APRIL 13, 1998

South American Vacation

AFTER the Brazilian Grand Prix the majority of the Grand Prix circus stayed in South America for a few days of rest on Brazil's beaches or at the tourist centers in Argentina and Uruguay.

AFTER the Brazilian Grand Prix the majority of the Grand Prix circus stayed in South America for a few days of rest on Brazil's beaches or at the tourist centers in Argentina and Uruguay. Some of those involved chose to take off into the peace and quiet of rural Argentina and some of the technicians from the French composite company Carbone Industrie, which supplies brake discs to several of the F1 teams, decided to take this route.

They were motoring down a road in northern Argentina when they were somewhat surprised to be overtaken by a truck being driven at break-neck speed. Soon afterwards a police car hurtled past them. It slewed to a halt in their path and a couple of policemen ordered the two CI technicians in the front to get out of their car. Wondering what they had done wrong, they complied only to see the car disappear into the distance, driven by the policemen with their CI colleague stuck in the back seat.

It transpires that the truck had been running a consignment of drugs across the Argentina-Brazil border and that the police concluded that they would have a better chance of catching the drug-runners in a faster car and so requisitioned the rental car being driven by the confused Frenchmen.

The chase proved to be unsuccessful and the rental car was returned to the vacationers...