We were pole position #119 today. There was only one car behind us; we were second to last. When the 2023 Great Race opened, they had 158 cars that registered for participation. By the time the official race started in St. Augustine on Saturday, only 125 were cars were left. As of this morning, there were 120. The Great Race team has a long-bed car carrier that follows behind the race to pick-up any car that become disabled. McCollister, a car transport service and Race sponsor then carries all dead cars from town-to-town with a team of mechanics working to get them running again. There have been some great stories of people working to help get cars back on the road. A 1976 Toyota FJ40 Land Cruiser, who is neck and neck with The Hippo for being the least restored car, had its fuel pump seize, and a team worked furiously to find one for it, drove out of state to pick it up, brought it to them, and got her back on the road. I think I mentioned an Oldsmobile that started leaking transmission fluid on the exhaust and created a rolling smoke bomb. They got their car to a mechanic in Russellville, AK, who had worked on another great race car a few years back. The mechanic pulled the transmission, sent teams out to multiple parts supply shops to collect all the needed parts, and had the car back in the race the next morning.

Back to today’s race… We ran our time trial and adjusted our speedometer one click. The following is a photo of the back of our Timewise Speedometer. The four holes in the bottom each have adjustable dials to calibrate the speedometer. Yesterday we were set at 4-3-3-2, and today our trial results suggested the appropriate setting was 4-3-3-3. The speedometer sits in a piece of 4″ schedule 40 PVC pipe, allowing me to rotate the speedometer so I can keep my current speed in a 10 o’clock position on the dial. If I am driving at 50mph, I roll it to have the 50 on the dial at 10 o’clock, and if I am driving 25mph, I just turn it to roll the 25 in the same 10 o’clock position. The consistency of placement allows me to maintain more constant speeds and is less work on my brain.

Our start time was 9:59am. Since we do a dead stop start, with our opening speed at 40mph, it takes about 7 seconds for us to go from 0-40. We therefore started at 9:58 and 53 seconds in order to pick up the seconds lost through our acceleration. One problem though… At our exact start time a long string of non-race cars was driving on the one lane road, precluding us from pulling out and getting up to speed. We timed the delay at the start with a stopwatch, and when I thought I could pull out, two cars in front stopped to make left-hand turns. We had a ton of time to make up, and somehow way overcompensated for the correction, because we finished the first leg 29 seconds early. Both Hal and I were perplexed by this result because we were quite certain we had figured it all out very well. It’s a mystery!

During the second leg, we pulled up to a stop sign, with an expectation of restarting after 2 seconds. I released the clutch on Hal’s quick count, and The Hippo stalled. The two seconds became about 7 or 8 seconds, which we quickly made up, and we finished that leg with a 4 second score. The rest of the day went quite well, scoring a 5, 8, 2, and a 1! Given the last couple of days, we were VERY happy with these results.

Today was quite different than the last few days, in that everything was much flatter. There were some hills, but nothing close to the crazy steep inclines and twisting roads we had been dealing with over the last days. In the morning I spoke with a veteran racer who suggested that yesterday was the hardest day of racing, and nothing else should come close to comparing to that level of complexity.

Yesterday was hot, and today was hotter! Roadside businesses with digital thermometers on their signs were seen with temperatures of 102, 106, and 107 degrees. The Hippo has very thick old vinyl seats, and the backs of Hal and my shirts, and seat of our pants were thoroughly drenched from sweat. We keep a cooler of ice stocked with waters and unsweetened teas. Today, at one point I drank a cold bottle of water, and less than 45 minutes later my mouth was bone dry. We made sure to hydrate well throughout the day. Coming into our hotel at the end of the day, we heard that the father in a father/son race team had been taken to the hospital for heat exhaustion.

Just before our start, we were at a gas station fueling up, and because we knew it was going to be a scorcher, I purchased a pair of bungee cords. If the engine got too hot today, I could prop open the hood with a brick, wrap the bungee cords around the wings of the hood ornament, and clip the cord hooks on to the bumper. Fortunately, my jury-rigged solution was not needed, but the parts sit in reserve in the back storage area, should they be needed over the remaining days. Other older cars had propped open their hoods, and the Race had another electrical fire from a pre-radiator fan, this time in a 1967 Corvette. That is now three separate fires from these devices.

Late in the afternoon a loud squealing noise started coming from under the hood of The Hippo. I thought it was a belt problem, but when I could look at it during a break, I realized it was a carburetor linkage piece that was the source of the noise. It was a headscratcher, because I could touch the linkage and the volume of the sound would elevate dramatically. Strange, because the linkage had two parts hanging on a pin with a clip, and there were no parts moving to create friction for such a high-pitched screeching noise. Befuddled, I closed the hood, and hoped whatever the cause, that it would not turn into a bigger problem. When we crossed the Finish Line in Wichita, our race mentor came to check on us, and I shared my concerns about the carb. “Let’s take a look at it,” he said. We opened the hood, and I showed him how I could amplify the noise by merely touching the linkage. “Do you have a 9/16th inch wrench(?)”, he asked. Of course I did; I opened my toolbox, grabbed the requested wrench and presented it. “Oh, do you have a 5/8 inch? I made a mistake; I’ve had two beers already, and I’m not thinking quite right”, he said. I dutifully exchange the one wrench for another. “Now watch this” he exclaimed confidently. Using the wrench, he simply tightened the two bolts holding the carburetor to the manifold, and magically the sound disappeared. “It was a vacuum leak. Now it’s fixed”, he said. While I am a Rookie Racer, I felt like a rookie mechanic who was just schooled by an old pro. I felt ridiculous for not having even tested the bolts. I learn something new every day!

Hal and I had dinner with the Corvette owner who had the electrical fire, and he asked what we were driving. When I told him, he said, “I LOVE that car!” I suggested it was not nearly as nice as his beautiful sports car. “I don’t know about that. I REALLY love your car”, he said again. I jokingly asked if he wanted to trade, given his Vette is easily worth three to four times that of The Hippo, and he suggested he really needed to think about it.

Other random thoughts, notes, and highlights:

I forgot to include a photo from the Finish Line in Joplin, Missouri in yesterday’s post. The picture does not do adequate justice to represent the volume of people who attended; the town really came out and filled the streets.

In 1981, I was driving through Kansas in my 1976 Dodge Aspen station wagon. I pulled over on the side of the road and hopped on the roof of the car. I rotated 360 degrees and saw a consistent flat line of horizon in the full rotation. Not a single tree, hill, or obstruction to the horizon. Coming from the east coast, it was unsettling, not having the comfort of big trees and hilly terrain to provide a sense of protection and comfort. Our time in Kansas today has been delightfully different. We drove though hilly areas with bright green pastures as far as the eye could see. There were patches of trees with long-horn cattle collected around, to grab the shade they offered. The acreage of the farms seemed enormous. Interestingly we saw quite a few active oil rigs. For whatever reason, that was a surprise to the two of us. The rigs were scattered about randomly through massive crop fields, some pumping, and some not. Because they were surrounded with crops, we surmised that they must have underground piping, deep enough to clear tilling equipment, run to a central location for pumping into trucks for hauling. There were also a few big wind farms, and like the oil rigs, some were active with spinning and others sat dormant.

We lunched today in Emporia, Kansas. The restaurant had several wonderful black and white photos of Emporia from the Kansas Historical Society.

In the late 1800’s and early 1900’s, Emporia was a big railroad town, as it was where several different railroads converged. Sadly, the town today lacks the population to provide for such bustling activity.

Sorry for the poor image quality. The lights of the restaurant were reflecting on the glass of the picture. This image from 1895 was fascinating to me. There are 25 horses pulling this harvester, and there are 10-12 men working the horses and the machine. Today, one tractor with a GPS system can easily outperform all of this horse and manpower.

Today we crossed the Finish Line in Wichita, next to the stadium for their Wichita Wind Surge, Double A baseball team. There was a game underway by the time the Baltimore Bohs arrived.

The Great Race has a few teams that have multiple cars. We spoke with a member of a team from Maine yesterday, who was driving a 1932 REO Royale. The owner of their car had several cars in the race, and he apparently paid all his drivers and navigators to spend 30 days prior to the Great Race to run their own sample trials. Needless to say, they are all high performing teams.

On the other hand, we the Baltimore Bohs, along with our trusted steed The Hippo, are less than high performers, coming in 65th place today, and currently ranked 72nd cumulatively. And we are having a VERY good time!