We started and ended our final race day in Colorado Springs, Colorado. We were in the Antlers Hotel, whose backside overlooks Pikes Peak, the highest summit of the southern front range of the Rocky Mountains.

Image from the hotel. Pikes Peak is the snow capped mountain on the right

There have been car races at Pikes Peak since 1916, called the Hill Climb, or the Race to the Clouds. When I woke up this morning, I noticed a wonderful photo of a Pikes Peak racer on the wall next to my bed. It was the perfect image to get me in the right mood for the final race day.

We picked up our race instructions and the supplemental change document, and Hal added the changes onto our 15 pages of instructions. Today was a half day, with the first car planned to cross the ceremonial finish line at 1:00. We were position 67 – thereby 1 hour and 7 minutes after the morning’s first car.

Complicating our day was the fact that Hal had to get to the airport in time to catch a flight back home. He had patients scheduled for tomorrow morning, and when we booked flights, we thought Hal would have plenty of time to get to the airport. We later learned that teams were penalized if they removed their cars early from the car shows at the end of each race day. We did not want to get hit with a two minute penalty, so we spoke with the Race organizer the night before. After some back-and-forth, we were told we could skip Sunday’s lunch, I could run Hal to the airport, and then swing back to roll across the ceremonial finish line without a penalty. Hal would be at the airport, I would have the car in the show, and all would be wonderful

Every morning racers and navigators are milling about, discussing the prior days’ highs and lows. It is a great chance to get pearls of wisdom from the experts. We heard from several race veterans that today would be the most difficult. We ran the calibration run, and our time was a bit different than prior days. We had heard that the high altitude impacts the tire pressure, which in turn alters the tire circumference, and thereby the speedo. We started at 4-3-3-2 and changed it to 4-3-2-9. That was a good setting, because we got 1 second on our first leg, which was 1 hour and 4 minutes long! The routes for the day were running up and down extreme inclines, and The Hippo’s engine was being taxed running at very high rev’s to be able to suitably climb and maintain speeds.

The Hippo was a tad off today, but that was to be expected. Colorado Springs is at an altitude of 5,994 feet, more than a mile above sea level. The Hippo’s carburetor pulls in the same volume of air at any altitude, and it supplies a consistent flow of gas regardless of elevation. The problem is that at higher elevations, there is less oxygen in the air, and less oxygen mixed with the fuel means the system is too rich with fuel.

There were lots of stops and turns, and we were crisscrossing with other racers for the first three legs. Leg 2 was still respectable, coming in at 3 seconds over 19 minutes.

Then we hit Leg 3. We were going up, down, and around in the first portion, and felt really good that we had it knocked. We came out of the valley and onto a road under construction, and were traveling 45mph through traffic cones separating us from oncoming traffic, climbing a twisty hill. I saw a yellow sign suggesting a reduced speed of 35mph, and asked Hal if there was an instruction telling us to slow. Nope. I white knuckled through the construction (being a Sunday, there were no workers, and 45mph was still the posted speed) and we ended up on a two lane two way road at 40mph for 36 seconds – then increased to 45mph. Our next instruction was to turn right on Wolfensberger Rd. Coming out of the construction, I expressed reservation to Hal, “There is no way the race designers would have us go faster than the suggested safe speed limit. Something’s not right.” We had a blue 1969 Oldsmobile 442 in front of us, and our distance apart was getting shorter. We looked at our race order sheet, and saw they were Rookies. Clearly, they had messed something up, and we were right as rain. The longer we drove, the more we questioned ourselves. Should we turn around? 10 minutes in, we were sweating. If we rode this out for 15 minutes, it would take another 15 to get back, and we would potentially be over the allowable excess, and be given a DNF (Did Not Finish). Expletives were flying. We were not upset with each other, we were upset that we might have blown the day. After about 15 minutes, Wolfensberger Road presented itself, and we literally screamed with joy! We were a car full of tense nerves, and the release of knowing we made the right decision by sticking to our guns was liberating.

There was however, still the matter of the Olds 442 in front of us. We were now VERY close to them. We drove through the checkpoint ending that 3rd leg, and then starting a fuel and bathroom break. This means all racers line back up for a new start, and while we were all 1 minute apart at the beginning of the morning, the times between cars change, because clocks reset at checkpoints. That pesky Olds was too close to run another Leg, so we opted to submit a Time Allowance Request of 30 seconds – meaning instead of starting 10 seconds behind the 442, we would start 40 seconds after them. Time Allowance Requests are encouraged to be used to prevent unsafe conditions, and this was a textbook case. We watched our clock, started 30 seconds late, created a good safe distance on the Oldsmobile, and felt very good about our times. We clocked out of that Leg and had the final Leg after that.

Once we hit the end of the race that was clocked, we pulled away from the rest of the racers and headed to the airport. Hal arrived with plenty of time to spare, and I then needed to circle back to get in line with the other racers. I looked at the Race Instructions and discovered a labeled highway exit, found other race cars, and jumped in line. We drove through the Garden of the Gods, a National Natural Landmark of rock formations and worked our way to the ceremonial Finish Line.

Garden of the Gods, Colorado Springs, CO

I bet you’re wondering about our scores…

Well, the 3rd Leg, the one with the traffic cones and the slow Oldsmobile 442 in front of us… remember the Supplemental Change Instructions we get every morning… one of those changes added an instruction of looking for a speed limit 50mph sign on the right. The way the instructions were formatted, that 50mph sign was a trigger for us to do 35mph before and through the construction zone. In the absence of the note, it read like we were to travel at 45 through the zone. The note was handwritten at the top of the page with an arrow between two task numbers. In the craziness of going through the construction zone, our focus was going from instruction to instruction, and we both completely missed this change. Well, the Olds was on the money, and we were the inexperienced Rookies! But we were in great company, because everyone we spoke with at the next stop was complaining about being run through the course at the elevated speed. Even several veterans made the same mistake.

Remember the Time allowance Request?

I was solo, working my way up to the ceremonial Finish Line (the actual finish was when the clock stopped prior to taking Hal to the airport), and I was greeted by the gentleman who provides our scores at the end of each day. I dutifully handed him our Time Allowance Request, and he clarified that he was unable to accept it. When the race clock halted, we were supposed to stop at an Observation Checkpoint prior to the scheduled lunch, to submit our request form. And without having passed through that checkpoint we were assessed a 3-minute penalty!

So, at Leg 3 we were 48 seconds fast. Leg 4, the one where we tried to submit the 30 second request, we clocked in at 31 seconds late. Had our time request been approved, we would have had 1 second. Leg 5 we had a respectable 5 second run. We could have had a 57 second total, handicapped to 52, but instead we ended with 4 minutes and 1.64 seconds.

The one day’s disappointing score did nothing to dampen the excitement and relief of crossing the ceremonial Finish Line, where I was presented with two Olympic style gold medals: one for the driver, and one for the navigator.

As the top of the medal says – TO FINISH IS TO WIN. This is not a statement of making all feel good by calling them winners, rather it is emphasizing that the race is designed to be very hard on the vehicles, and if they survive, then they have accomplished an extraordinary feat. Remember, 158 cars were registered, only 125 were able to start, and only 100 crossed the finish line. When we finished our clock time and started to head to the airport, we passed a race car broke down on the side of the road. The driver was kicking his car in frustration. I later learned this was that driver’s 3rd Great Race in three different cars, and he has never finished one race yet.

As this blog is titled, I really had no sense how this was going to go. Every day The Hippo survived was genuinely a bonus day. Somehow, we accumulated 12 bonus days! I got to spend 11 days with one of my oldest and best friends, on a true wild adventure; what could be better? Hal knew D.Donnelly, the man who had such an impact on my life, and every day the two of us would remark how D.Donnelly was looking down upon us and smiling. Every day I thought of him, and in its own strange way, the race helped me turn a page over the grief of D.Donnelly’s passing.

Hal sent a text from the airport with the following that was worth sharing:

“I have heard that if you orient yourself to all five senses you remember more vividly, and I had tried this on the trip… the Great Plains, the rolling Ozarks, the hot muggy flats of central Florida, the cow manure of Kansas.  The jolt and accompanying squeak of the clutch and brakes on decelerating on 5-4-3-2-1- .  The smell of (non-rancid) sweat mixed with the gasoline that always seemed to spray onto my leg when filling up The Hippo. The high-pitched roar of the engine on the open road and the hesitant straining as we climbed hills.  The smell of burgers grilling and sounds of kids playing as we pulled into small town lunch spots.  The baking heat seemed to vibrate tactilely in the Deep South heat.  Wow, so much.” 

If all goes per plan, The Hippo gets picked up by a covered transport service tomorrow (Monday) morning and will get delivered back to Baltimore on Friday. We closed with 115,415.9 miles on the odometer, which means we logged 3,601.8 miles on the journey. The Hippo was fantastic. I am asked in every town if I would be driving her back to Baltimore, and I always respond with a quick, stern NO. This has been an amazing trip, but I am anxious to get home to my wonderful wife, and my back and posterior are looking forward to something more comfortable than a 72-year-old vinyl seat with badly worn cushion springs.

I loved the cars, the racers and their teams, the company of my good friend, and the generous and welcoming people we met in every town. This has been an amazing experience. If you love old cars, I highly recommend you consider placing your name on the waiting list for a future Great Race.

Thanks to Shawn Lednick, Hal and my Coach, who was so generous with his time in training us, and then checking in on us every day. Shawn is a brilliant guy who I have enjoyed getting to know. He occasionally does business in Baltimore, and we look forward to connecting again soon.

Willy Moore (Driver/Author) & Shawn Lednick (Racer/Coach/Mentor) after crossing the finish line.

Special thanks to Marcus Ranum, for helping bring this blog to life, and for helping manage it from the start. And Extra Special thanks to Caroline and Jeremy, the wives of the Race Navigator and Driver, who supported us in this endeavor, and who have been worrying about us since we left. Hal and I are lucky guys!

Thanks for joining in on this wild ride. Hopefully we will now have something to laugh about the next time our paths cross. Cheers!