Day 3 of the 2017 Hemmings Motor News Great Race presented by Hagerty is in the books, and we’re spending the night here in beautiful Bowling Green, Kentucky, before continuing our Northward trek. Today’s route gave us some great scenery, starting with a cool ride across the Tennessee River via the Market Street Bridge in Chattanooga. Then, it was time to tackle Fredonia Mountain and head east to McMinnville, Tennessee. The racers then entered a tricky maze, created by our Director of Competition, John Classen. The maze sent racers into a loop that required the full attention of the driver and navigator to make the right decisions. The most tricky spot was a left-hand turn onto a road with some loose gravel in the intersection. This provided several exciting moments, as racers held the pre-determined 20 mile-per-hour speed, as instructed. Jody Knowles and Richard Fredette had the wildest rides in their fenderless roadsters, but gathered them up and went on to score well on the day.

Our lunch stop was held in historic Cannonsburgh Village in Murfreesboro, Tennessee. This village had all sorts of cool old buildings and vintage equipment, and we enjoyed an excellent fried chicken lunch, complete with good old country vegetables and plenty of hospitality. From there, we made a northern push toward the Kentucky state line and saw some classic countryside, with corn fields, soybean fields and even a tobacco field thrown in the mix. The day’s route finished just outside of Bowling Green, Kentucky, and the racers had an opportunity to test their machines on the National Corvette Museum Motorsports Park road course. It was a lot of fun to see these guys let it all hang out on the ultra nice road course. Finally, we made our way to the Fountain Square in downtown Bowling Green for the hosted dinner stop ceremony. The fine folks from the Bowling Green CVB and Holley Performance put a lot of effort into the stop and fed our entire entourage a delicious BBQ dinner.

The scores weren’t quite as tight as yesterdays, and we have a third different daily score winner in as many days. Congratulations to Josh Hull and Trevor Stahl in their red, white and blue Ford Speedster for an outstanding 4.05 second score on the day, beating out veterans and Grand Champions by a large margin. Tomorrow is sure to have its own set of challenges, but for now, enjoy the action from today’s tricky trek from Chattanooga to Bowling Green.