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We prise open the bonnet and lob in a quart of oil. "You're using 5W oil are you?" says a rival. "I wouldn't have risked that. It's the wrong viscosity." Team TG has already been revealed as a bunch of British idiots and we haven't even left the start-line.

A chubby figure in a red boiler suit wanders over. His hairstyle is pinched from the 1960's and his round spectacles boast a natty pair of clip-ons. "Tim Hansen," he says, "glad the car made it." Hansen's eccentricities are well cultivated and he's become the subject of a fly-on-the-wall documentary. For the next few days he'll be followed by a cameraman who refuses to mix with the crowd for fear of compromising his artistic integrity. This event gets stranger by the minute.

Today's route takes us south-west past Philadelphia and Washington to Harrisonburg, a nondescript town in Virginia. We're being advised to stick to the highway, but I've never been to the White House, so we make a detour. George W's gaff is surrounded by security fencing and agitated officials. "Toenee Blair is coming," says a helpful tour guide, "he's kinda like the president of the United Kingdom."

Day one is also providing the first taste of the BABE Rally competitions. Each day we're to be given a challenge to complete and today's involves playing car snooker. A digital photograph of a red car must be followed by an appropriate colour, with pink scoring highest. Hapless punters are being pursued and snapped by a bunch of eccentrics in crap cars.

These endeavours are not without incident. We arrive in Harrisonburg to learn that the driver of a Honda CR-X-based three-wheeler is in trouble with the law. A driver took offence to having his photograph taken and called the police. Now, the officer is trying to determine whether the tricycle is legal. Determined to assert his authority, he eventually hands over a ticket for a cracked windscreen.

The incident highlights one of the peculiarities of the US system. "There's no vehicle testing procedure in Michigan," says John Deikis, the Honda's owner. "As long as you have the title documents and a VIN number you can register the car."

He bought the CR-X for a dollar after it was involved in an accident. "We welded together a tubular rear-end and used it to go ice racing for a couple of years, before we registered it for this event." The personalised number plate, which reads (BA2BE) cost $38 and is the car's most expensive feature.

Deikis travelled 670 miles just to reach the start-line, but his commute was not the longest. Tommy Gallagher and Patrick Weise drove 3,000 miles from San Diego, only for their '88 Oldsmobile to shear a control rod within 100 miles of the start. It took most of day one to fix it, but they're still in the rally.