A DRIVE OF A LIFETIME - AND THEY'RE OFF
15 May 2015
Kim McCullough, Vice President, Marketing, Jaguar Land Rover North America, together with her husband Mitch, are competing in this year's four‑day, 1,000‑mile Mille Miglia classic car rally in Italy, driving their 1954 Jaguar XK120.
Yesterday, after months of anticipation, they finally crossed the start line on the first leg of the rally, from Brescia to Rimini; a challenging 10‑hour charge. Here Kim tells us about losing engine power, losing the fuel gauge and losing her voice.
After all the planning and preparation, how does it feel to finally be driving the Mille?
It was such an exciting first day. The anticipation, the internal butterflies, the worries about whether everything was going to keep working. To drive up on to the podium and hear your names on the loudspeakers and the cheers from the crowd, it was just so emotional.
Where did the route take you?
From Brescia we went around Lake Garda to the ancient city of Verona. Then we drove south along the eastern side of Italy, passing through Ferrara and Ravenna, before arriving in Rimini at 1:00 AM. A 10‑hour drive, but even after that amount of time behind the wheel, somehow we didn’t feel tired. There was so much adrenaline and espresso.
Have you experienced any problems thus far?
We did experience one little heart‑stopping moment. We’d been caught up in a lot of traffic leaving Brescia which was moving quite slowly. The weather was hot and we knew the engine was getting hot. When we arrived at the first time trial, we waited to set‑up our stop watches, but when we accelerated away, the engine suddenly died. We tried to re‑start, but the engine just wouldn’t run. We quickly diagnosed it as a vapor lock in the fuel line, where the heat causes the fuel to literally vaporize. All we could do was wait for everything to cool off. After 25 minutes, it started up and ran perfectly for the rest of the day. The only other issue was that our fuel gauge quit on us. Hopefully it’s just a fuse. Oh, and I’m losing my voice, which makes giving directions to Mitch interesting.
Is local traffic a problem on the event?
We haven’t experienced any traffic problems at all, especially when you have an Italian motorcycle cop in front of you creating a middle lane in the traffic, when one doesn’t really exist. It’s just amazing to watch the reaction from other drivers. They just ease over to let you pass and then give you a friendly wave and a smile. All along the route so far, there are thousands of spectators lining the sides of the road. Three words we hear constantly are “Americans” and “Ahhh, Jaguar”.
Do you feel you are settling into the driving after all the excitement of the start?
It’s funny, one of the special pieces of timing equipment we had fitted to the car is this amazing period machine called a Brantz Retrotrip Rallymeter. It’s essentially a very accurate odometer. Being analog rather than digital, every tenth of a kilometer it makes this loud click as the digits roll over, it sounds very much like a metronome as we’re driving along, and has become quite soothing. I think I might need to fit one to my company car when I get back home.
What’s planned for day two?
It’s a huge day, maybe 15 hours of driving that will take us all the way into the center of Rome. The forecast is for a little rain, but I think we’ll skip wrestling with the XK120‘s canvas top and just get wet. We’ll just have to drive faster so that the rain goes over the top.