We may have to put the top up soon. Look at that Tennessee weather. Luckily the rain held off until after the awards ceremony. Then it came down in buckets.
We hope everyone had a great weekend. Mary and I were able to spend it participating in the 2016 Coker Tire Challenge that took place in Chattanooga, TN. We joined some of our fellow Great Race participants and thousands of vintage car fans who were on hand to witness this three day event that took us through Eastern Tennessee, as well as parts of Alabama and Georgia. The rally is what is known as a “cloverleaf-style” rally, since we came back to the same location each evening, going out on different routes each day. As in the Great Race, we are trying to get the best finish based on time, speed and distance. We didn’t have much hope to finish well on the last day, since our special electronic rally speedometer was out for most of the leg (My bad, I forgot to charge the motorcycle battery on which it runs). It’s pretty difficult to maintain the correct speed without a precision speedometer, so we used the “follow the car in front of us method” also known as the “guesstimate your speed” method. Miraculously, we wound up only being 4 seconds off a “perfect” time. Maybe we will try our next Great Race without an electronic rally speedometer. But it’s really not about the finish, it’s about participating, meeting new people, and enjoying the scenery. (The scenery by the way, was accentuated by many election campaign signs. I’ll let you guess which candidate had more signs posted.) But nothing could mar the spectacular Blue Ridge Mountains that were the backdrop. The picturesque roads and towns through which we traveled were simply more evidence that America the Beautiful is a correctly titled anthem.
These custom t-shirts are a tribute to a line from one of our favorite scenes in the Great Race movie, where Professor Fate unveils the Hannibal 8 to his sidekick Max. Well done!
On the road again…passing by many sports fields where we saw lots of ThermoFILM numbers!
We eventually put the top up on the GTO. Some cars don’t have that option.
There were plenty of churches along the routes. One sign we especially liked read: Do not look back you are not going that way.
Goodbye Chattanooga. We had a very fine time.
This is the route for the upcoming 2017 Great Race. A stop is planned at the Stahls Auto Museum in Chesterfield. We can’t wait to welcome all the Great Racers this summer.