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Le Belle Macchine at Pocono Raceway
in Long Pond, Pa., June
20-23 will host a
lunch stop on the
2014 Hemmings
Motor News Great
Race presented by
Hagerty Monday, June
23, race promoters have
announced.
The
Great Race, the world's
premiere old car rally, will
bring more than 100 antique
automobiles to the
Le Belle Macchine d'Europa gathering at
the track for the $150,000 event.
The
race will start June
21 in Ogunquit,
Maine, and weave its
way 2,100 miles over nine
days down the Atlantic
Coast through 13 states before the finish
in The Villages, Fla., on June
29. They will start that
morning in Poughkeepsie,
N.Y.
The
Great Race, which began
31 years
ago, is not a speed race, but
a time/speed/distance rally. The vehicles, each with a
driver and navigator, are given precise instructions each
day that detail every move down to the second. They are
scored at secret check points
along the way and are penalized one second for each second
either early or late. As in golf, the lowest score
wins.
Cars
start - and hopefully
finish - one minute
apart if all goes according to plan. The
biggest part of the challenge other than staying on time and
following the instructions is getting an old car to the
finish line each day, organizers say.
The
cars will arrive
after 11:40
a.m. at one-minute
intervals for more than an hour and a
half and
stay parked for an
hour
each hour to
allow spectators to visit with the participants and to look
at the cars. It is common for kids to climb
in the cars for a first-hand
look. All Great Race stops
are free to the public.
Cars
built prior to 1972 are eligible, with most entries having
been manufactured before World War II. In the 2013 Great
Race down the Mississippi River from Minnesota to the Gulf
of Mexico, a 1913 Premiere and a 1916 Hudson were the two
oldest vehicles. There was also a 1917 Peerless and a 1920
Model T in the event and many of those cars are expected
back again in 2014.
Humpy
Wheeler of Concord, N.C., will be
participating with his
grandson in a Fabulous Hudson Hornet
decked out to look like "Doc Hudson" from the Pixar
movieCars. Wheeler is the former
president and GM of Charlotte Motor Speedway was considered
one of the best promoters in NASCAR
history.
Frank
Buonanno and Chris Clark from Newtown, Conn., will be
participating in their 1915 Hudson 6-40 speedway racer; Chad
and Jennie Caldwell of Newnan, Ga., will be racing their
1931 Auburn; and Buddy and Bill Green of Wilmington, N.C.,
will compete in their 1969 "General Lee" Charger just to
name a few.
Last
year's winners, Barry and Irene Jason of Keller, Texas,
drove a 1935 Ford coupe and won $50,000. It was the second
straight year for the couple to win the event.
The
2014 winners will again receive $50,000 of the $150,000
total purse.
Over
the decades, the Great Race
has stopped in hundreds of cities big and
small, from
tiny Austin, Nev., to New
York City.
"When the Great Race pulls
into a city it becomes an instant festival," race director
Jeff Stumb said. "Last year we had 30,000 spectators at the
start in St. Paul at Back to the 50s, and another 10,000 people at the
overnight stop in
Cape Girardeau, Mo., and at the lunch stop in Crowley, La.,
on our way to having 250,000 people see the Great Race
during our stops."
After
leaving Pocono
Raceway the cars will
head south for
the day's finish
in Valley Forge,
Pa.
The overnight
stops, in order,
are Lowell, Mass.; Poughkeepsie,
N.Y.; Valley Forge, Pa.; Norfolk, Va.; New
Bern, N.C.; Wilmington, N.C.; Mount Pleasant,
S.C.; and Jacksonville, Fla.
Lunch
stops, in order, are Bennington, Vt.; Long Pond, Pa.;
Millsboro, Del.; Elizabeth City, N.C.; Clinton, N.C.; Myrtle
Beach, S.C.; Savannah, Ga.; and Ocala, Fla.
The
event was started in 1983 by Tom
McRae and it takes its name
from the 1965 movie, The Great
Race, which starred Tony Curtis, Jack
Lemmon, Natalie Wood and Peter Falk. The movie
is a comedy based on the real life 1908
automobile race from New York to Paris. In
2004, Tony Curtis was the guest of the Great Race and rode
in his car from the movie, the Leslie
Special.
The
Great Race gained a huge following from late night showings
on ESPN when the network was just starting
out in the early 1980s. The
first entrant, Curtis Graf of Irving, Texas, is still a
participant today and will be racing
a 1916 Packard
again this
year.
The
event's main sponsors are Hemmings Motor News,
Hagerty, Coker Tire, Reliable Carriers and Best
Western.
For
more information, go to www.greatrace.com or
contact Jeff Stumb atjeff [at] greatrace.com or
by calling him
a .432-648-8542
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