It has now been 7 weeks since the end of the Great Race, and there is an apparent need to close the loop by answering a variety of questions, and maybe sharing another story or two.

How Did We Place? – Well, I think I had shared that 158 cars had been originally registered, and only 101 crossed the finish line. The Baltimore Bohs and the Hippo ended up in 80th place overall. That poor placement has to do with the 3 minute and 30 second penalty we received on the last day, by failing to stop at the final checkpoint on our way to dropping Hal off at the airport. With that penalty, we ended up in 100th place for just the last race day. Had we not been assessed that penalty, we would have finished 67th for the day, and in 57th place overall. Even that does not sound great, but our overall time would have been 5minutes and 15.35 seconds. The 5th place Rookie, which was a money winning position, finished at 5 minutes and 1 second – so we were VERY close. Ultimately Hal and I had much to be proud about, and safe to say we performed well better than we expected.

Did I Drive the Hippo Home? – NO! After 12 days behind the wheel, I had had enough. The Hippo was packed away in a covered transport on Monday, July 3rd, and was delivered back home in Baltimore on Friday, July 7th. I drove the car into the trailer in Colorado, and there was a delay in getting it back to Baltimore by the expected time. As luck would have it, I had a client meeting that I could not reschedule when the car arrived, and my gracious and helpful neighbor, Joe Bennett, was kind enough to oversee the offloading process. Joe later reported, “Willy, I’ll be amazed if you have any clutch left on that car! The transport driver had no idea how to drive it, and he revved the engine to its peak, and was burning the clutch plates trying to get it to move.” Fortunately, The Hippo survived, albeit with a couple thousand miles less of driving capacity on the clutch!

The Unexpected –

1. Getting three Aces. An Ace represented a perfect score on one leg of a day’s race. For all the craziness that happened within each race leg, it was simply inconceivable for us to get even a single perfect score.
2. I lost 9 pounds! When my wife Caroline picked me up at the airport, she said it looked like I must have birthed a 10 pound baby. For all the Bar-B-Q, hamburger, hotdogs, and desserts consumed over all the days, I would have NEVER imagined that I was going to lose weight! As I had mentioned previously in the blog, this racing stuff is the BEST exercise EVER! No more Nordic Track for this guy. Hop in the Hippo and GO, and watch the pounds evaporate.
3. Armadillos – I had never seen one until driving through Arkansas, where there was one walking down the middle of the road.
4. When one spends hours on a boat, it is fairly common to have the sensation of movement when stepping out of the boat on solid ground. Standing still, one feels as though they are still on the boat, bobbing up and down. On the last race day, after 7 days of focusing on the Timewise speedometer, and driving mostly with peripheral vision, we pulled up to a stop sign, and with my foot firmly on the brake, I had the sensation that the car was still moving. I had to elevate my eyes to look directly at the road to convince my brain we were not moving. This was either a byproduct of the 7 preceding days of exhaustion, or some other brain trick at work, and it happened throughout the last day at every stop sign.

Frequently asked, “Are you and Hal still Friends?” – YES! Of course. There were occasional tensions, but we both have way too much history of fun times together to let subtle issues get under our skin. We went through stresses and great excitement, and our collective sense of humor had us frequently laughing at each other and ourselves. Candidly, I feel quite fortunate to have been able to have lived the experience with such a great friend. The end result proved to be another great experience together. One for the books!

Was it Great Seeing the Country Through the Back Roads? – Candidly, I saw much less of the country than Hal. My gaze was so fixed on the speedometer, I did not have a chance to look much at the surroundings. I did get to see plenty while we were in transit between race legs, but I was unable to get the full effect of the scenery of the full trip.

The People were Terrific! – Many will suggest our nation is in a state of divisiveness. This trip took us through every political spectrum, and between the race participants, and our hosts in every town where we stopped, everyone was wonderfully welcoming. If there was a problem, folks wanted to help. My 12 days were a refreshing reminder of what makes our country a unique and wonderful place.

40th Great Race – The 2023 Great Race was the 40th year the race has been run. I hope it lasts for many, many more years to come.

Spirited Rivalry – The owner/organizer of the Great Race is apparently a graduate of Auburn University. One of the longtime Great Race participants is a graduate of Alabama, the Crimson Tide, Auburn’s archrival. All race cars had to pass a safety inspection prior to being able to compete, and the race organizer decided that the confirmation of passing said safety inspection was the required placement of an Auburn U sticker on all the compliant car’s windshields. When the Alabama graduate Expert Class racer suggested he would refuse to place the Auburn sticker on his windshield, he was politely informed that he would be disqualified from the race. With great objection, the racer reluctantly acquiesced. Once passing the finish line, his windshield sticker was swiftly removed!

Spelling – Apparently I have an affinity for a healthy dose of sand after a nice dinner. Most blog postings were happening around 1:00am. I was exhausted, but committed to making daily posts. I would proof read everything before posting, and then would reread and make corrections again the next morning. The weekend after my return, I reread the posts in their entirety, and was appalled by the extent of my spelling and grammar errors. Among the many blunders, I saw reference to my enjoyment of deserts over desserts. Perhaps I have something in common with Andrew Jackson. According to the NY Times in 1985, “When Harvard granted an LL. D. (an honorary doctorate-level academic degree in law) to Andrew Jackson in 1833, John Quincy Adams boycotted the graduation ceremonies, calling Jackson ”a barbarian who could not write a sentence of grammar.” To which Jackson replied: ”It is a damn poor mind indeed which can’t think of at least two ways to spell any word.”” I have since corrected many of the indiscretions, but my grammarian friends will surely be able to point out plenty more needed corrections.

My Hero, Andrea LaBarbara – Andrea, a commercial aviation pilot, was riding her 1934 Indian motorcycle for the race. This bike has a manual gearshift knob, fondly called a suicide shifter, next to the gas tank, which requires the driver to remove one hand from the handlebars to shift gears up and down. Andrea’s motorcycle had no side car, so she was singularly responsible for the navigation duties along with the driving. She had a wooden box with a plexiglass screen on top, which carried her daily race navigation pages on a scroll. As she drove, she would need to take a hand off the handlebars and manually roll a wooden wheel on the box to advance her instructions. She had her speed charts and Timewise speedometer also mounted on the handlebars, and had no ability to write calculations, rather leaving her to compute everything in her mind alone. She was one of three motorcycle riders sharing similar circumstances, but Andrea managed to finish in 4th place amongst all the Rookies. Hats off to Andrea!

In the Money! – A little over a week ago, I received an email from the Great Race announcing that The Baltimore Bohs and The Hippo were prize winners, and we would be receiving a trophy plaque and a check for $250 in the mail. Back in Chapter 13, in the notes from the second to last race day, I shared that we were the best scoring Rookies for the day. Unbeknownst to us, there were prizes for the best in race class for each race day, and our being the best Rookie score on that day earned us the plaque and the check. Woooo Hoooo!

Will We Do it Again? – Hal and I both approached this as a one and done experience. It proved to be well more complicated than we had initially imagined, and perhaps some more fun and excitement than expected. I have ZERO desire to do the race again with someone other than Hal, because the learning curve for the two of us was dramatic. I have no interest in spending all the time for someone else to have to learn everything that Hal and I have already learned as Rookies. Additionally, the race requires a big time commitment, and with both of us working, it is hard to justify spending so much vacation time away from family. That said, Hal and I are both happy to reconsider another race when we have transitioned into retirement – whenever that may happen to be. The 2024 race will be going from Kentucky to Maine, and will pass through Maryland. I will certainly be planning to meet up with the racers if we are fortunate enough for there to be a race stop in Maryland.

Thanks to you all for your warm responses and reactions to this blog. It was the first time I had done a blog, and were it not for Marcus Ranum’s suggestion and help with the set-up of the site, I would have never undertaken the task. It has been great fun speaking with many of you about the Great Race and our experiences, and if/when we do it again, I will attempt to do the blog yet again.

Thanks for your interest and support!

Best to All,

-Willy Moore- (Driver and Blogger)

Hal Burnett (Navigator)

Marcus Ranum (Blog Support)