Spring Break Adventures

So for this Spring Break I decided to drive to Bozeman, Montana to enjoy a week of exploring, adventure,seeing majestic mountains and rugged forests. Things that Kansas lacks. Well, maybe I went there for another reason than just to drive from McPherson Kansas to Bozeman, Montana (maybe).

I set out on my journey on Friday the 13th after dinner stopping in Colby Kansas for the night at a truck stop , staying in the luxurious and accommodating Hotel Tundra. The next morning I made my way through Colorado and Wyoming, eventually making it to Bozeman around 7:00 p.m. at night. I was greeted by the most important reason for my adventure by my girlfriend Emma. Basically the set up was going to be that while Emma would go to class (she had spring break the week before), I would explore the area of Bozeman. When she was out of class she would be my tour guide.

 On Monday I saddled up my trusty two wheeled steed and went south toward the mountains, with no real plan. I cruised up and down streets taking pictures of cars, mountains, and whatever I wanted to. I kept riding towards the mountains and looked for a dirt road to ride, because I really missed mountains. I grew up in the foothills of Southern California. I had mountains right out my back door. I really missed mountains. The road was fairly steep in some sections and some ice on the road made it a little difficult, boy did I wish that I had my mountain bike. Luckily I had thought to bring cycle cross tires for my road bike so I had a little more traction, but my trusty 29er would have been heaven!

Tuesday I decided to spend my day taking a walk around the downtown section of Bozeman, the old town section.  There were buildings from the late eighteen hundreds through the nineteen fifties there and lots of pictures to be taken. I also went to the Gallatin Pioneer Museum, which was located in the old jail that was built in 1911 and used all the way to 1982. It reminded me of the historical society back home. http://gallatinhistorymuseum.org/
 Later in the week I drove up to Hyalite Canyon to do some hiking and to take the Tundra out. Of course it started snowing as soon as I entered the canyon, which only added to it’s beauty. I turned onto the first trail that I found, Moser Creek, and proceeded to take a walk down the trail. I took many many pictures of the scenery, and was very much awestruck.  While I was hiking around I saw some nice trails that I wish that I could have taken the Tundra on, but with the snow and  lack of Four Wheel Drive, I figured that it might not be for the best. This area obviously has some fine snowshoeing in the winter and hiking the rest of the year. Hopefully I can return with my hiking boots when there is less snow on the ground.
While I was in Bozeman I figured I had to hike to The “M”. The “M” was painted on the side of a hill back in 1915 and seems to be a popular destination for hikers. For those of you who are from my neck of the woods, it has, or had, the popularity of Garcia trail. I met some friendly folks and took a lot longer hiking the trail than I expected, mainly due to talking and pictures. I should mention that at the bottom of the trail there was a sign that pointed out two trails. Guess which one I took.

Perhaps one of my favorite points in the trip was later that same day, when Emma had gotten back from school, and we decided to drive up Hyalite Canyon and go to the reservoir. I hadn’t driven terribly far up the canyon earlier because I had to pick her up from school that day. This time we took her jeep. The reservoir was frozen over when we got there and I asked Emma if anyone ice fishes up here? Sure enough as we rounded the bend I glanced over and saw someone ice fishing.

After looking at the reservoir we decided to go on a very bumpy dirt road. We were both very surprised to see a Prius coming off of this road. There are some paved roads that I would not take my mother’s Prius on, let alone a very bumpy dirt one, with some snow patches still on it. Obviously in Montana people treat their Pri-I very differently. Alas, Saturday came, and I had to go. All great things must come to an end.  After heartfelt  goodbyes I took my seat and onto the road I went. Within a few hours of driving, it felt as though it was a dream and that I had been on the road the whole time.

Instead of heading through Colorado, as I did on the way there, I decided to go through South Dakota and Nebraska, mainly because I had never been to South Dakota before. My father is very fond of that state and going through there would only add another half hour to my route. On my trip I drove through some neat small towns and happened on some old junk, as I usually do. I made it all the way to Murdo, South Dakota where I made my stay for the night. As I was driving through Murdo, I noticed that there were quite a few antique automobiles in the area, in particular one museum that was close to the truck stop that I was staying at, ( yup the trusty Hotel Tundra). I wish that I had the chance to go inside, because it intrigued me quite a bit. Putting a stretched Nash in front does draw one’s attention, as would the General Lee. Unfortunately it was Sunday and it was closed.

The next morning I saddled up for the last stretch to McPherson. I can’t say that much happened on that last stretch, as I was anxious to get back. I did have a nice run in with an older gentleman at a McDonalds just as I crossed into Nebraska. We discussed school, cars, and such. You know, the usual. I managed to pull into McPherson not too long after 5:00 p.m., which gave me some time to get ready to get right back into the mix.

Yet another adventure racked up in my time here. That puts me at 38 States that I have gone through, but Montana was definitely one of my favorites.

Prime Time!

Last Monday I had my interview to become a Residential Assistant. That essentially means that I will be hanging around the dorm, helping out students, make sure rules aren’t being broken, as well as help out during fire drills and what not. In my opinion that allows me to have more time on my hands, since I am expected to be around the dorm more. My interview went fairly well. What was really nifty is that they asked me all sorts of questions regarding communication and team building. The nifty part was that I was able to always tie it into my experiences in scouting that I have had over the years. I can thank Troop 486 for that. Everyone always says that being an Eagle Scout will serve you well in life. I am always surprised at how often this has rung true for me. There were a few funny points to my interview . First off, one of the question that I was asked was, “At the group interview’s, people thought that you might be too rigid for the job” That was when I asked, “Was that related to when I mentioned if I found someone passed out that I would see if it was sleep deprivation, narcotics, or alcohol abuse?” Turns out that wasn’t the case but I said, “That was my parents coming out of me, because they are both law enforcement”. All of the interviewers said “OH that explains it” and chuckled a bit. When the interview was “finished” they asked me if I had any questions for them or any questions that they did not ask me. I told them , “You never asked me why you should hire me?” Again They chuckled at that a bit too. Lastly I asked if I could still have Drew as a roommate and if he would have to pay full price for a room, since I was technically working off the room. Again I made the interviewers laugh. They were laughing that I was “negotiating”. Apparently I was also the first person to ask that question. Evidently most R.A.’s don’t have roommates to begin with, so asking if the roommate could get the room cheaper was out of the norm. Drew and I have a standing offer that if the other didn’t make the RA position that we would be roommates and try and get a free room. Yesterday I received the email saying that I did get the position, so I am very excited for next year.

The next biggest event of the week was our Friday night prime time on the Beetle. The beetle needs to be finished as soon as possible so some of us from the two paint classes volunteered to come in on Friday night and spray. I had work until 8:30, so I came straight from the cafeteria. I missed most of the last bits of sanding and came in at the fun part. It was suggested that I paint the roof due to my height and reach. So I donned a paint suit and started. I was the first to go, so I was a little nervous. After going through and doing a few coats of primer and primer surfacer we finished …around 11pm. It was extremely fun and exciting though, because only earlier that week I had a used a paint gun for the first time and here I was priming a car.

In case you are wondering the car was primed in the red and the surfacer after is gray. Until next week……

Lights, Sanding, Action … (or not).

This last week was nothing fancy.

Starting off with working on the ’54 Belvedere again. The transmission wasn’t shifting from the first shift fork, Reverse & First to the second shift fork, Second and Third. To investigate the issue, we unbolted the transmission from the bell housing, placed it on a work bench and took the cover off. When shifting the gears manually on a bench they seemed to work fine. After pondering and conferring, we determined that there was just so much slop in the linkage, that there was not enough leverage to pull the second shift fork over. Great. Easy street right? Wrong. When we tried to put the transmission back in, it would not go in. We removed the bell housing  to see if it would just slide in, without going blind. No bueno. It turns out that the pilot bushing was bad, so right now we are on the lookout for a correct one. I’ve called a few parts suppliers and whenever I mention HyDrive, they shudder and say that they do not have that. Oh yeah, that is part of class. Finding parts. Its an adventure, but if I intend to do this for the rest of my life, I gotta learn the ropes now and finding parts is HUGE. Needless to say just the word HyDrive make most suppliers deaf.

In Paint class, known as Sanding 101 among some of the students, is mainly that. I’m not complaining about that, because I know that it is a vital part of the painting process. The good news is that I finished working on the motorcycle fender and am now working on the beetle. My current task is to sand the rear quarter area on the driver side. I only was able to work on it for about 15 minutes on Thursday, but hope to have that area completely to bare metal by the end of the week. If I recall correctly Mr. Green, the professor who most people know as Garrick, wants to have the beetle ready for primer in two weeks. While working on the motorcycle fender I was taking some sandpaper and wet sanding it slowly by hand, it was nice to get some power tools on the bug.

In Photography II I had to do some experimenting with with light and positioning them in different places. The assignment was to do so with a tea cup and saucer, then branch out with some personal items, being less than 12″, less than 24″, and greater than 24″.  I ended up doing a little 32 Ford Coupe my sister had given me, one of my fedoras, & my bicycle. It was actually hard to find something that was over 24″ tall that wasn’t terribly big and easy to carry around, because I have a bunch of truck parts that fit the description but they are a little bit bulky. The bicycle one’s didn’t come out so neat, but the coupe and the hat had a few nifty ones. I’ll be doing the same thing this week, but with two lights in the set, as opposed to just one. We will see how that works out.

Also , in my free time, I have been working on some picture frames , for a certain someone, and they actually came out pretty nice.  I was able to use my woodworking skills from last semester to personalize a special gift. I am pretty happy with how they turned out.

I’m back…again…hopefully

Don’t lecture me on how long I’ve been gone, I know. I get it, and I am sorry. I truly am. Unfortunate as it is, you the reader were pushed to the side in favor of me doing homework and attempting to have some small attempt at a social life. It was a good semester, and this one I will be just as busy. Evidently staying idle is not in my blood. I am enrolled in 19 credit hours and I am working approximately 20 hours a week, plus whatever homework I am doing.

I am going to try a different strategy. Instead of doing a long blog post that has loads of pictures and details I am going to try and give smaller updates. I figure it would be better to tell you what is happening a little at a time as opposed to nothing. So this one will be a little longer than ones in the future, to set the stage. Hopefully I will be able to update you, but only time will tell. Also I now have an Instagram page where I share photos a little more often if you want to find me there. Ca_in_Ks.

As I stated earlier I am enrolled in 19 credit hours and working a fluctuating schedule generally at 20 or more hours. The reoccurring theme is time management. Moving onward though. My class load 2nd semester is consisting  of American Literature II, Automotive Paint Restoration, Chassis Restoration, Managerial Accounting, Photography II and Sophomore Seminar. This myriad of classes will definitely keep me busy. I’m going to highlight a few of my classes that I will probably be talking about in the future, particularly Paint, Chassis and Photography.

In Chassis Restoration we will be going over the components on the chassis of the automobile, steering, brakes, suspension and so on. Currently we have done drum brakes and a little bit of introduction into braking systems in general. The biggest part of this class seems to be that we have broken up into three groups to work on three different automobiles. There is a Model A , a late twenties Model T, and a 1954 Plymouth Belvedere, which is what I am working on. The goal is to turn them into complete and functioning chassis. From what I have deduced the Belvedere is a car that was donated about 7 years ago. The person who originally wanted the car restored, poured a lot of money, (around 80,000 I believe) into her. The shop that was working on the car apparently bought a couple of parts cars to help with the restoration and “claimed” to have done some work, though it appears that they didn’t do too much. Another story of shop fraud…a terrible thing and far to often occurring. So that’s how we ended up with the car. It is actually a decently rare Plymouth, in the fact that it has Hy-Drive. What is Hy-Drive? I’m glad you asked. It is essentially a Fluid Drive, but further refined with a torque converter. It’s really interesting, but I won’t go into detail, because I don’t want to bore anyone that is just smiling and nodding at this point. If you want to read more into it you can read a good article on Allpar .

One of my more interesting classes this semester is Paint Restoration. I joined the class a week late, because I didn’t realize that I had a more open schedule than I originally thought. Each person has their own project right in the class that they are responsible for. Everyone is in the sanding process right now. Most people are working on a 74 Super Beetle, such as , doors, deck-lid and such. From what I have hear, the story behind the bug is that the German Car Club of Kansas was restoring it to raffle off. It apparently wasn’t being worked on by the club, so somehow we made a connection  and agreed to work on it. I also believe that the auto program will get some if not all of the proceeds from the raffle. Some of the other projects that students are working on is the Mustang fastback, which needs a little bit of everything as well as some fenders for the Stutz Blackhawk. I am working on sanding a motorcycle fender. It was partially painted already, but they ran out of paint, as well as a few other details, so we need to start over. Note to everyone make sure you have enough paint before you start a project. I don’t know a hoot about painting, so this should be a good course.

Finally I am going to talk about my Photography II class. I am really looking forward to this class, because I enjoyed Photography I so much. You have probably seen several examples of my work if you are here. I am also the owner of a fancy Nikon D40 now, that I was given for Christmas, instead of the point and shoot that I have been using since forever. I learned so much in Photography I that honed my skills, primarily using film, that I am looking forward to making my digital pictures better as well. I have already learned how to manually control most of the features on my camera, which I never did before, so I can only get better.

As the semester progresses I’ll try and post a little on how the classes are going as well as anything exciting that happens around here. Thanks for your patience, and I am glad your still here!

What happened over the Summer and a Pleasant Pebble

What’s been happening so far? Where have I been? Where haven’t I been?

Some of you may have wanted to know exactly what has happened since the Great Race. Over my summer at home, I  was  primarily working with my good friend Stan on some of his vehicles, (mainly his 1956 Thunderbird & 1952 Bentley). Stan is a good friend of mine and I extended the offer to help him with his vehicles, as a chance to help him out, as well as tinker with some toys.

I wasn’t doing anything all that crazy, but it was enjoyable all the same. Brake jobs , general cleaning, some wood staining.  Aside from spending time with cars & driving them a little, (even if the Thunderbird was a very tight squeeze), I was grateful to spend time with a good friend who has forgotten more than I know.

I will say that if I get anything from working with Stan it is that if I ever see anybody
driving in a Rolls Royce or a Bentley, I need to ask them if they have any Grey Poupon. If you see me driving around town, in anything similar, ask me as well. It will make my day.

After that, time went by, rather quickly I might add. I had to pack up and head to the Pebble Beach Concourse D’elegance. I was originally going to fly to Pebble Beach with just McPherson College but I was fortunate to have had the opportunity to go up a few days earlier and work with Seven, an automotive management group based out of Columbus Ohio. They have another office in the bottom of the Peterson Museum in Los Angeles. I was able to do this because I had a friend that already worked with them full time, Lance Butler.  Lance attended McPherson, and the last day of school Lance asked if I could help out during the summer with them. I only worked with them a few times. Even though I live in L.A. County, I live on the extreme east side and the Petersen is of course on the extreme west side.  Luckily Sundays are relatively light when it comes to traffic, so my first event was working the Rodeo Drive Concourse in Beverly Hills. Seven liked me enough that Lance wanted to know if I could work with them at some of their other events.

Beverly Hills was a pretty good car show. I met some nice folks who brought a 1956 Cadillac Brougham and ha the pleasure of  guarding Tom Mix’s 1937 Cord Phaeton.

Oops, let me back up there. I guess I got a little ahead of myself. Why might I be going to Concourse d’Elegance and why with McPherson College? Well myself as well as two others, Zack Oller & Collin Howard, were chosen as Pebble Beach Phil Hill Scholars. The Phil Hill scholarship gives students enrolled in the Automotive Arts sizable scholarships towards their education,  as well as a trip to Pebble Beach during the Concourse d’Elegance, not a bad deal.

I met up at the Peterson with Kyle, (someone I had never met before but was working with Seven), and we made the trek up to Monterey. Six hours is a long enough time to get to know a stranger a little bit. Kyle was fairly local as well, having met Lance through working with him at a shop. He was a good guy to have on the drive up there. We got along talked cars (big surprise) and he didn’t care what was on the radio. Eventually we made it to Monterey, with no issues. I was amused at the fact that we came to an entry area that had a $10 visitor fee to get into the housing area/golf course, of course residents are free. That should keep any rabble out. Well all but us.

The house that we were heading to was going to be the main base for our operations.We learned a funny thing while there, apparently a good amount of residents will actually leave for the week of the Pebble Beach festivities. They go on vacation paid for by renting out their house for about $10,000 a week. We got a good deal, being less than a mile from the actual concourse for $6000 a week, (the house itself is on the market for $3 million).  All of us were scattered across three houses total. Two actual houses & a side room in a carriage house which was where I slept.

The work that we would be doing with Seven was essentially auto detailing for the auction cars for the companies there.  I was going to be with Seven from Sunday to Wednesday, which is when I would meet up with the college. Most days consisted of working from 7 in the morning to midnight,  traveling around to the different auction locations & some breaks in between. If you know me, you know that I am definitely not used to staying up

Photo RM Auctions

that late. Since I had worked with the company prior I was assigned to a special projects team. I don’t mean to make it sound fancy, but instead of having an assembly line manner at Gooding Auctions across all of the cars, I was dealing with a select few cars at RM Auctions. How select? A couple of Lamborghinis, Ferarris, a Cobra, & some other nifty cars. I was soooo close to RM’s Tucker, it was even in the hotel lobby at one point and was the first thing that one saw as the elevator doors opened. Another nifty car that was there was a Rickenbacker, named after the WWI flying ace. Mr. Rickenbcker got into the car business in 1920, but only lasted through ’27.

I had the opportunity to get up close & personal with some neat cars. Not all of them were my fancy, but hey it was fun. My favorites was that I got to detail a 1939 Lincoln Zephyr Convertible Sedan at RM & clean the windows of a Tucker at Gooding. It was kind of neat because I had the opportunity to get anywhere I wanted in the Tucker…& I did. I lifted the hood,trunk, looked under it & even sat inside it. I need to be a millionaire someday, seriously because it was perfect.  In addition to actually having headroom, (remember 6’6″ doesn’t allow for headroom in most cars) it was just wonderful. Not only did Gooding have one but RM did as well. Two Tuckers in one place! I have seen 4 of the 51 built now.  I even acted as a unofficial Tucker docent when we were roaming around the Gooding tent while preview was happening. Who knew her better than the guy that cleaned her windows?

After a few days of hard work I met up with the college. From there on out it was a relaxing experience, that I appreciated even more. Oh darn, staying up till 10 or 11 and having to be in the lobby at 7.

But you will have to wait until next week to read about the remainder of my adventure. I am back in school and I have school stuff to do.

 

Kansas Out!

 

 

 

Day Nine: 2014 McPherson Great Race Season Finale Part II

Day Nine: 2014 McPherson Great Race Season Finale Part II

As wonderful as the race was, the awards banquet deserved a post all to itself. After all the festivities at the ceremonial finish line we headed to the hotel to fancy up for the evening gala.  Once we looked presentable, it was time to enjoy everyone’s hard work. On the way there we ran into General Lee and cruised on into the Banquet. Everybody was milling about and talking, and seemed just as excited as we were.  We were eventually ushered into the dining area where we had a table really close to the podium. John Hollansworth, one of our sponsors who covered our entry fee (which we are very grateful for), as well as a  few of his friends were at our table, along with Tony’s parents.  Before the awards started there was a brief video recapping the race from the beginning to merely a few hours ago. I have to hand it to these guys that put this together. The media crew had taken tons of video and pictures throughout the whole race, and had to go through all of it as well as make the video, and even work on it a few hours up until the banquet. It really cap-stoned how much we traveled during this trip. It was also nice to see how the other racers handled parts of the course, such as taking some off those corners. The awards  proceeded for the various categories; we were called up for being the X-Cup Champions and received our trophy bird as well as having our picture with Mr. Coker.

Also taken from the Great Race Blog. http://www.greatrace.com/news/2014-great-race-award-winners.html#more-6372

Aside from the awards for each class , there were a few others that were thrown in as well. Some were kind of silly, such as best dressed, while one was for perseverance called the Never Say Die Award. That one was given to the owner of a 1916 Hudson Speedster that had been entered for the past three years, but this was the first year that it actually crossed the finish line.

For me one of the most interesting and touching sections was when one of the Fredette teams was given their award. Mr. Coker said that he probably should penalize the Fredettes for having more than two riders with them. He proceeded to explain how  the Fredette’s grandfather had passed away in December and had a final request of being able to come along for the ride on the 2014 Great Race. So his ashes rode the whole trip in the toolbox. After the  ceremony Jeff Stumb, director of the Great Race, announced the location for next year’s race. Next year’s race was going to be on Route 66 from Illinois to California!

After that the dinner was over and everyone slowly dispersed. We said goodbye to Tony who went home with his parents, since he is from Florida, and we all headed to our hotel. It was bittersweet to think that it was all over. What an adventure we had ,getting up everyday, piling in the Fairlane, having fun, meeting all these people, seeing the country, and driving like a maniac. Especially driving, that is something that the four of us will never look at the same. Along the way we would always make jokes about ,  “can you hold 40 through the corner”? Or yelling at the driver if he is a little over. I hope that I don’t see Tony & Jake braking the way they did at the race while driving in McPherson, or maybe I do.

Thank you to all of our sponsors, who supported the McPherson College Team during the Great Race. Without the support of our sponsors, we would not have been able to participate in the race and share our college race experience.

To all of the blog readers, we hope you enjoyed sharing our race adventures and mishaps. The McPherson Race Team hopes you enjoyed the blog postings as much as we enjoyed participating in the race.

With that I bid you adieu!

P.S. Here is the video screened at the banquet.

Day Nine: 2014 McPherson Great Race Season Finale Part I

Day Nine: 2014 McPherson Great Race Season Finale Part I

Yesterday the grand season finale, the day we had all been waiting for. It seemed like a long time ago that we were up in Ogunquit getting the getting the gang together.

Our day started out with yet another early set of directions. We had a starting position of 27^th and the start time was 7:00, geeze.  We got our direction one last time, and headed to the starting line. Conveniently this start was right next to a gas station.  The reason that it was convenient was that everybody could park in the parking lot, fill up and get drinks at a more relaxed and comfortable pace. Most of our starts were on the sides of roads, next to highways, and the like, which was a mess, not to mention confused many passersby’s who would invariably mess up our starts. Speaking of passersby’s we were asked by many, where the car show was. This was a common question throughout the length of our journey. In a sense we were a portable car show, constantly moving from place to place.

Soon enough it was our turn to go. Our main concern was just to not mess anything up too
much, like missing a turn. We really just wanted to play it safe and enjoy our last day. We were ahead by almost two minutes and as long as we didn’t do anything drastically wrong we would win the X-Cup, defending our title from last year. This was very important to us, especially since three of us were rookies we did not want to let McPherson down. Ok,  and maybe another small part was to kick Ponca City’s tail.

Soon enough we were off. Today’s route was going to be a mere half day, in the driving sense. After lunch all we had to do was parade to The Villages. This would be the end of the Great Race.
Our midway stop before lunch,which was the start the next section, was in the middle of nowhere.  Therre was however some shade and a post office which is all that was needed. During the break we were shooting the breeze with the other competitors as we had always done this far. Most were excited that the trip was coming to an end.

Nothing much happened on our way to lunch, just smooth riding. One thing different about today was that the media crew put a GoPro camera on the inside of our back glass. We had to tighten our grip a little making sure we weren’t acting too crazy… that didn’t last long though. We even made an apology to the camera for anything that has or will happen during the recording of us. Let us know if you see us on YouTube someplace. After completing the final section of being on the clock, there was a raucous celebratory shouting from inside our car. We were very certain that we had won, because we had not messed anything up.

Lunch was at The National Parts Depot in Ocala, Florida. NPD reproduces a lot of parts for old vehicles, mainly Fords & Chevy’s. This was a great lunch, because of a few things. The first being that we had a lunch where we could leisurely talk to people, and enjoy ourselves. The second was that to get to the eating area we had to walk through a very nice collection of classics. In the collection we saw Eliza’s sister, another 57 Fairlane. This one however was a hardtop, and was a little more dressed up.  Bumper guards, dual mirrors, fender skirts, upgrade interior package, the fancy stuff. We were joking how we wanted to do some parts shopping of our own, such as taking a hubcap off that Fairlane to replace the one we lost, as well as taking the supercharger on the 57 Thunderbird next to it. The collection was really nice, and so was lunch. On our way out Jake went by the counter to see if they had a hubcap that we could buy. Unfortunately they had the hubcaps for 57 Trucks & Thunder birds, but not for our Fair lady, oh well.

The plan for this afternoons departure, was to leave at a certain time within 30 second increments, in theory that would allow us to get to the finish line a little spaced out. That didn’t happen exactly as planned, but it appeared as though most people actually stayed in the order they were in. Onward we went. Earlier in the day we were told that we could be surrounded by golf carts once we got to The Villages, because it is primarily a retirement community. As we got closer and closer rows and rows of golf carts started appearing by the road sides. It was an amazingly funny sight. The golf carts outnumbered the amount of regular cars traveling in the area by far. As we neared the finish line they became more and more prevalent.

Soon enough the finish line was in sight. The town was packed, and the line of racers was fairly long. The primary concern was that we would not experience any more vapor lock, as we had earlier. Luckily we did not, and Tony & I decided to have some fun and lean out the windows, (after all this was a parade). We didn’t quite get the Rose Princess wave down, but we had fun. Amanda was there as well with her daughter. They had made some shirts that said, “McPherson Support Crew  There is no FEAR is McPherson”.  Frankly I think we need to have a similar shirt.

It was wonderful that as we got closer to the finish line the crowd increased and people were cheering for us. As we crossed the finish line Corky & Motormouth announced  us the winners of the X-Cup once again. We also earned another ACE, making a grand total of two awards! It was the icing on the cake and we were ecstatic! After parking we were swarmed by folks asking about us, and the college. If there is one thing that is gained from our entry in The Great Race it is positive publicity for the school we all love!

Not too long after we were parked we heard that the grand champions were the Jason’s. They were driving a 1966 Mustang. We were rooting for them for a few reasons. First off, this is now their third year in a row winning the race. The next reason was that we wanted a post war car to win. A post 1945 car had never won before, which was significant. On the first day of the race they had a perfect day with 4 Aces, which had never happened before either. Obviously this couple knew their stuff. In previous years they drove a 1933 Ford, but it was getting harder for them to drive it as they got older. The significance also is that they don’t have much of a handicap. At the end of each day of the race your time would be multiplied by a factor. The newer the car the less of a handicap. At the end of each day our score (the 57 Fairlane) would get our score multiplied by .95. Better than nothing but it means you have less room for error. So the Mustang had even less of a handicap than us.

Taken from the official Great Race Blog. If you want to see the other pictures or read the post from that day, follow the link. http://www.greatrace.com/news/day-9-the-calm-before-the-storm.html#more-6336

The Villages was very interesting indeed. It is a place almost entirely of retired folks. They even have a drum line and cheerleading team there to greet us, (yes they were retired residents). Most of these folks were in better shape than some people I know. The place was roaring and we were discussing the race with other racers and folks who came up to us. The neat thing about driving a 1957 Ford is that a lot of people relate to it. Though a lot of the cars are really neat, 1952 Bentley, 1941 Packard, Model A speedsters, Auburns, and such, many people didn’t grow up with these cars. When people would see Eliza they would come up and say how their dad or brother had one, or how this was their first car, or a number of memories. That and she looks darn good when in motion.

After all of the festivities we pulled out and prepared for the banquet, which I will cover in a Part II post. We won!! Hooray for us!!

Eight Days Endured & Almost Done

Eight Days Endured & Almost Done

Today’s start was an early one for us. The official start time was at 7:00 and we were placed 47 meaning out start time was at 7:47. We were used to sleeping in a little bit. We made it in time though, strolling along to the start line, and surprised to see so many other cars this early there as well.

The crowded start was a little bit more crowded than usual. It seems as though everyone wanted to get the early jump as well, because the start was packed. We chatted for a while, because we had over half an hour till we needed to be anywhere, again I am reminded of how friendly everyone is. At the start of the race Corky Coker, (who is the founder of Coker Tires as well as the guy in charge of the race, who is a huge fan of McPherson), said that all of us in the Great Race are a family, and it is evident. He is a wonderful spokesperson for classic cars and is a person worth meeting if given the opportunity,

Today’s race was another pretty smooth day, with no missing turns or huge mistakes. Everything went as it should have with the exception of a series of emergency vehicles, fire department, paramedics, & ambulances coming through at different times. As the last ambulance turned the corner, we could see our mark just past the turn. There was no way we could make up the time needed from the emergency vehicles, luckily if we were to write a discrepancy the mark could verify it, because we were right there pulled over.

Lunch today was in Savannah. Savannah itself, or at least the area we were in, was extremely beautiful. The section we were in was next to the Savannah River, surrounded by brick buildings, and cobblestone streets, with some trolley rails going through them. Aside from the beauty of the surrounding area we had a chance to meet up with yet another current McPherson student, Nick Foglietta. He has an internship outside of Atlanta, and drove a decent amount of time, to see us and hear what was happening thus far. Unfortunately we had to bounce pretty fast only having about half an hour there. It was good to see him though, and I hope the trip was worth it for him. It is so encouraging to see all of these students heading up and down the coast, to see how we are doing. That’s one of the things I personally love about my school. The support of past and current students is phenomenal! Thanks for stopping by Nick. Soon enough we departed and made out way towards our destination of Jacksonville.

The sights and sounds as we entered Jacksonville were quite memorable. Jacksonville is a pretty big town, so we began to experience a bunch of traffic, thinking to ourselves , “what a surprise”. Shortly thereafter we were engulfed for at least a mile long of droves and droves of people. For a whole mile, if not more, there were people and their cars lining the streets, as well as folks cruising the streets along with us. It was amazing to see all the car clubs come out as well as the excitement of the crowd. There was still a large amount of traffic though, so we were sitting still for a while. Eliza didn’t like that too much. We had some heating up and some vapor lock occurring. So we pulled over and cooled down for a little bit. Jake took a cold wet cloth, which we had all been given a few minutes before, and applied it to the fuel lines around the fuel filter. After a few minutes she cooled off enough and was working fine. Guess she didn’t like not getting her own damp towel. We were able to make it to the finish line after that with no issues.

At the end of the day, we were all exhausted. With the late nights, early morning, humidity,& heat we were all feeling pretty tuckered as everything wound down. During one transition point we were all starting to doze out a little, except Tony, (whom was driving at the time), though he was starting to feel it as well. After parking the Fairlane we headed off and had a relaxing dinner, and then went to our fancy hotel. The place has 19 floors! The pool is on the 19^th floor, how weird is that? We are relaxed and waiting to get some rest. Tomorrow is an early morning as well. Start time is once again 7:00, this time we are number 27. Meaning that we are leaving at 7:27, getting our directions at 6:57, but it is the last day.

We got our results for the day and are feeling pretty good going into tomorrow. Our grand total for the day was 00:35:53. The legs were going well, except for one 15 second leg, which is somewhat of a mystery, the discrepancy we turned in brought one leg down to two seconds, which was great. We are currently in 40^th place overall and have a grand total time of 4:43.31. Our main competitor in the X-Cup class, Ponca City, didn’t have too hot of a day, achieving a stage result of 2:12.06, bringing them down to 49^th place, with a grand total time of 6:21.30. We are feeling pretty good right now, but will be very cautious, because anything can still happen. The end of the race is finally here though. We will end up in the Villages tomorrow and will be flying out Monday. It’s been an amazing road trip so far, and I think we will finish strong.

Day 7; Ships, Showers, & Seconds

Day Seven; Ships, Showers, & Seconds

Today tops all for the destination thus far but first I need to start off at the beginning.

Jake & Tony woke up early this morning to go get some Krispy Kreme Doughnuts, because there are only three locations in Kansas, none of which are close. After that we munched on them (ok devoured), got directions and headed to the starting line. We got a couple of fashionable Krispy Kreme hats. One was attached to our radio antenna, which flew off within four seconds, as Austin predicted, and Austin donned the other making for an entertaining ride.

We stated off the day fine, though it was still very humid, and nat infested. Once we started we immediately hit scenic area going right along the coast, it was also extremely bumpy. To our left was the ocean; to our right was a green algae covered river. I was joking about seeing gators in there, but as we turned a corner, sure enough, we spotted a little guy just sitting in the water not 30 feet from the road. Different type of wildlife than I am used to. The only gators I saw in California were at the zoo.

Everything was smooth sailing until we hit lunch. We had lunch in Myrtle Beach; unfortunately we didn’t really see any of it. There was horrendous traffic heading to the lunch stop, delaying us by quite a bit. We were advised to make our lunch stop as quickly as possible, and leave twenty minutes earlier. Because the heavy traffic we had coming in would be what could expect going out. We pulled up, met the friendly people, grabbed our box lunch, scarfed it down, and were on the road in roughly ten minutes. It was probably the shortest lunch break we had yet. We were very disappointed that we couldn’t stay longer. We always appreciate the hard work everyone puts in to provide good food for us.

After our quick getaway to the starting line we had a good twenty minutes of just sitting around. So did everyone else though. Everyone got out of their cars, and began chatting in the shade. It was really nice because even though this is a competition ,at the end of the day we are all here to get these classics on the road, travel the country ,& meet other people just like us.

Our only issue we had for the day was that we had one racer that really creeped on us. Close enough in fact that we were slightly worried that if we would stab the breaks to slow down that he might hit us if we were not careful. Luckily nothing like that happened. Before that though we took a corner real hard and heard something strange. We looked back to see what it was, a hubcap. We saw it just spin and take a right hand turn into the bushes. We were doing very well, so as we saw it travel far into the brush, we made a quick decision to continue on. Tony later spotted another vintage hubcap to another racer’s car in a field, obviously it was a hard day on hubcaps.

We pulled into Charleston for our stop for the night. These were some of the most polite people I have met so far. There was a car show going on, and we were incorporated into it as well. We met up with Mrs. Gutierrez and her kids again, and all headed to the USS Yorktown, which was right behind the car show. We pretty much had the aircraft carrier to ourselves. Dinner was in the hangar bay, where they gave a presentation to one of the members of the great race. He has been with the great race for over twenty years, and actually served on the USS Yorktown for 4 years. After dinner and the presentation we were allowed to freely tour the ship, which was pretty nifty. To put it short and simple a tall guy such as myself, 6’6”, could not have served on the ship. Everything was so crammed that I almost hit my head on everything.
As we were leaving the ship a storm blew in and a tremendous amount if rain began to fall. We ran from the ship and piled into Eliza and took off. As soon as we got to our hotel for the night we had to scurry like drowning rats to grab our stuff out of the trunk and get into a dry area.

As a whole today went well. Nothing bad really happened, no turns missed and the like. Our times were pretty good, except for a mysterious 24 seconds on one of the legs, which we are still trying to figure out. We are currently in 39^th place and 1^st in the division still. Ponca City is in 40^th place and only two seconds behind us. Yikes! With only two more days of racing we hope we can keep the spot, but it looks like it will be a close race.

 

 

Day 6 , Swerving to success in the South

Day 6, Swerving to success in the South

Today was another good day for us; maybe we’ve finally got the hang of this Great Race thing.

Today the Great Race decided to throw us for a loop again, quite literally. After leaving the starting line we proceeded to go in a circle. They had to figure a way to keep us busy, because it is only 100 miles from New Bern to Wilmington, if one was to take the highways.

The first thing we noticed about today was how humid it was. It was evident that we are definitely going south.  It was  also much warmer than previous days. I have to say that the Fairlane is well ventilated, when driving. The wind wings fairly useless, but with the windows down and the floor vents open it isn’t too bad. Today’s course did involve repeating the same roads a couple of times and seeing racers from all starting positions intertwine and go past each other in different directions was pretty amusing . It seemed as though we were set to intentionally mess each other up, almost as if someone was off course this carefully orchestrated dance could be jammed up. I don’t know about the other racers, but we didn’t have any traffic jams or proximity issues, luckily we were able to get past the tractors today.

Lunch today was in Clinton, North Carolina. The first thing we observed, aside from all of the resident’s cars, was a giant shopping cart in front of us. I literally mean a giant shopping cart. In the under section of the cart, there appeared to be a complete chassis. It was agreed that it would be fun to drive if possible. It was probably the best lunch stop we have had so far. Barbeque Pork & Chicken, some good Mac & Cheese, Blueberry Cobbler, and some Sweet Tea! After enjoying our wonderful lunch we headed back onto the course. I think Eliza actually sat a litle lower when we all got in.

We also saw the media crew a few times today, where they were able to get some good pictures of us. They were positioned at the corners, which you need to traverse one of two ways. The first way is going slowly and calculating how much time you need to make up. The other is to take the corner at what speed they tell you. We prefer the latter, not only do you have to calculate less, but it is a lot more fun to be in , especially with the large amount of body roll in our land yacht. Anyway, we tend to have a lot of these corners taken at anywhere from 15 to 40 mph. I am glad that we don’t have a hardtop. Whoever is sitting in the back seat tends to grab the post and hold on tight, because there is not much else to grab a hold of. The media crew got a shot of this in action, because we have all wanted to see this from an outside perspective.

Eventually we were off the clock for the day and made our way to the finish line. As soon as we entered the city of Wilmington the rain started to come down. The rain was fairly heavy but we were glad to see Motormouth standing in the rain still announcing us as we came in. We parked the car and then happened to meet a McPherson Alumni from the class of 85, Mr. Kevin Long, by pure chance. Mr. Long attended McPherson College for the automotive program, back when it was still a two year program. It was interesting that we just happened to meet a McPherson graduate in Wilmington; the best part is that he was on vacation and just happened to be here. He and his wife live in Wisconsin. After discussing how the program has changed, the race thus far, and the car, we parted company.

The results for today were very good. No we did not get any aces, but we had a grand total for the day of 36 seconds. As a team we were thoroughly impressed, because this was stretched across eight sections.  We have been bumped up to 41^st place and are still holding first place in the X-Cup. Ponca City is in 44^th place and a total of 21 seconds behind us.  It looks like we’ve gotten the idea down so far. We can only hope that we can hold steady.

This picture is taken from the official Great Race Blog. If you want to see some other neat pictures from the day take this link. http://www.greatrace.com/news/day-6-hot-heat-a-little-bit-of-rain-and-a-tricky-route.html#more-6174