PARIS (AP) The drivers joints are so painful from rheumatoid arthritis that she cant manage a stick shift. And the co-pilot who is helping to guide her through France as the navigator is blind, her sight snatched away by a brain tumor five years ago that stole her career as a photographer.
All the more reason, the two friends figure, for them to proudly show how capable they are by taking part in a women-only cross-country vintage car race from Paris to the Mediterranean.
Saint-Tropez, here come Merete Buljo and Tonje Thoresen.
Making the impossible possible! is the motto the Norwegian women adopted for their adventure this week. They like to think of themselves as successors minus the crimes of Thelma & Louise, the heroines of Ridley Scotts 1991 movie of female emancipation and the joys and perils of the open road.
That is us! said Buljo, the driver. For the race, they even hunted for the same car that Susan Sarandon and Geena Davis characters drove off a cliff.
When we were looking for a car we thought, Oh, a Ford Thunderbird. It would just be perfect! Thoresen said.
Two blind navigators
Thoresen is one of two blind navigators in the five-day Princesses Rally that roared off Sunday from Paris. Juliette Lepage, blind from birth, is the other, navigating a 1977 MG. Rallies are long-distance road races, typically with stages and checkpoints.
Without sight, Thoresen says her other senses are working overtime on the roads of springtime France: The smells of flowers and vegetation and of farming in the fields; the sharp chill of tunnels they whizz through.
And the orchestra of vintage engines some throaty, others purring racing down back-country roads. Thats music to the ears for petrol-heads like Thoresen, who says she can identify some cars just by their sounds and when theyre developing mechanical problems.
Im passionate about those sounds. It gives me adrenaline, she said.
The Firebird fails
Thoresen was incredulous when Buljo proposed that they enter the rally together.
I said, What? But Im blind! And she said, Yeah. And so what? Thoresen recounted. Shes very much like, We can do everything everything that is impossible is possible to do.
Unfortunately, the 1990 Pontiac Firebird they planned to drive couldnt keep pace with their ambition. It has an automatic gearbox easier with the arthritis that Buljo has battled since childhood.
Because of my legs, I cant drive a normal gearbox. I also have some problems with my hands, so I cant be on the gearbox all the time, she said. For me, driving has always been so very important for my freedom because I always have, more or less, pain in my legs, my knees, my ankles, everything.
But the car broke down a week before the start. They had to fall back on a last-minute modern replacement thats ineligible for the rally, which is open only to cars built between 1946 and 1991.
Still, organizers allowed them to come along for the ride, with the competitors, and keep their race name: Team Valkyries, drawn from powerful female figures in Norse mythology.
Beating shame
Having secured sponsors and crowd funding, Buljo and Thoresen didnt want their efforts to go to waste.
Theyre using this rally as training, figuring out together how Thoresen can help navigate the route and its checkpoints, even though she cant see it. Participants arent allowed to use GPS navigational aids and Thoresen hasnt yet learned Braille, which Lepage, the other blind navigator, uses to read and give directions.
But Thoresen says shes become as reliable as Londons Big Ben at measuring the passage of time, so can advise when its the right moment to make a turn. And Buljo says shes able to memorize route notes.
I have an inside map and Tonje has an inside clock, so we make a great team, she said.
Besides, simply getting from Point A to Point B was never their priority.
We wanted to also show that its very important to not be ashamed of your handicap, Thoresen said. Its very important to kind of be proud of the competences that you still have and to dare to do stuff.
巴黎（美联社）——这位司机的关节因类风湿性关节炎而疼痛难忍，无法操作手动变速杆。而作为领航员的副驾驶是盲人，五年前她的视力被脑肿瘤夺走，也夺走了她作为摄影师的职业生涯。
两位朋友认为，她们更有理由骄傲地展示自己的能力，参加一场从巴黎到地中海的女性专属越野古董车赛。
圣特罗佩兹，梅蕾特·布尔约和托尼·托雷森到来了。
“让不可能成为可能！”是挪威女性本周冒险的座右铭。她们将自己视为“Thelma & Louise”（雷德利·斯科特1991年电影《末路狂花》中的两位女主人公）的继承者，但“继承”的是电影中除犯罪行为外的其他内容，这部电影描述了女性解放和开放道路的欢乐与危险。
布乔（Buljo）司机说：“那就是我们！”为了比赛，他们甚至找到了苏珊·萨兰登和吉娜·戴维斯所驾驶的、从悬崖上开下去的那辆车的同款车。
托雷森（Thoresen）说：“当时我们在找车时，心想‘哦，一辆福特雷鸟（Ford Thunderbird），那将太完美了！’”
两名盲人导航员
托雷森是周日从巴黎出发的五日公主拉力赛中，两位盲人领航员之一。另一位是自出生起便失明的朱丽叶·勒帕热，他驾驶着一辆1977年的MG车参加比赛。拉力赛是一种长途公路赛，通常设有多个赛段和检查点。
托尔森（Thoresen）说，在失去了视觉之后，她的其他感官在法国春天的道路上超负荷运转：花朵和植被的香气、田野中耕作的香气，以及他们疾驰而过的隧道中的刺骨寒风。
这些老式引擎的合奏——有的低沉，有的轻柔——在偏远乡村的道路上疾驰。对于像托雷森这样的汽油爱好者来说，这简直就像美妙的音乐，她说她甚至可以通过声音识别出某些汽车，并判断它们是否正在出现机械问题。
她说：“我热衷于那些声音，它们能给我带来肾上腺素。”
凤凰鸟计划失败
当布尔乔（Buljo）提议他们共同参加集会时，托森（Thoresen）感到难以置信。
"托尔森回忆道，我说道‘什么？但我瞎了！’而她则回答道‘是的。那又如何？’她非常相信‘我们可以做任何事——所有不可能的事都是有可能做的。’”
不幸的是，他们原计划驾驶的1990年庞蒂亚克火鸟（Pontiac Firebird）无法跟上他们的雄心壮志。它配备了自动变速箱——这对于自幼便与关节炎抗争的Buljo来说，确实更为轻松。
她说，因为我的腿，我不能开普通的变速箱。我的双手也有些问题，所以我不能一直握着变速杆。对我而言，驾驶对我来说一直非常重要，因为它让我自由，因为我的腿、膝盖、脚踝等部位或多或少都有疼痛。
然而，这辆车在比赛开始前一周就坏了。他们只能临时使用一辆不符合参赛资格的现代车作为替代，而该比赛仅对1946年至1991年间生产的汽车开放。
尽管如此，主办方还是允许她们与参赛者一同参赛，并保留了她们的赛队名称：瓦尔基里（Valkyries）队，这一名称取自北欧神话中强大的女性形象。
战胜羞耻
Buljo和Thoresen成功获得了赞助商和众筹资金，他们不想让这些努力白费。
他们正在利用这次集会进行训练，共同探讨Thoresen如何帮助引导路线及其检查点，尽管她无法看到。参与者的活动禁止使用GPS导航辅助设备，而Thoresen尚未学会盲文，这是另一位盲人导航员Lepage用来阅读和提供方向的方法。
托雷森表示，她已经变得和伦敦的大本钟一样可靠，可以准确测量时间的流逝，并能在合适的时候给出转弯的提示。而布尔乔则表示，她能够记住路线笔记。
她说：‘我内心有张地图，而托尼内心有个时钟，因此我们是一支非常棒的队伍。’
除了这个，从A点到B点的单纯移动从来都不是他们的首要任务。
托雷森表示，我们还想展示，对于你的障碍，你不应该感到羞耻，这是非常重要的。更重要的是，要为你的能力感到自豪，并敢于去做一些事情。
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