Great Race Days 3 & 4 Birmingham, AL to Memphis, TN & Memphis, TN to Russellville, AR

Great Race Day 3 was from Birmingham to Memphis. We started the day in downtown Birmingham, and quickly were on the interstate heading towards Tupelo, Mississippi.

We drove around the farmlands and back roads of Alabama and Mississippi. The lush green countryside is still a sight of beauty. Corn and peanuts fill the fields, tractors, farm implements and trucks are occasionally spotted on the roads. As well as a speeding rally car that may have missed a turn.

Tupelo, Mississippi is the birthplace of Elvis Presley. We headed there for our lunch break. Before going to the lunch stop, we toured around the the home he grew up in.

We had lunch in Tupelo at an aquatic center outside of town, and then headed toward Memphis. We are not only on The Great Race, but a little Southern college tour. We have touched on several cities and towns with major universities. Today we drove through Oxford, Mississippi, home of Ole Miss.

We ended the day at Graceland, in Memphis, Tennessee. We drove down Elvis Presley Boulevard and saw The LisaMarie, Elvis’s airplane sitting across the street from Graceland.

When we arrived our friends Jane and Sherald Buras greeted us at the finish. We met Jane and Sherald on our first Great Race, and they have stopped participating in the rally, but have met us several times over the past 8 years. We spent the evening catching up and watching baseball.

Thank you Jane and Sherald! We appreciate you making the effort and drive to see us.

Great Race Day 4 Memphis, Tennessee to Russellville, Arkansas: We wake up early every morning to make sure we were prepared for the day. We have a ritual we go through which includes packing the car, making sure the air pressure in the tires are correct, and if we did not fuel up the night before, fill the gas tank. This morning was no different.

After our preparation, we wait for the daily course instructions. We are given an exact time to pick up the packet, and part of Brad’s navigation duties are to pick up the instructions. We make sure the packet is complete, and jump on the road.

This morning we headed up Elvis Presley Blvd. toward the interstate. We drove West toward Arkansas and crossed the Mississippi River. We continued on, and crossed the Arkansas River. As we drove deeper into Arkansas, we were out of the cities and towns, and driving the back roads. We came upon wooded marshes and bogs. We were heading to North Little Rock for lunch.

After a quick lunch break, we headed toward Russellville. The sky started turning a dark gray. We were concerned because it is hard to see and challenging to brake hard when the roads are wet and slick.

We had a little luck today, it didn’t rain too hard. The afternoon was full of speed changes as we drove through the Petit Jean mountains.

We stopped at The Classic Car Museum in the middle of the mountains. We stopped and asked one of the volunteers how the museum ended up in the middle of the mountains. He told us that Rockefeller loved the Petit Jean Mountains, and purchased much of the mountain.

Rockefeller was a car guy, and built the building in 1964 to store his cars. After he died, the building was given to the state and the museum was started.

After our brief visit to the museum we headed back down the mountain. It was a twisting and turning drive at speeds of 15 and 20 miles per hour. The brakes were surely tested on automatic transmission cars.

Janes held up great, and we finished the rally in Russellville, Arkansas. Russellville is a city of about 30,000 people. We had a nice turn out for a Tuesday night.

We receive our daily scores at the end of everyday. Today we were thrilled with our scores. We had 7 seconds for the day with 6 check points. We knew it was a great score for us.

We mulled around the town for a while and headed to dinner. We were finishing dinner when Brad received a phone call.

The race director, Jeff Stumb, asked Brad to come to our car. We skipped out on dinner, and headed back to Jane.

Our scores were the best of the field, and we won the day.

Thank you to Mustang Country, Jane is running like a champ. We couldn’t do this well without a smooth running car.

Thank you McCollister’s we appreciate your sponsorship and support!