I went out to the day's finish line last night to watch the Great Racers
arrive in Grapevine, TX. Today is their only off/pit day before they
hit the road again bound for Daytona. To any and all on the route, I
strongly urge you to go see this rolling museum of automobiles. It's
not easy to express the devotion of these people without seeing it for
yourself. How about a 1909 Lozier, 1925 Rickenbacker, a Peerless, a
Willys Knight, a Selder, a Graham, a Tatra T-87 (Czechoslovakian)...
Consider this: the 1957 TR3 entry from Team Scrappy is among the three
newest cars in the race and it may be in the upper third in terms of
comfort. We Triumph people have a choice of vendors from which to buy
parts. Most of these folks have to fabricate every part they need. I
saw one team preparing to do an overnight throw-out bearing and U-joint
job. No sleep for them, but at least they won't have to be driving
today, which is a rare luxury for them. This was a father-son team with
no support crew. The Roush Racing (sponsoring 3 cars) trailer had racks
and drawers of blank bar/rod stock, sheet metal stock, and a full
machine shop outfitted in the trailer. Pretty serious stuff.
Check out Team Scrappy's performance, as noted elsewhere on this board.
Then take a look at the main web site, www.greatrace.com. If you live
anywhere near the route, try to make time to go see these people and
their machines. The cars themselves would be incredible in a museum -
now picture putting 4,000 miles on them in two weeks. My hat is off to
the entire group!!
Mark Saffian
Farmersville, TX
'73 GT6 MkIII (only 15 years to go before I'm eligible for this race!!)
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