Hal, his wife Jeremy, and their two kids, Molly and Ben, along with Caroline, our two sons, Henry and Ben, and yours truly, had a wonderful long run of summer vacations together. There was always a lot of waterskiing happening amongst our group, on Lake Norman in NC. 10-15 years ago, Caroline and I thought it would be great to find a waterski instructor to help us all improve our game, and somehow we found Bill, the supposed Assistant Coach to the Davidson College waterski squad. Bill was an interesting character, and we quickly learned that he was really no more than the boat driver for the team. He was an extraordinarily good water-skier himself, and we thought he could surely pass along some good pointers. Upon wrapping up our time with him, we asked if he had some good advice for us to take away – guidance to help improve our skills. Bill thought for a moment, and said, “Just do better.” We all had a good laugh on the way home, realizing we paid good money to learn better techniques, and our lesson was to just do better. That mantra has been frequently repeated over the years when our two families get together.

Tomorrow and Sunday are the Championship runs of the Great Race, meaning no poor scores on individual race legs will be stricken. We had today through Sunday to improve our game. Were this a speed race, we could drive faster or try to improve the engine to develop greater horsepower, torque, or speed. Were it a race of physical stamina, we could exercise more. Hal and I had a good laugh, because the only thing we could think of doing to up our Great Race game, was Just Do Better.

We started the morning receiving 1 1/2 pages of race instruction changes. That is a lot of changes, and they just added confusion. We left immediately upon receipt of our day’s instructions, and started our calibration run. We had about a 25-minute run and ended up adjusting the speedometer by one click – from 4-3-3-2 to 4-3-3-3. From there we headed off to the start of the race. The first leg was uneventful, and we scored a 6. The second leg was sneaky. We were traveling down a two-lane road, one lane with traffic in each direction. We were readying for a left-hand turn when another Great Race vehicle, a black Ford pick-up, came towards us and made the same turn prior to our reaching the intersection. Our first reaction was this driver must have missed the turn when traveling in our direction, then turned around some distance down the road, traveling back to make the missed turn. Now they were in front of us, and we both passed a checkpoint. Our next instruction was to turn right on a named road. We were traveling at 45mph and felt relieved that we would benefit from this driver in front of us, because we would see him make the turn, and we would know the exact location of the road. Traveling fast with turn instructions can be tricky, because one must slow down to read the names on the signs, otherwise you miss them altogether. Every time one slows from the proscribed speed they need to make up that lost time. We saw an approaching right turn but did not give it much thought, because the car in front blew past it. As luck would have it, it was our street, and Hal yelled, “This is our turn!” I slammed on the brakes, pushed in the clutch, downshifted to 2nd gear, yanked the steering wheel hard to the right, then popped the clutch and hit the accelerator. The back end of The Hippo swerved hard, with Hal leaning over onto me as we swung around. We miraculously pulled out the turn. As we surged forward, I started thinking about the car in front of us. I knew the 4 cars that were supposed to be in front, and the black Ford was not one of them. Hal checked the list, and that Ford was 10 or 12 cars ahead. I asked Hal if we had three more right hand turns as our next three instructions, and he confirmed. The race designer had everyone going around the block, but instead of being a city block, each side of the block was several miles long. As we made the turn onto the road where we first saw the black Ford, we started strategizing how to make up the needed time from our last turns, because we knew we were going to pass the checkpoint again very soon. As we were noodling through that, I asked Hal, “By the way, what’s our next instruction?” He said, “Increase speed to 50mph at the first 55mph sign.” While we were strategizing how to make up time, we stopped paying attention to the road, and flew past the 55mph sign, missing it altogether. Now we had to make up for the lost time on the turns AND an unknown amount of time. What to do? You know where this is going… Floor it! We made our last turn and tried to pick-up as much time as possible, but we also had to swiftly brake after passing the checkpoint for a second time, because we were now into our third leg, and we needed to be back at the new proscribed speed. The net effect – we scored a 10 second loss on the second leg. We were both happy with that outcome given the circumstance.

Leg 3 we scored a 6, and then Leg 4… ACE! Zero seconds lost! Now we’re talking! We took a break for lunch in Great Bend, Kansas, in a park with a pool, a zoo, and a glorious old Santa Fe Railroad steam locomotive.

We left lunch and headed to our next race start spot, but we had to work through corrections to the route that were identified in the Race Changes sheet. This proved to be a confusing mess, with cars going in multiple directions, and fortunately we were able to get things sorted out and get to the starting gate just in time. Leg 5… ACE! Heck yes, we NAILED it! Leg 6 was 1 hour and 43 minutes, and 51 seconds long, and we missed it by only 3 seconds. With our 1951 handicap, we scored 22.63 for the day.

The two new Aces were fine additions to The Hippo’s door.

Other random thoughts, notes, and highlights:

Wichita was a nice little town with a river running through its middle. On our way out this morning, we saw the following lovely old building that now houses the Kansas Historical Society:

Shawn Lednick, our carburetor repairman and Race Mentor, always checks in with us at the end of every day, and always provided us with excellent advice.

L-R: Hal Burnet (Navigator), Shawn Lednick (Racer/Driver/Mentor), & Willy Moore (Driver), in front of Shawn’s 1966 Convertible Mercury Cyclone

Today’s driving routes were FLAT. Nary a hill, nor bump, just flat. We passed 2 enormous cattle feed lots with thousands of cows that were presumably being fed corn to fatten them up prior to shipping for slaughter. There were feed troughs that seemed like they were a 1/4 mile long, with cows shoulder-to-shoulder eating away, and then pens with cows to be rotated to the feed troughs.

The strangest thing we saw on Friday… Camels and zebra! We passed a fenced in area by the side of the road that was either a small zoo, or a farm with an owner with a quirky sense of humor.

A pair of delightful Brits, driving a 1962 Jaguar MK2 that they shipped over for the race, managed to clip the hoof of a deer. They were driving along at a fair speed, minding their own business, when the deer leapt in front of and over them. The deer’s hoof managed to collide with the leaping Jaguar hood ornament, and miraculously, both the car and deer seemed to be none the worse for wear. The driver and navigator have a wonderful story to take back to Great Britain.

Tonight, we are in Garden City, Kansas, where the town showed up in force to welcome us.

More window weather-stripping is falling apart on The Hippo, this time on my side of the car. With the windows down for 7 hours of driving a day, the wind velocity has managed to accelerate the decay of the dry-rotted material. I will have to freshen all that up when she gets back to Baltimore.

Driving with the windows down, we pick up some unwelcome passengers every day. We have managed to attract every type of bug imaginable, and when we are moving, the airflow is so strong, they cannot seem to find a way out. Being in cow country the last two days, we were getting biting horse flies: not fun.

Today we were ranked 46th for the day, and we moved up to 66th place in the cumulative ranking. There are 26 Rookies, and we have 19 behind us and 6 ahead of us. We have been told by several race veterans that tomorrow and Sunday’s race legs will be very difficult. All we want to do, is Just Do Better!