Corn, cows and dirt…yep, we’re in Kansas! We spent Stage 7 of the Hemmings Motor News Great Race presented by Coker Tire traveling from Wichita to Garden City, Kansas. Our morning started with a few quick turns, which led to a loop that sent racers around and back onto the same road they were on a few minutes prior. Corn fields were plentiful during the morning route, and once we got out of the loop, it was a long run into Great Bend, Kansas for lunch. Our stop was at the Brit-Spaugh Zoo, and we had an awesome turnout of local folks on hand. We had burgers and hot dogs, and a quick pass through the zoo before getting back on the road. The afternoon route had very few instructions, as it was a long, straight run on Highway 156. This stretch of highway went through several small towns, but the one that stands out to us is Burdett, Kansas, a town of only around 200 people. The race passed by the 156 Stop-N-Go convenience store, which had a great crowd of folks cheering on the racers. They even had free ice cream from 2-4pm to celebrate…it was a bright spot in our long afternoon route. Finally, we made our way into Garden City, Kansas for the evening stop. The town REALLY got behind the Great Race stop, with painted signs on the store windows, special posters and one of the best turnouts we’ve seen. Thousands of folks crowded Main Street as the Great Racers cooled down after a long day. As things started to calm down, the wind picked up and the racers rolled out to the hotels. Scoring is tightening up and today it was our seventh different winner in seven days. Howard and Doug Sharp took top honors today with an outstanding score of 2.64 seconds. Tomorrow we cross into Colorado!
Kansas Kruisers loved having The Great Race come to Garden City!!
It was an AWESOME event!!! THANK YOU for ALL of the hard work put in to such a FUN evening!!!
It was great to have The Great Race come to Garden City, KS.
It was nice to sit down and talk to a few of the racers..
Garden City Steakhouse
Congratulations car #130, Ellen & Steve Austin, on your ACE!!! So very happy for you ❤
Congrats Steve and Ellen on your first ACE!!! Way to go
We had never seen something like this and loved loved it all. Great crowd, great cars and loved hearing the stories behind each one when they started down Main Street of Garden City. Also, enjoyed all the displayed vehicles in the park. Amazing!!!
great pictures! Will these be available for purchase or put into a booklet at any time?
It will take a few weeks, but if you go to the Media dropdown in the menu at the top of the page and click on pictures, you will go to a page with many of the recent years. There is a SmugMug link just under the title that will take you to a site where all the pictures for about the last 10 years will be and you can buy copies of your favorites!
We greatly enjoyed seeing the unique cars. Garden City did a superb job. It was fun being part of this historical event.
Hi Howard,
Congrats on the day’s run.
We’re watching you and Doug.
Good luck!!
Bill and grace Boudway
WE live on Dutch Ave, the county blacktop going west out of Harvey County. Never heard anything about the race timing or coming our way. It was neat to see them going by and wished had time to just stop and watch them. This section of road are the pictures with all the tall corn and the wheat harvest truck with one of the cars.
A huge “THANK YOU” to the people who are taking all the fantastic pictures and creating the daily report write-ups. Those of us who aren’t able to be at every bend in the road are enjoying a chance to have a bit of the feeling of that everyone connected with the Great Race must feel. You are our heroes! ❤️
i was a little disappointed with the way Wichita was handled. we talked to the very few official people who were setting up the start finish line. No one could tell us of the route coming into Wichita, and no one covered the leaving Wichita. there were several of us that wanted to watch them on the road and cheer them on, but there was no media coverage that we could find that gave information except to say they would leave at 8 am. I love seeing the photos but we sure never felt a part of the celebration. One final comment, no one seemed to have air conditioning and it was 100+ out.
They weren’t trying to be mean, they really didn’t know. Only a few race officials know the route and they don’t share it, even the racers don’t get their instructions till 30 minutes before their assigned departure time. And then they are just a series of instructions saying speed up at this sign, slow down at that sign and make a turn at the next paved road. Sometimes they don’t even give the names of the roads to turn on! Sometimes people at a lunch or dinner stop ask us how we came into town and I can only shrug my shoulders and say I have no idea, I just turned where my navigator told me to!
It was such an honor to have this iconic race come thru garden city Ks. Thank you for choosing our town for this.
It was such an honor to have this iconic race come thru garden city Ks. Thank you for choosing our town for this. All the cars,drivers and navigators stories were of total interest to this retired teacher!!!
NICE JOB DOUG AND HOWARD GOOD LUCK
The Great Race has become a wonderful tradition that embraces “Americana”. As an organizer of the AACA Western National Tour, I’d LOVE to have many of the participants with us in the Wine Country of Santa Barbara September 25-29!
Go to AACASB.ORG.
Happy 4th of July
Dana Newquist
What awesome cars and racers! Garden city ks really came out and welcomed you all! Thanks for picking us as part of our route! It was very interesting to see and learn more what Great Race is all about!
My brother and I were heading to Holcomb for our family reunion that we have every year. So we are driving from Salina, Kansas and are past Great Bend when we start coming up on these classic cars. It was nice to see some of the cars that I grew up with!! And the family reunion was great like always.