trucks feature 12.4L in-line common-rail engines with up to 540 hp and can be configured with four or six-wheel drive.
I mention the language skills because one of the VW guys said that I "speak very American English". I still don't know if that was a good or a bad thing. He asked me if I knew what the most common language in the world was.
I said, "Spanish?"
He said, "No, broken English."
For the record, I bought (and brought) a Surefire flashlight for the trip with extra batteries, cleaned and brought my LED headlamp, and Volkswagen even gave us an LED head lamp. I also took along my Gerber multi-tool and a fold ing knife. I had just left all that stuff in the hotel room because I thought tech inspection would be run like a SCORE race. The "scrutineering" was more like signing up for college courses, and then going out to take your driver's license test. The French officials can be brutal, and the Germans have little love for them.
DAY 3, 9:22 PM
LISBON, PORTUGAL
Our car, 922, cleared through scrutineering without a hitch and we were back on our way to the hotel by 9:30pm. After a team dinner at a local restaurant I was back in my hotel room uploading photos and sending off emails. The time change was still messing with my internal clock. At around 1:10am (5:10pm in Los Angeles) I took the first half of a Dukoral vaccine that was supposed to protect me from Cholera. I was told by my newfound German friends that it would taste terrible. They weren't kidding.
The scrutineering went much later than we thought it would. Getting 14 Touareg chase trucks outfitted with the A.S.O.-supplied GPS and vehicle-tracking hardware took hours. It didn't help that it was raining.
DAY 4, 10:12 AM
LISBON, PORTUGAL
I arrived in the hotel lobby early that morning, and immediately could tell something was wrong. Volkswagen had scheduled a press conference for noon, but I could tell that the vibe in the lobby wasn't excitement.