Great Race Day 10 - Clovis, New Mexico to Albuquerque, NM
Early, early, dang early start this morning. Up at 5 and on the road. We got our instructions the night before which is really different and did our speedo check down toward Portales, New Mexico. We were second car today behind our friends Jeff Stumb and Robert Dinges from Alabama. The fine folks in Portales cooked pancakes for all us racers. Theresa and i had a banana and coffee. We circled the courthouse on the way out and started rallying.
Our speedo seems to always be off a bunch. The speed was different today. It is usually always at 50 mph. We caught it. A bunch didn’t and had a terrible speedo run. I gambled this morning and didn’t move our speedo factor as far as our “speedo run” told us we should and…..
We rallied through Roswell and saw funny round shapes….looked a lot like the dial of a speedometer! Oh…it was a speedo. At 55 mph!
We went thru Capitan, NM. Never heard of it.
We stopped in Carrizozo, NM too. Also never heard of it either! But they fed us well! They had a cool car show in the little town of about 1200 folks. I bet they were ALL there!
In the community hall where they fed us they had a small and young (kids in grammar school n maybe a couple in junior high) bluegrass band. They were good and I helped em raise some money to buy a PA system and go to a bluegrass festival. They were grateful. I think we raised several hundred bucks for them.
Our afternoon pit stop was needed. Hot and thirsty! I caught Stanley Jones sleeping in his car during the break. Most of us re-hydrated and fixed a few things on the cars and stuff.
It was really hot in the afternoon and again we seemed to rally toward a big storm cloud (just like yesterday!). We put our rainsuits and roasted! We never hit the rain. We never hit a check point on time either! We did climb to almost seven thousand feet going over the mountain going west.
We got a 48 second for the day.
On a good note, we are having a great time together and are (as always) enjoying the Shafer 8.
From the road,
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July 19th, 2008 at 4:20 am
Hi guys:
Coker Tire is pleased to once again host our vintage rally friends who not only have great collector cars but get them out and drive them,” said Corky Coker,president of Coker Tire. “Besides … you can’t get the smiles unless you do the miles!”
Low score wins in this regional rally for classic cars manufactured in 1969 or earlier. Great Race’s world-class course designer,John Classen promises another unique and challenging rally through the region with a few surprises thrown in for the competitors.
The Coker Tire Challenge is based on the Great Race competition format,a street-legal rally on public highways.Precision driving is required from the driver and navigator who follow a specific set of course instructions that indicate every turn,speed change,stop and start that the race teams make throughout the day.
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Mathews