16th Feb PM – Some say he has a carbon fibre beard. All we know is he is called ‘The Stig!’

Not going to lie. Not going to keep it secret any longer. Not going to be unbeknown to the world (does that sentence make sense). I AM THE STIG.

Day one is done. Only a short drive down the road of 550km’s. Compared to the London to Cape Town rally from 12 months ago it is only a sunday drive. You could almost touch the excitement in the air this morning as everyone was eager to get going and escape the city hussle and bussle of Rio. Even as a Queenslander I am going to say that today was HOT, and HUMID. Let alone for a pommie fella! I was so disgustingly sweaty and rank today. “ladies, please, not today, it’s for your own good.”

We pulled out of Rio, turned left and pretty much kept our left arm to the sea and spent most of the day like this. It was a great drive. Even with 70k’s or so of regularity competition. That is where we are given a distance to drive and have to do it in in the correct time given an average speed. Me and dad smashed out the primary school maths that we needed; good ol’ speed is distance over time triangle and all that hoo-harr. And did really well, only about 9 seconds behind over the 70k’s. We will have to wait until results are put up to see how we faired in the group.

Penny is the BOSS! Hauling ass like she should. And guess what!? We overtook a Bentley today! Bentley owners are probably grimacing at the fact that we trooped past them. =) hahaha

Brazilians roads and road users are – to me – probably the best roads to drive on. They understand lane markings, use them more often than not when in straight lines, but when anything else is happening you just drive where you want, weave when you want, overtake either side you want. My kind of driving!! 😀 A great mix between erratic Egyptians and conservative auzzies.

Word on the street is that a few cars are having some heating issues, running hot etc. and we barely even climbed an ant-hill today. You might even find a bigger hill in

England…. Lets hope they will all be able to climb the Andes……. 4 times…..

I am growing my beard! Why you may ask? You might not ask as well. Well, why not? I have somewhat of a desire while I am at home to look more or less good some of the time but while I’m traveling I can let it get staunch! Me and dad were both going to grow them, but he has given up and shaved all ready and we are only 1 day down in the rally!

Cool beans! Imma go get a feed of something Brazilian in nature 😛

I’ll try and throw something up most evenings and get as many pictures as I can cram down rural Brazilian bandwidth.

James