It feels pretty good to wake up knowing that you had a pretty good score and move up ten positions in ranking. But it also feels good to know that you have transported your car, your aggravator safely all the way across the country 4100 miles. It also feels good to know you are going home.

It has to be the end of the race because the second stash of Carol Gezon famous cookies are now all gone. Thanks Carol for keeping us in cookies. You have to come with us for the two weeks next year. The only thing required is one of your bags must be full of cookies. After baking these wonderful cookies, Carol would place about five cookies in a plastic sleeve and tie them with red metallic twist ties. A friend of Bruce Gezon’s, Uli Reichman after consuming an individualized bag of Carol Gezon cookies would tie the red metallic twist tie to his pit pass name tag all Great Racers are required to wear. He looked like a wire tie Christmas tree he had so many wrapped around his GR pit pass!

Our tire warm up this morning was in the coldest weather we have had so far. Theresa and I both were suited up in our polarlite sweaters but were still shivering. During the speedo calibration, we drove up "the 101". (That’s the way Californians speak about their highways). You don’t say I am going up Interstate 75 to Athens today. You say I am going up the 75. Albeit 75 is in Tennessee and if I spoke like that back home they would look at me like I was from the land of fruits n nuts. Ok back to going up the 101. We turned around a Sausalito which is the last exit before the Golden Gate Bridge. We got a great view of the fog coming in the bay, the GG Bridge and Alcatraz Island. It was too far to see if the Birdman was still there.

Our new friends Thom and Ourata (ain’t sure if I am spelling it right) broke down on the speedo run. They were calibratin along the 101 going north when smoke or water vapor came out from under their car big time. Maybe that big ole 38 Cadillac had had enough.

We had a good morning rally with five check points. The first two were on the Infinion Raceway. We did two laps around the track at 15 mph, 20 mph etc. I thought it was a pretty sneaky way to keep crazies like me from opening her up when I get on a race track.

Theresa reminded me that we rallied through the hills of Sonoma and Napa seeing many fine estates with famous wine names on their gates and rows n rows of grape vines all neatly manicured. Looked a lot to me like the dial of my Great Race speedometer with my navigator saying "going 35, looking for a stop n go right to 40". Well, maybe I can go back and really see it.

We finished the rallying at about 11 AM and made our way to Charlie Goodman’s "collection". He said he didn’t have a museum but a collection. He had a nice array of cars from late model sports cars to muscle cars and big classics. He and Barry Dougherty drove Charlie’s 38 Desoto Phaeton. They did pretty good too, placing third place in rookie division and 16th overall. Just so you know, I made pretty much fun over Barry Dougherty (pronounced Dockerty) not knowing who Wyatt Earp was. He also did not know who "The Duke" was. He said he grew up learning names like Packard, Bugatti, Isotta Franchini etc. You know I am not really sure I buy that from a guy who cannot even pronounce his own last name right! Enjoyed getting to know Barry and Charlie better. But I will be nice to Barry, he has a cool original Stutz Bearcat that I would love to have.

After a great lunch at Charlie’s, we were instructed to parade into downtown San Rafael (correctly pronounced San Ruh Fell ). We arrived through the final finish gate to a great crowd and the surprise that we had an 8.45 seconds for the day with five check points. We placed 11th for the day to hold our 25th position in the whole event. Curtis and Bruce got a 2.64 seconds and finished in third place overall in the Coker Tire 2nd car.

David Reeder and his grandson Sawyer Stone won the whole event with total score of 2.05.40. They were on their game for sure! Confetti blew out of the confetti cannons and the crowd cheered. They won how much you ask? Remember corky talk for 100,000? A hundred sows and bucks!

It was a great event that could not have been accomplished without a great team of volunteers who do so much from scoring to putting up and taking down the gate to organizing the city stops etc. The Great Race Staff did a wonderful job and we appreciate them.

The Awards ceremony was good with "Motormouth" and Wayne Stanfield doing the MC thing. The night was capped off with a wonderful slideshow presentation of our Great Race 24 set to music. It was great!

As I crackberry this final Great Race update, Theresa and I are on one of Delta’s finest jetting our way back to our "neck of the woods" and our wonderful farm, two adult (most of the time) children and our dog "Banjo".

We also could not have done without Andrew Givens. He prepared the car and the trailer, drove it to Philly and then across the USA and helped many other folks along the way. Jerry Priesel was his navigator and salesman for the company in the evening stops. He also did a great job.

We thoroughly enjoyed having Curtis Graf and Bruce Gezon on our team. Both great guys and excellent rallyiests. Bruce enjoyed teasing Theresa. He even lightened up and tossed water on her one afternoon. He probably hates that I put that in here.

From the Adventure of a lifetime that happens every year,…The Great Race,

Corky