#1) My wife Caroline went out of town for work this morning. We have been blissfully married for 33 years, and we dated for 4 years prior to that. Including today, we will be apart for 14 straight days, and that is almost double the longest time we have been apart in our 37 years together. The pending adventure will hopefully be a ton of fun, but I will surely miss her, and will undoubtedly be ready to hurry home when it is all said and done. Marla, our 2 1/2-year-old 140 pound English Mastiff, will keep her company. Whenever I leave, Marla goes into protective high gear, diligently searching the property for ne’er-do-wells.

#2) Tomorrow I hope to drive about 600-700 miles, hopefully getting as far as Savannah by day’s end. I know the wagon’s engine died in 1975, and I believe it was a utility vehicle for the several years before that. All to say that tomorrow’s drive will likely be the longest single day drive for the car in the last 55+ years! Add on the anticipated race mileage of another 1,900 miles over the 8 days for the race, and if we are lucky enough for the car to hold together, we will have traveled about 2,700 miles.

#3) I am worried about rain. A) We haven’t had any meaningful rain for the last two months, so I have not thought about it much. The wiper motor on The Hippo is a vacuum driven motor, pulling vacuum from the engine. The wipers work, turn the dial and they pick up speed, but I have no sense for how long that motor will work. Operating wipers are a requirement of the safety inspection, so I hope I do not hit too much rain on my way south tomorrow. I have applied Rain-X to the front and rear windshields, to cut down on the needed wiper time. I might be sweating through that a bit. B) The car has been in a garage for 44 years, and I have never driven it in the rain. The door and window gaskets are old original equipment. It will be interesting to see if any leaks appear. C) The brakes are all old drum brakes that are not nearly as reliable as modern disc brakes. I already leave lots of room between me and whomever is in front of me, but by adding rain into the equation, I will need to expand that distance a bit for safety.

#4) There are those that eat to live, and I am one who absolutely lives to eat. I have a weakness for good Bar-B-Q, brisket, any kind of Mac-n-cheese, and potatoes prepared just about any kind of way. Fried chicken, grilled chicken, hotdogs, double cheeseburgers, and most casseroles – I LOVE them ALL! And desserts, oooph, I can’t ignore a good dessert. Cookies, cake, and homemade pies – YUM. We will be in the car for 10 days with virtually no exercise, having lunch and dinner stops where each hosting town will be providing us with their signature meals. For heaven’s sake, I can’t be rude and pass on the hard work and kind gestures of fine food prep made by each town! I’m guessing this trip may likely be a 10+ pound addition to my midsection.

#5) Calculators – No digital calculators allowed. I do have, and will be bringing what I hope will be an allowed device that may give my navigator, Hal, an edge. I have a Curta mechanical calculator.

Curta’s are the some of the finest representations of German mechanical engineering and they were nicknamed the Math Grenades. They were the best calculator money could buy until the advent of the digital calculator, and they are exceptional at performing high math calculations. They were very expensive in their day. Its inventor, Curt Herzstock designed it while he was a prisoner in Buchenwald during WWII, and they were produced in Germany from the end of the war until 1971. It has over 570 moving parts and is comparable to a watch movement in its precision. About 15 years ago I was at a neighbor’s house, and I noticed a Curta on her late husband’s desk. I asked if it was a Curta, and she stopped, picked it up and handed it to me. She said, “Here you take it.” I explained that I couldn’t because it was a valuable machine. She said, “You are the first person who has ever known what it is, so you MUST have it!” These things were used on the salt flats for race cars doing speed trials. Surely, they will be fine for our use on the Great Race!

#6) On Sunday night Caroline and I watched some of the 1965 Great Race movie to get me in the appropriate mood. I will be lacking the period appropriate attire.

#7) Timewise Speedometer

For the race, accuracy is everything. As a race requirement, we must blank out the odometer on the dash, and it is recommended that racers not rely on their factory speedometers because of their known inaccuracy. Most racers have purchased a Timewise Great Race speedometer. John Tokar and the team at Vintage Restorations epoxied three magnets on the outer edge of the inner side of the driver’s side rear wheel. Then they installed a bracket that holds a reader about an 1/8th of an inch from the magnets, and transmits the rotation count to the steering column mounted device. To calibrate, I put a chalk mark at the bottom center of the tire, pushed the car to 3 full tire rotations, measured the distance traveled, and then adjusted the speedometer settings in the back of the device to have it appropriately calibrated. Every morning of the race, the organizers will have an exact mile marked on a road. All drivers are encouraged to run the course and readjust their speedometers accordingly.

#8) The Hippo

These cars never came with factory side mirrors; however one could purchase mirrors from Chevrolet that clipped to the rail of the driver’s and passenger’s doors. The back of the little round chrome mirrors almost looks like the little ears of a hippopotamus. The black #98 on the passenger headlight is a race requirement, as we are car #98 of 150 race cars in total.

A view inside the cabin. The large faced clock next to the original car clock is another race recommendation. It sticks to the steel dashboard with a powerful magnet, and will be used by the navigator. There is a button on its top that will stop the sweeping second hand.

That’s it for now. I depart in the morning and am hoping for clear skies for the next many days. Cheers!