Stage 2 Great Race 2018

Brad’s Birthday

Today we celebrated Brad’s Birthday. We are lucky to be able to celebrate with our race friends.  Brad shares his Birthday with a fellow racer, which we may have mentioned in the past. Our friend Sawyer is a child prodigy, he went to SMU at age 13 because it was the only university that would take a 13 year old.  He had his PHd in bio-medical engineering at 22.  He did his first Great Race when he was 9 or 10 years old. Obviously, he was not old enough to drive, but he could read and do the math. He turned 25 today and still does the race with his grandfather.

We started the morning in upstate New York and it was a little wet, but not too much rain to worry about.  Rain can cause a lot of issues when rallying. Aside from the obvious hazards it creates, it also affects the performance of your tire speed.   Each day we calabarate our speedometers according to the rally masters speed. They give us a course and we adjust accordingly. They do it in dry conditions, and if the weather changes we have to make the necessary adjustments to compensate for the wet conditions.  We had drizzle on and off all morning, but it has been a nice change from the hot races we have done in the past.

We rallied in the hills,  locals may call them mountains. There is definitely a lot of snow there in the winter, we noticed snow mobile paths and crossing signs, and a sign for a ski area.  The hills were full of mature trees, some pine and other trees that we could not identify.  Everything is in bloom right now, and the trees are beautiful, and the smells today were incredible.  At one point we drove through miles of honeysuckle and the sweet smells filled the car. We kept the windows down and enjoyed the fresh air.

Painting 101,  Upstate New York

After a nice lunch today at the North East Classic Car Museum in Norwich, NY, we headed out for some more rallying. Right as we were starting,  the skies opened up and it poured rain.  We rallied around other parts of Up-State New York some areas were naturally beautiful, while other parts looked like they once had lots of charm, but lost their source of income. We drove through towns with American flags on the street posts as well as most of the houses.

In the late afternoon we drove through Cooperstown, home of The Baseball Hall of Fame. There were baseball fans everywhere, all wearing their favorite jerseys. The fans were all ages.  The town was so charming with flowers all along the Main Street, and the old buildings all perfectly restored. It kind of reminded me of Disneyland in its perfection.

Cooperstown is located on Lake Oswego, we drove along the lakeside and admired the big beautiful homes with rolling front lawns.  We continued around the lake for about 20 minutes and then continued our rally.

We felt as though we were sloppy and kind of off all day, but we hadn’t missed a direction or made a wrong turn. We had know idea how we were going to finish, but we knew it wouldn’t be like yesterday.  We finished 4th overall yesterday, and 1st in the Sportsman class, which we didn’t find out until today, so a great gift!

First Place Stage 1 Sportsman Class

We finished the day in Troy, NY the birth place of Uncle Sam.  We were greeted with a good hometown crowd and lots of Birthday wishes. Sawyer’s mom Sue had a cake and Birthday hat for Brad, and the crowd all gave him good wishes too.  The best gift after a day of a lot of messy driving and unsure navigating, we finished with another  Ace,  a 4, a 3, 4, 2. We are given handicaps based on the year of the car. Ours is not much, but it brought the total to 12 and change for the day. We were thrilled!  It was far better then we could have hoped for.  We finished 11th overall for the day and 2nd in class. We are hoping we can continue this pace, but the reality is we are just at the beginning…day 3 tomorrow.

Brad in Troy, NY

Author: emcniff

This is not really about me, but about an adventure we are lucky enough to take each year. Each trip provides new discoveries, and the opportunity to see this beautiful country we are so blessed to live in. View all posts by emcniff