MissHathawaysGreatRace

Day 6 – We started the morning in Owensboro, Kentucky heading to Elizabethtown, Kentucky. We headed South toward Beaver Dam and then East toward Elizabthtown. We were again out in the country, and marveled at the mowed lawns that were more than an acre of grass. The farm houses sat on a hillside and the lawns rolled out in front of them.

Aside from the beautiful scenery, the smells as we drove through Kentucky were both sweet and interesting. While rallying around the countryside we could smell a sweet honeysuckle. We did not see any honeysuckle, but the smells were intense. We also were constantly driving by people mowing their lawns. We would have the smell of fresh cut grass waft through our window.

As we drove through towns we could smell the mash that is used to distill bourbon. We drove by a few different distilleries, but the one that stands out is Bullet. There were several large warehouses, and we could see the barrels in some of the windows.

We stopped for gas in the morning and while at the gas station we saw some Amish children. They were dressed in traditional Amish clothing, the boys in long dark pants with button down shirts and suspenders, and the girls in long sleeve dresses with their hair in a bun and white bonnets on their head.

After a few hours of rallying while driving through a small town, we came upon an Amish carriage. We slowed to pass them and then continued down the road.

Our morning was somewhat shortened because we changed from central time into Eastern time. We stayed out in the farmland until lunchtime. We headed into Elizabeth town’s sports park for lunch. They have a beautiful facility with many sporting fields. We grabbed lunch and scurried back out onto the course.

A little about the rally:

The cars below are all Kentucky Blue, and show the spectrum of cars that are in the rally.

The cars are all given a factor like a golf handicap. The older the car, the higher the factor. Jane is a “new” car from 1966. She does not have much of a factor which requires us to run cleaner. We have good days and bad days, but have not been looking at our standings in the rally. There are 5 divisions in the rally: X-Cup (high school & college age teams) Sportsman Rookie, Sportsman, Expert, and Grand Champion. Each division is allowed a specific number of legs they can throw out, and the last two days no legs can be thrown out. This Saturday and Sunday can make big changes in the standings.

We ended the evening in Lexington, Kentucky. We finished at a resort about ten minutes away from downtown Lexington. We worked on a fuse that may have been shorted out by some water leaking from rain earlier in the week. Who knew that a chewing gum wrapper could fix a fuse. Our friend Roger is an engineering genius, and he was actually under the dash working on the fuses with Brad. They repaired the fuse, and we headed downtown.

We are halfway through the rally, and we have seen some beautiful parts of the country. Beauty of course is subjective. That being said, I don’t know how anyone could look at some of these places we have driven through and not see some beauty.

This morning we started our day in South East Missouri. We crossed over the Mississippi and the Ohio Rivers. We did not transit far, but we covered a lot of terrain. We were in Missouri, Illinois and Kentucky today. The three states are so green and lush. We drove across winding roads and through hollows with trees creating a bridge overhead . We saw corn fields with corn head high, and more farms with cattle, horses and goats.

Aside from the beautiful scenery, it is fun seeing animals we never see at home. Although we did not see any armadillo in Texas, we did see one in Missouri. We also saw a groundhog, We have never seen a groundhog in the wild. We have only seen Punxsutawney Phil on Groundhog’s Day. We also saw a little red fox. They are much cuter then coyotes, and seem to be a little easier on house pets.. We have also seen many deer. Today, there were two doe and their fawn standing in the middle of the road just staring at us. As we came closer I laid on the horn to scare them off the road. Fortunately for us, the horn did the trick, and we continued without a delay.

On our way into lunch, we made a stop in Metropolis, Illinois. In front of the city hall is a huge Superman statue. We had to take the photo opportunity. After taking several photos, we hopped back in the car and headed for Paducah, Kentucky.

We stopped for lunch in Paducah on the Ohio River. I am always surprised by some of the crowds that we attract, especially at the lunch stops midweek.

While at the stops we are asked many questions. The most common question people ask us is the year of the car. The second most common question we are asked is where we are from. Today while at the lunch break, some people approached Brad and asked him where he was from. Our standard answer is Southern California. Most people respond with, you have come along way. These people told Brad they had family in West Covina, California. Brad laughed and told them that was his home town. We meet so many kind and friendly people, they are often the highlight of the trip.

Aside from seeing the country, the best part of this rally are the people. Brad and I have made many friends over the past seven years, and they come from all over. One couple we have become good friends with are from Kentucky. We met JeanAnn and Gary Martin our first year on the race. They seemed to always start around the same time as we did, and JeanAnn has always helped us. She became known as our “Mama Duck”. Seven years later, and we still follow her all over the country side as we transit from one town to the next.

We finished the evening in Owensboro, Kentucky. We drove through the arch next to the Ohio River. There is a fantastic park along the river’s edge. The park was packed with many people and the 100 or so cars that are in the race.

We have neglected to recognize the people who have helped us get here. First, thank you Dale Wilson and the entire Reliable Carriers Team. Reliable has not only sponsored us the last two Great Races, they hauled Jane all over the country the past two months. They shipped Jane from California to Maryland, Maryland to Connecticut, and Connecticut to Texas, and had her exactly where she needed to be right on time.

Next, thank you Kalli! Without your care for Mike, we would not be comfortable leaving him.

Lastly, we wanted to say Happy Birthday to Blake Zusman, and Happy Anniversary Janet and Dad!

Tomorrow, we are looking forward to another fun and beautiful ride to celebrate Brad’s Birthday!

We are up most mornings by 5:30am and in the car by 7:30am. Today was no different. We left Joplin, Missouri and headed East toward Rolla, Missouri.

Today was the first day that we really rallied. The last two days we were on the clock, but we were transiting in our timed sections. Those were tests to see how well the navigator could calibrate the speedometer, and the driver could hold speed.

Team work is always required, but today seemed like even more than usual. The navigator had many directions to follow and plenty of math to calculate, but the driver shared in the responsibility with undulating roads, twists, and turns, all while holding the prescribed speeds. The driving was a lot of fun today.

We had a quick lunch break in a town called Rolla, Missouri. The highlight from lunch was a sweet Golden Retriever named Auggie.

We drove through the hills of Central and Southern Missouri. Many of the roads are lined with large red rock walls with greenery growing out of the rocks. Everything is so green! Being from a metropolitan area with very little greenery, it makes you appreciate the beauty of the country side. The wild flowers are everywhere. Throughout Missouri we have seen orange day lilies everywhere.

We never know exactly where we are, but by reading town signs or highway signs we can figure out some of the areas we have been in. This morning I believe we were near Branson, but mostly we were in the hills around lakes, rivers and streams. The area was heavily wooded with a variety of trees.

We don’t have the opportunity to take many pictures in the middle of the day, but as we were driving in at the end of the day I took a few pictures of the country side.

When we pulled into Cape Girardeau, we had the biggest crowd we have seen yet. The side walks were sprinkled with people waving us into today’s finish, but when we arrived at the arch, the street was packed.

We finished the evening with dinner hosted by one of the local town restaurants. The restaurant is across the street from the Mississippi. We walked across the street after dinner and enjoyed the sights of the River.

We are ready to go again tomorrow!

It is crazy how the days run together, and you try to remember where you have been and what you have seen.

We didn’t cover too much of the landscape or day yesterday, so thought we would share the sights and scenery from yesterday and today. To recap yesterday, we started in Temple, Texas and drove to Granbery, Texas for lunch. We drove on mostly two lane roads that were long and straight Like Saturday, we saw many ranches. We saw cattle ranches, hay fields and corn fields as we drove North. The roads were lined with wild flowers and tall green grasses. The further into Central Texas we went, the more oil wells we noticed on people’s properties. Some of the oil wells were capped, but many had active oil pumps. Texas has had a lot of rain the last month and the green landscape makes it obvious.

We had lunch in a great little town called Granbery, Texas. Despite very warm weather, The Father’s Day crowd was fantastic. As we drove into town, people were line up on the streets for blocks. We parked around the towns courthouse, and were treated to a delicious barbecue lunch.

This morning we started in Ardmore, Oklahoma. After our evening in Nocana, Texas our traveling circus made its way to Ardmore, Oklahoma. The drive to Ardmore was fun because there were about 100 vintage cars driving together. We were all in a line and as we drove through the rolling hills we could see the 20 or so cars ahead of us and as far as we could see behind us.

We woke up this morning to wet pavement and slightly cloudy skies. We were on the road by 8:00am, and twenty five minutes after being on the road, it started to rain. The rain makes rallying challenging for two reasons. First, because it makes it difficult to see, but more importantly, it makes the roads slick. Trying to stop hard and not slide is an art that I have not mastered. Fortunately, we finished the morning without incident.

We went went to a car museum in Supula, Oklahoma. Supula is a suburb of Tulsa. Unfortunately because of the rain and construction, we did not have much of a chance to enjoy the museum. After sharing a little lunch, we jumped back in the car, and make our way toward Joplin, Missouri.

Joplin is a place that feels comfortable because it is an area where we have done a few regional rallies. Our friend Rex Gardner put on rallies here in Joplin to raise money for Autism. Rex’s grandson Justice is on the spectrum. Rex raised his goal of a $1,000,000 for Autism right before he passed away in 202. He gave every penny to different schools that specialized in working with Autistic children.

This afternoon was absolutely beautiful when we drove into Joplin. We all felt sure that Rex had ordered up the weather.

Rex’s family and many friends were at this afternoon’s events. The turnout at the end of the days event was incredible.

We spent the evening answering spectators questions and helping rookies with their questions.

It is now 11pm and we start again early tomorrow morning. We look forward to having a little more to share tomorrow.

We should start by recognizing all fathers today, and mine in particular. However we need to recognize three other people, before we discuss dads. First, our friends Jane and Sherald who we met at our first Great Race in 2014. Jane and Sherald flew from New Orleans to Dallas and then drove almost two hours to Nocona, Texas to be there when we came in at the end of the day.

When we came through the arch at the end of the day, there they were cheering us on. Aside from being our biggest fans when we drove through the arch, they had the town scoped out and showed us exactly where we needed to be. We were smiling ear to ear seeing our friends.

A few minutes later, we were all in the local saloon having ice cold drinks. While catching up and cooling off, our nephew Ford joined us. Ford drove from Fort Worth where he is in school and spending the Summer working. Ford drove his 1967 Ford Bronco an hour and a half each way to join us.

So now that we covered the end of the day, we will go back to the beginning. We started our morning in Temple, Texas where the weather was perfect at 8:30am. The sky was blue, the sun shining with billowing clouds going by and a nice breeze. It was Father’s Day.

We are obviously not with my dad today, but it made me think of my dad and his influences on me that brought me to this place. My dad loves cars and all things racing. As a young girl, I would go with my dad to the Long Beach Grand Prix and be in aww of the cars and the drivers. My dad would often go to the Indianapolis 500 too. I never made the journey with him, but the years he didn’t go, we would always watch it together on tv or any car race for that matter. I never thought I would race or rally cars, but my interest was peaked at a young age because of my dad. Thanks dad for bringing this great hobby, sport and passion into my life.

One of our favorite things about the Great Race are all of the father daughter and father son teams. I don’t know how many teams are made up of fathers and daughters, and fathers and sons, but we love that they do it. Below are a few of these teams and their cars.

We saw lots of families out today watching our group go by. It is always fun seeing families together enjoying the old cars.

More to come on the route tomorrow….Happy Father’s Day

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!

Oops, just realized this never was posted.

Our day started early and we decided that we were not going to look at our standings in the race. Well, come to find out someone let the cat out of the bag, and told Brad. He didn’t tell me, so I knew we were doing well, but didn’t know how well.

We spent the night in Tacoma, and headed North on Interstate 5. We ran for about 15 minutes North, and then they took us off the freeway and put us back on heading South. We calibrated our speedometer as Brad worked on the 26 pages of instructions. There were as many instructions yesterday as there were on some of the full days of driving. We were only driving until noon, so needless to say a full morning of driving.

After a bit of hustling and hard work Brad had most of the instructions identified and marked for timing. We started our rally and drove for about 20 minutes and then had a 50 minute transit, we are off the clock in transit sections. We both sighed some relief because Brad could go back and review his work and complete the instructions that were glossed over.

We rallied for a few more hours through the back roads near Tacoma, I am not really sure where we were. Our morning was going smoothly and we felt good about our first four legs, and then chaos reared it’s ugly head. We came to a signal, and the traffic was 10 cars deep. We pulled over and stopped hoping the traffic would clear, but it just kept coming. We time our stops, so if all goes well we can take a time delay for safety/traffic and it is not held against our time. The catch is, you have to turn in your time delays in 10 second increments. We were on the last leg of the race awaiting a checkpoint. Brad was scrambling to figure out the math. We were not on the perfect 10 so we had to adjust our speed, all while continuing many instructions, and correcting for each of those instructions. We finally came to the checkpoint, and Brad thought he did the best he could. We were either right on or we were going to have another high score on the last day.

We pulled into the Pacific Raceway where they were holding drag races. The ninety five or so cars that finished all piled in and parked. Some people grabbed some lunch and watched the racing. We were there for about two hours, and then we headed to the LeMay Auto Museum in downtown Tacoma.

We were greeted by a huge crowd, and friends from the race. We were surprised and excited to recognize a familiar face. Our friend James Goode was at our window as we were pulling in. James was unable to run this year because of the tornado and flooding that hit Jefferson City, Missouri. He has been a great supporter of Brad and me, and has been cheering us along for the past few years. His text messages and good wishes have always been encouraging.

We parked the car and still were not sure where we finished, but were thrilled to say, we finished another 2300 mile run in our faithful Jane. She ran perfectly through desert heat, cold rain, and even snow. She made it above 8500 feet and below sea level.

We went into the museum and enjoyed some more of the 3000 car collection of the LeMay family. The museum is well done and has a little something for everyone, not just cars. As we walked through the museum our friends and fellow competitors The Hedkes, gave us a tour of the museum. While walking around, we received a phone call from the race director that we needed to be at our car at 3:30. About 15 minutes later, our friends received the same call. They are in the Expert Class, and we are in the Sportsman Class. We were in the top two cars in our classes.

When they present the winners at the end of the driving day, they announce the top two finalist and then the winners. We lined up side by side and drove through the arch waiting to hear who won. We had a pretty good feeling we were in second because we had been trailing all week to our friends Neil and Shana. We came through and as suspected we came in second. We are thrilled with a second place finish in class.

We had an awards dinner last night that was both touching and fun. It took place in the LeMay Museum on the main level. The hall has a balcony over looking the city of Tacoma, the water and bridges. The hall was filled with Cadillacs on each side, and tables down the middle. We all ate dinner and then the awards ceremony began.

We quickly went through all of the awards for first through fifth place in all the classes and then the overall scores. We finished sixth overall, and again we couldn’t have been more pleased. Our scores yesterday for each of the five legs was a 1. We won the day for the Sportsman Class.

We feel very fortunate to have the best ralliers and teachers as our mentors. We say it every year, and mean it! We could not be at this point without Barry and Irene Jason. Their patience has been unwavering (or at least from our perspective), and their belief in our ability to succeed has been constant. They are inspirational! They won three Great Races in a row, and taught two people who aren’t as smart as most of the field to succeed in this fun and crazy race.

Our friend and fellow participants JeanAnn (aka Mamma Duck), has also helped us every step of the way. We would follow them when ever possible, and every morning Brad would have at least one question regarding the days instructions. JeanAnn always helps! JeanAnn thanks for making our race a successful one!

We had multiple emotional moments this year, we lost several racers, and three of the ladies who participated deserve mentioning. First, JeanAnn, she is not only the person we follow around like little ducklings, but she is currently battling cancer. She finished one treatment two weeks before the race, and now she is heading to the Mayo Clinic for 6 more weeks of treatments. She had a smile on her face every morning and kept up with all the experts for 9 long days. We are so proud of her not only for running the race, but for running everyday with a positive attitude and a smile on her face. Second, our Rookey Candice Yeager, she lost her husband June 6th, and chose to keep living and run the race. Unfortunately, her car wasn’t as motivated as she was, and although their beautiful Buick didn’t drive over the finish, Candice and her friends towed the trailer queen all the way and enjoyed the daily festivities. We look forward to Candice’s next attempt from San Antonio to South Carolina in 2020.

The next ladie who won the Perseverance Award goes beyond what most people could endure. MaryBeth Lewis lost her husband Tag to a heart attack after the award ceremony last year. She was coming this year to be with her extended family and rally again. The weekend before she was leaving for California, MaryBeth had dinner with her 23 year old son. After dinner, he went out with some friends. He was killed that night in a car accident. MaryBeth called the race director and told him what had happened, and to all of our surprise, said she would be coming in late, but would make the race. MaryBeth drove her beautiful Cadillac convertible that won “The Best Car” award last year with Kim Ferdette. They finished 50th overall, but first in all of our minds. She truly is deserving of the Perseverance Award.

Our evening ended with hugs and until next times.

Again, we can’t thank each of you enough for the daily well wishes. We love sharing the beautiful sights and stories. We hope this inspires some of you to see our incredible country.

We made it home safely, and we wanted to share a short video that incapsulates 2300 miles in 15 minutes.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=-fCPS5WHOFY&feature=youtu.be

We look forward to sharing the South East with you next year. We will be starting in San Antonio, Texas and finishing in South Carolina, and I can’t remember or find the final city.

Thank you again for your support and well wishes.

This is the part of the race where things start to meld together. You start forgetting where you started, what you saw, and even what you had for lunch. Fortunately, with the help of a few pictures I vaguely remember the day.

We started the morning in Vancouver and had a full morning of rallying. We were traversing back and forth across the Columbia River. The river was pretty and different in that we were at lower elevations, so the trees were a little different. There must be a million cottonwood trees because the air is thick with white seeds.

We had a brief “coffee break” in Astoria. Brad and I stopped for gas and Brad spotted a smoked salmon shop next to the gas station. While Brad was filling the car, I ran next store and picked up some smoked salmon. It was the second best smoked salmon we have ever had. The first is Kokonee Salmon that we had with our friends Sue and Mike in Montana, but this was a close second. They marinated the fish in wine and maple and then smoked it. It was quite the mid morning snack. We quickly stopped at the morning break and then continued on down the river.

We drove toward Longview, Washington and enjoyed more of the road side beauty. The Foxgloves have been everywhere bright pink and full of blossoms. The other plant that grows like weeds is blackberries.

The blackberry bushes really impressed us, mostly because we have had little success growing them ourselves.

The morning part of rallying ended in Longview, where we were greeted by a huge car show. The locals had lined up 3 or 4 city blocks full of classic and collectible cars. We were offered lunch by a local restaurant, but our salmon snack had filled us up and we had directions to go over before the second half of the day.

After lunch we headed toward Spanaway, Washington to the LeMays private collection. We pulled into a driveway and looked out on a big lawn with manicured bushes and trees lining the driveway. The driveway was long, and we drove down it and then parked on the lawn.

We were told the LeMays have the largest car collection in the country. Along with the cars they have collected a plethora of other items. They are a local family that has a refuse company and have collected for many years. They had over 3000 cars in their collection, and have given part of the collection to a museum.

I don’t remember if I mentioned it earlier this week, but we were lucky enough to be sponsored by Reliable Carriers this week. Mike and Cindy have been with Reliable Carriers for as long as we have done the Great Race, and most likely longer. Mike and Cindy drive the sweeper truck, so they do the entire route with us. They also load all the cars that are being shipped home, and make sure they end up at the right place.

Today was super long, especially after lunch, but there were only two check points. We were not allowed to throw out any scores today. We lucked out and had a great day. We ended up having one of our best days with a total score of 8. We even had an Ace. We decided we are just going to enjoy tomorrow, so we did not look at the standings. You are welcome to check at http://www.greatrace,com and look at the rally details and scores. We just decided this is a race that is not over until we are finished and no reason to look.

We are looking forward to Jane running well tomorrow, and enjoying the Tacoma area as we rally for the last day to complete the Great Race 2019.

More to come tomorrow.

In the words of Bartles and James, “Thank you, for your support!”