Great Race for classic, vintage cars ends at LeMay museum

A 1941 Ford cruises down the highway, with 40s-era big band jazz pouring through the opened windows.

This weekend, around 120 classic cars will hit the streets of Tacoma as part of the Great Race, a nine day, 2,300 mile “time, speed, and endurance rally for vintage cars, 1974 and older,” according to the website. The race began in Riverside, California, on June 22.

The cars will cross the finish line at LeMay-America’s Car Museum, on Sunday afternoon between 1:30 p.m and 3:30 p.m.

“It’s pretty special to host the finish line,” Jason Preston, a museum employee, said.

The museum has prepared a day of activities for classic car enthusiasts, beginning with a car show at 9 a.m. and ending with the presentation of awards to the winners of the race. The event will also include a Junior Judge program for kids, food trucks, a beer garden, and vendors.

The museum expects anywhere from 4,000 to 10,000 people to attend and are shutting down a section of D street.

“It’ll be a great community event,” Preston said.

Steve Hedke, his wife Janet, and their daughter Allison will represent the museum in the race driving their Studebaker 1964 Lark Daytona, Tacoma Weekly News reported.

Hedke first entered a three day Great Race rally in 1999, and did his first long term race in 2000. They’ve won several awards over their years competing in the race, and the car came in 5th overall when they competed in 2015.

They consider themselves “a top 10 team if all goes well,” according to the Tacoma Weekly News.

The route moves to different locations in North America each year. Last year, drivers traversed the Northeast and Canada, beginning in Buffalo, New York, and finishing up in Nova Scotia.

Competitors must drive their vehicles with timed precision. It isn’t a test of who can drive the fastest. Instead, teams receive scores based on how close to a predetermined “perfect” time they achieve during each leg of the race.

The cars follow prescribed routes, designed to work well for the classic vehicles.

For the most part, teams can only use analog equipment during the race. This includes clocks, wristwatches, speedometers, tire pressure gauges, compasses, thermometers, and altimeters.

Teams also can’t use navigational tools, like a GPS or online maps, only the maps and directions provided by the race, according to the rule book.

For those with the most precise times, the Great Race will hand out $150,000 in prize money to winners across five divisions. The winner of the Grand Championship, only open to participants who have won the Great Race in the past, will receive $50,000.

Competitors can also enter the Expert, Sportsman, Rookie, and X-Cup divisions.

The race began in 1983 when Tom McRae, Curtis Graf, and Norman Miller helped put together a race for pre-WWII vehicles. The original race had 69 participants, and competitors drove from Southern California to Indianapolis, Indiana.

A Family Trip

Washington native Jeff Cole participates for the first time this year in his 1935 Ford four-door touring sedan. For his team, the race is a family endeavor.

Jeff, his wife, Chris, their son and daughter Katie and Matt, and their children’s spouses Tim and Hailey, all take turns as navigators and at the wheel.

“It’s been a ball,” Jeff said. “We’ve had so much fun.”

The family has owned their 1935 Ford for around 20 years, but “it sat in the garage for 18 years,” Jeff said.

An ad about the Great Race inspired them to dust off the cobwebs and get it in shape for the West Coast trek. They worked on the car for 18 months before the race started, rebuilding the engine and fixing the ignition, among other projects.

Due to the challenges of driving classic cars, participants can modify their vehicles “in the interest of safety, reliability, and the preservation of historic vehicles,” but the changes “should not detract from the original appearance,” the race rules state.

“We call our car armstrong because it takes strong arms to steer it,” Jeff joked. “It rumbles down the highway.”

The time constraints can be difficult to maintain.

“You need a good navigator and a consistent driver,” he said, “but luck is also involved.”

The team was excited yesterday when they won their first Ace, an award given for cars which arrive at the exactly perfect time at the end of one of the race’s sections.

The family will compete against more than 30 other cars in the Rookie class this year, but the atmosphere is more camaraderie than competition. For his team, the race is about the fun of the experience.

“The towns have been fabulous and welcoming,” Jeff said, speaking of the locations they’ve stopped along their way. “Everybody looks at it as an adventure.”

See the Great Race

• When/Where: Sunday (June 30) at LeMay-America’s Car Museum
• Time: 9 a.m.-Noon, Shine Time Car Show; 1:30-3:30 p.m., Great Race cars will finish.
• Admission: Free admission to the car show and Great Race finish.

This story was originally published June 27, 2019 at 5:18 PM.