The 2023 Great Race is in the books. This year’s race went from St. Augustine, FL to Colorado Springs, CO over the course of 9 days. This year, the Kieley / Roberts team fielded two first generation Chevrolet Camaros. This would be the third race for Ken and me in the Butternut Yellow 1968 Camaro. It would be the first for Erin and her brother, Tom, in the Blue 1969 Camaro. My mother-in-law, Chris and my daughter, Hannah would be the support crew traveling from city to city in the truck with luggage, spare parts, and tools.

As is often the case in the Great Race and life in general, our carefully laid out plans were thrown out the window by an early plot twist. Tom had his appendix removed the day he was supposed to fly to Florida. We debated whether to find another driver for Erin or ship the car home and defer until 2024. We talked it over and decided to ask our friend, Gerno, if he could fill in. I sent him a text on Wednesday night asking, “Want to drive a 69 Camaro across the country next week?”. 24 hours later, he was on a plane to join the team.

Friday morning was a practice rally around St. Augustine, FL called the Trophy Run. It’s an opportunity to practice, shake down the cars, and get in the swing of things before the week of racing really gets underway. My daughter, Hannah, rode with Ken and me in the car for the Trophy Run. We had a ball introducing Hannah to the Great Race. This was her first year to come along as part of the support crew. We had an 11 second day in the car and were 20th overall on the Trophy Run. We had three legs with only one second of deviation from perfect. We were optimistic about the week.

Saturday’s route took us from Francis Field in St. Augustine to Tifton, Georgia. The day got off to a rocky start right from the beginning. Traffic ruined the beginning of the run that we use to calibrate our speedometer. Once we cleared the St. Augustine traffic, we resumed the calibration run only to be nearly run off the road by another competitor whose situational awareness left a lot to be desired. We were a bit rattled going into the first timed section after lunch. We had our first mechanical hiccup in the afternoon at a restart where the car was vapor locking. I had my head down computing the loss from the start and missed a corner. We realized within a minute or two that we had missed a right turn when we saw another lone competitor coming back toward us. We turned around and passed five cars to get back in our position. We encountered a checkpoint before our “hack” was complete, resulting in a 1 minute 3 second leg. Not to worry, we would be able to drop our five worst legs from the first seven days. The other legs totaled 13 seconds which was a decent start to the event. The cumulative results from day one doesn’t show the dropped leg, so we were in a disappointing 100th position with nowhere to go but up.

Lots of spectators braved the heat to see the cars this week.

Sunday’s route took us from Tifton, Georgia to Birmingham, Alabama. I had a couple stopwatch blunders which cost us a few seconds. Otherwise, it was an uneventful day of driving. Scores for the day were 3, 7, 3, 1, 6.

Stage 3 on Monday took us from Birmingham to Graceland. We had our first delay on this day for a flagger at a construction crew. We also had another missed corner brought on by an instruction I did not understand. Thankfully, Ken saw another racer leave the intersection (of three roads) the correct direction and was able to hack off them to get us back on track. We earned a 1 second time on that leg, our best time of the day. Another missed turn in the afternoon while I had my head down resulted in another dropped leg. Our scores for the day 6, 1, 3, 11, 2m – not a red-letter day!

Stage 4 on Tuesday took us from Memphis to Russellville, Arkansas. A bumpy road beat us half to death and the center cap on the right rear wheel flew off. Ken heard the part go flying. We managed a 1, 2, 4, 10, 4, 2. At this point – or perhaps earlier – we realized that our chances of winning our class had slipped away. The top couple teams in our sportsman division were running away with the lead while we struggled. We had run out of drops for our double-digit legs. Our attitudes changed for the better. I had been taking it way too seriously and not having fun.

On Stage 5’s run from Russellville, Arkansas to Joplin, Missouri, we took on a passenger. Tom and his daughter, Kendall, flew into Memphis the previous day to join the race. Tom rode with us on the day to get acquainted with the race and the car. Kendall joined Chris and Hannah in the support truck. The cousins had a grand time with their grandma, Gigi. With Tom in the car, Ken and I picked up our first ace as well as a 4,1,10,1. With our five second penalty for taking Tom along, we scored 21 seconds on the day. We were slowly climbing up the leader board.

#11 rolling through the finish gate in Joplin.

Stage 6 was from Joplin, Missouri, to Wichita, Kansas. Tom took over the driving duties on #11 from Ken who had gotten overheated the day before. Ken joined the girls in the support truck to recover. Tom and I sweltered in the car on a 105-degree day. We earned an ace, 2, 5, 8, 4, 14. The 14 second leg involved a delay for a train and two tractors. Tom was a trooper driving a long, hot stage a week after his surgery.

Stage 7 took us from Wichita to Garden City, Kansas. More heat, more cows, more Kansas. Tom drove again on this stage and would end up finishing the entire race for #11. We managed a 4,3,2,1,3,6 on the day. We were climbing the leader board with single digit scores.

Stage 8 took us from Garden City, Kansas to Pueblo, Colorado. We earned another Ace, 1, 5, 13, 4. We had an epic maze after our lunch at the Lamar Depot. There were cars going every which way. We missed a turn but quickly realized it. Tom turned the car around and it promptly died in the middle of the street. We were perpendicular to the road, blocking both directions. We had competitors coming at us from both directions. He got the car started in the nick of time and I was able to measure the loss. We made up the 49 seconds lost by going 20% over the prescribed speed for 4 minutes and five seconds. Thankfully, we didn’t encounter a checkpoint until after the makeup was done. We had a couple well-earned beverages in Pueblo.

Stage 9 of the event took us around Colorado Springs before finishing downtown. The car overheated after our speedometer run. We had 12 minutes to diagnose and repair the problem before our timed run began. There could be no drops on this day because it was the final two days of the event. One of our competitors ran into a gas station and bought us coolant. I hosed down the radiator with a squirt bottle while Tom filled the car with gas. Once the radiator was cool enough, we refilled it. We decided the electric fan wasn’t working because of a relay or fuse. We quickly rewired it using a piece of extension cord found in the trunk. We cut the fan wires and hardwired it to the battery. It wasn’t pretty, but it would get us to our start in time. Finally, all those episodes of MacGyver as a kid were paying off. We had a great day on the road with the “repaired” car earning a 1, 1, 3, ace, 1. Our climb up the leader board continued – unfortunately, aided by some other teams backing up due to mechanical failures. One such team was our friends, Dan and Pat from New Braunfels. I was gutted to see them broken down on the side of the road on the final day.

Ken, Tom, and I finished fourth in the Sportsman class. We bettered our fifth in class finish from last year. We were 20th overall out of 123 cars. 101 cars finished the race.

Everywhere we go all week long. Small town America is AMAZING.

Erin and Gerno positively dominated the rookie division. They finished the event in 13th place overall. They won their class on five individual days. They won the rookie division by a whopping 49 seconds. Their time would have won them 2nd place in the Sportsman class. Their raw time for the week was only 20 seconds higher than the overall winners! I am so proud of them. Teaching them and my other rookie team and seeing them both do well has been the highlight of this experience.