2020ne Great Race begins…

To those of you who are new to Miss Hathaway’s Great Race, Miss Hathaway is our 1966 Ford Mustang. She was named for Jane Hathaway from the Beverly Hill Billy’s sitcom from the 60s. When Ford came out with the base model Mustang, they said it was a car even a Secretary could afford. That’s how she was given her name.

The Great Race is a 9 day, 2100 mile time and distance, endurance rally. This year is our 7th time participating in the rally.

Today we started a new adventure at The Alamo in San Antonio, Texas. We have been in San Antonio the last three days prepping for the Great Race, and enjoying the sites around San Antonio. It is a bustling city with its River Walk as one of it’s many attractions.

Aside from the beautiful landscape along the river walk the two and a half mile walking trails offer shopping, dining and many hotels and the mandatory boat ride.

Remember the Alamo….

This morning, 100 vintage cars lined the streets around the Alamo to start the 2021 Great Race.

Before the actual rally began, we were able to spend some time in the old mission which is now famously “The Alamo”. We wandered the grounds, and learned a little of its history. After our historical tour, we returned to our car as the rally festivities began.

The rally drew a good size crowd for the opening day, and like most sporting events, we start with The National Anthem. We say a prayer for safety and return to our cars. We have the infamous “Start your engines”, the Great Racers are sent off one car every minute.

The cars are a variety ranging from Ford Model As to things as crazy as a modified Peterbilt Semi Truck. The newest cars are from 1974 and the oldest cars are as old as 1911.

These cars will make the 2100 mile journey from San Antonio to Greenville, South Carolina. We do not drive a direct route, rather a circuitous route using back roads and two lane highways.

Today we drove out of the city of San Antonio and North East to a town called San Marcos. San Marcos is considered a suburb of Austin, it is about 30 miles South East of Austin. We stopped there for a quick lunch, and headed North again. We were on mostly two lane roads in rural Texas. We saw many ranches with fully matured trees and high fences surrounding the properties.

Though the state flower is the bluebonnet, The sunflower is a close second. The center of the roads were covered in small sunflowers all in bloom.

We had also seen a few on the San Antonio River, it seems they are everywhere.

We also saw the growth that is happening in Texas. The suburbs of Austin are extending out, and the building is going gang busters.

We ended the evening with a dinner in Temple, Texas at the Santa Fe Train Museum.

We received our scores at the end of the day and we had a pretty good day. We finished two legs perfect and two legs with scores under 5.

We knew we had made some minor errors, but were thrilled to find out our dear friends JeanAnn and Gary Martin from Kentucky won the day.

We look forward to another great day tomorrow as we head to Nacona, Texas. Hope you come for the ride!