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Team Yakity Yak makes Yekaterinburg
Courtesy of team Yakity Yak Mechanic Bill Erickson and his co-driver, Steve Dole, keep their vintage car "purring along."
STORY TOOLS 
More from LifestyleSmack in the middle of the transcontinental Peking to Paris race, Ventura mechanic Bill Erickson and his co-driver, retired airline pilot Steve Dole of Pacific Grove, were relieved Wednesday to be getting a day off in Russia.
Their 1925 Buick Roadster is among 133 vintage cars on the 35-day race from Beijing (formerly Peking), China, to Paris, France. The race, which began May 27, commemorates the 100th anniversary of the first Peking to Paris race in 1907.
Having crossed Mongolia and the brutal Gobi Desert and suffered through some mechanical suspension problems, the teammates they're called team Yakity Yak have made it to Yekaterinburg, Russia, after a drive from Tyumen.
Because Tyumen is the birthplace of "White Christmas" composer Irving Berlin, Dole rounded up 12 racers and led them in a spontaneous chorus of the holiday classic.
As for the terrain, Dole said it has been flat, flat, flat.
"We have a pool going," he said. "The first person to see a hill wins."
The Russian people, he said, seem a bit more wary than the carefree Mongolians they previously encountered along the way.
Dole estimates about 45 people are out of the race due to mortally wounded cars, but, because Erickson can fix anything, he said, they are still in it. "The car is purring along, but we're not patting ourselves on the back yet," Dole said.
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