That title for today’s posting was Dale’s summary of today’s rally (well, OUR rally today, that is).  Actually but for one teensy little mistake, it went pretty well. Bender behaved for the most part (some intriguing new noises, but no actual untoward bad behavior like overheating, or breaking anything important).  Sure was hot, though. Maybe the heat can be blamed for us missing that right turn toward the cemetery, which led us to go through a checkpoint in the wrong direction, then cleverly decide that the best thing to do is just pull over and wait, as we could see cars ahead of us coming back the RIGHT way through that same checkpoint.  We did, and followed back in line at the appropriate time, best we could estimate.  When we got our scores, we saw we figured within 9 seconds of ideal!  However, it seems there was another checkpoint in between, that we missed by this clever maneuver.  So we got a maximum 3 minute penalty for that missed leg!  Whoops.  No Trophy for us today.  Our fully-run legs were not too bad: 2 seconds, 10 seconds, that 9 seconds, and then 57 seconds on the final leg, when I was unsure what speed we should be carrying (it was a timed section after we rejoined the line, so we were unsure of when it ended, with a speed change).  Whoops Again. Time to rely on Ye Olde Familye Mottoe: Get up Tomorrow, Try Again!

I have sometimes been asked what kind of cars can do the Great Race and I took one snap today that captures one span of an answer there: a low, lightweight foreign sports car next to a big, heavy American land yacht.  And they both beat us today!

And here are four ‘Faces’ of other entrants (I will try to capture all 120 ‘faces’ for a combo poster). Auburn, Fiat, Fury, MG. What do these have in common? Well, headlights, I suppose. If it runs, and it’s old enough, it’s got what it takes to be a Great Race car!

We had a reception this evening (and they fed us). It was good, as ever, to talk and laugh with our friends, but we didn’t wait around to hear the awards for today’s Trophy Run (we were pretty sure we wouldn’t hear OUR names called…). Instead we went out to get Bender fed, too – all gassed up for the morning. He seems to have developed a small leak in the right exhaust manifold or thereabouts. He chuffs a bit under hard throttle. Too hot to touch, much less try to fix, tonight. We’ll try to figure it in the morning, but at worst it’s just a mildly impolite noise. We can run with it, if we must.