We eventually reached the border at Rivera mid morning, and managed to clear the customs quite quickly. Lots of border guards trying to look important, but we were soon on our way to Tucarembo and the start of the Uruguay Prime – 125 miles in 1hr 30m – again (seemed to be a favourite target time!).
Another hellishly fast time to make and this time with a lot of 2-way traffic. We were amazed to see how many ancient cars were driving on the roads, and I do remember one old lady in her Sunday best (well, it was Sunday!) in a Model T Ford I think, with a lovely hat looking absolutely horrified and scared of all these fast noisy cars rushing past in clouds of dust – luckily she was going the other way!
There were several crashes in this fast dirty section and we lost the one-time leader, Rene Trautman with his big Citroen after he somersaulted into a ditch trying to make up time on the Prime, but eventually we reached the ‘highway’ and the long tarmac run into Montevideo for a much welcomed night’s sleep. We were a bit shattered I must admit.
Only 52 cars running now … ready to cross the River Plate in the morning…..
This post is a part of a series of posts in which Bron Burrell recalls her 1970 World Cup Rally. See all Brons posts in this series.
