The 2024 Great Race is in the books and the Kieley/Roberts are home safe and sound. My Father-in-law, Ken, and I campaigned his 1968 Chevrolet Camaro in our fourth Great Race. My wife, Erin and her brother drove a 1969 Chevrolet Camaro in their second Great Race. Our support crew was led by my Mother-in-Law, Chris. She had three of her grand kids in tow including my daughter, Hannah.
Sadly, neither of the Camaros finished the race. Both teams were really doing well, so the mechanical problems were especially frustrating.
Runup
Ken and I worked on the cars for a couple months to get them ready for the race. We swapped the motor in the ’68 from the original matching numbers engine to a new Chevy Performance crate motor. We installed new gauges, a digital fan controller, new leaf springs, worked on steering, suspension, and transmission. There was very little mechanically that was left untouched. We were determined to bring the best version of the car to the race. The 69 Camaro got new gauges, a five speed transmission, and a digital fan controller. We tested the cars and made new performance charts. We were relieved when June 14th came and the cars went on the truck to be shipped to Owensboro.
Ken, Chris, Erin, Hannah, and I left home on the 18th to head to Owensboro, Kentucky. We broke the 1,000 mile drive into two days and spent the night in Little Rock, Arkansas. This left roughly 400 miles of driving on the 19th. Tom and two of his three kids flew into Evansville, Indiana and Erin drove the truck over to pick them up.
Ohio River from downtown Owensboro
June 20th was the first official day of race activities with the measured mile, tech inspection and registration. It should have been a fairly low key day. Tom and Erin took off for the measured mile (which was more like 50 miles) without filling up the gas tank and promptly ran out of gas alongside a highway. Ken and I stopped to render aid. We realized the nearest gas station was a 45 minute round trip south. I called Chris and asked her and the kids to get gas cans and gas realizing that they could get to them much sooner than Ken and I could. With gas in their tank, they completed the speedometer run and made it back in time for their registration slot. We registered both teams and got both cars inspected before heading out for another speedometer calibration run. This time, both cars had full tanks of gas. All was well except for an occasional miss on the ’68. Ken pulled all the plugs and found one that wasn’t gapped properly. Now, the car was ready to run. We had a fun evening listening to a bluegrass band in the lobby and found some good Mexican food at Don Mario’s.
June 21st was the big meeting for all teams followed by the Trophy Run. The Trophy Run is a practice rally held on the Friday before the start of the Great Race on Saturday. Ken and I had a good day, with a 13 second score. 4 early, 1 late, 1 late, 5 early, 2 early. The 4 and the 5 were both minor mistakes by me. The results were encouraging.
June 22 was the start of the Great Race. The day’s stage would take us from Owensboro to Lawrenceburg, Indiana. Our scores for the day were stupendous. 1, 0, 1, 1, 3. Six seconds total on the day put us in 6th overall in and 1st in our sportsman class. Ken and I were ecstatic. Neither of us slept very much that night. We had the ’69 jacked up in front of the hotel that night tying up loose exhaust pipes. The pipes on the ’69 are ridiculously low - that’s on our list for next year.
June 23 Stage 2. Indiana to Marietta OH.
I started off the day with a major mistake. We were a couple maneuvers into the first leg when I spotted a line of stopped race cars around a corner waiting for a train to clear a crossing. I was in the process of timing the corner when we had to stop. In a perfect world, I would have started the watch at 1/2 speed as we came to a stop and then started it when we were at 1/2 speed on our way again. I could then submit the time delay (to the nearest 10 seconds) and made up any difference. My brain just broke when I saw the line of cars and I didn’t get the watch going. I took my best guess at when we stopped and ended up with a 48 second leg that we would have to throw away. The other numbers weren’t spectacular either - a 8 late, 1 late, 1 late, 13 late. We dropped a spot in the overall rankings to 7th and down to 3rd in class. The cumulative results painted a prettier picture than we deserved. The lack of sleep, coupled with an strange noise from the car really did us in. We misdiagnosed the noise from the car as coming from the transmission. That evening, we jacked up the car and topped up the transmission fluid. Three days later, we would realize this was a fateful error.
June 24 Stage 3. Marietta, OH to Frostburg, MD.
6L, 2E, 2E, 20E, 5L
We missed a sign early on the first leg and had to hack off some Grand Champions that were two minutes ahead of us. The Camaro got to stretch its legs as we ran through the forest to catch the team ahead. We caught them, matched their speed and then stopped for two minutes to get back on time. I must have botched the hack slightly resulting in a six second leg. Still, it would be one less that we would have to throw away. The 20 early leg was another egregious error by me. I thought we had driven the wrong speed for a period of time resulting in a 20 second loss. We made up the 20 seconds - except we weren’t late to begin with. What should have been an ace, was a 20! The car made bad noises all day and belched smoke at stops. The noises and smoke turned out to be a burnt alternator bearing. Tom met a local in Frostburg that rebuilds alternators. He made us a new one with our existing case and pulley. Another local helped us install it and then Ken and I were able to continue. Moments like this on the race are really amazing to witness.
6/25 Stage 4. Frostburg, MD to Purcellvile, VA to Gettysburg, PA.
0,2,9,1,2,2. 11th overall, 3rd in class. We passed the Grand Champions behind us three times! After a great start to the day, we missed a corner on a transit on the third leg. We had no choice but to hack off the car ahead of us. Ken masterfully drove the Camaro through the forest and caught the car ahead after we realized we were almost four minutes behind. We caught the car ahead, stopped for a minute, and were just about to launch when the Grand Champions behind us passed us! We realized quickly that the car ahead must have taken a delay. We had no choice but to pass the Grand Champions again and hack forward. We would drive 20% over the prescribed speed for 300 seconds to get back on our minute. The hack was mostly successful, yielding a nine second run. After lunch, we had to pass them again after missing a turn - hacking again off the car in front and getting a 2 on the leg. It made for an exciting day! The day concluded with a drive through the Gettysburg battlefield.
6/26 Stage 5. Gettysburg, PA to Lewisburg, PA to Binghamton, NY
1, 13, 0, DNF, DNF. The day started off well and then the clutch started slipping. We pulled into the lunch stop at Lewisburg, Pennsylvania and jacked up the car to adjust it. Ken climbed under the car and adjusted the clutch as much as possible, but our race was done. We continued on after lunch as far as we could, stopping again at an Amish farm for another adjustment before retiring the car and waiting for the sweep truck. We thought briefly about putting a new clutch in a parking lot and then thought better of it. Ken and I were determined to transition from racers to the best support crew for Tom and Erin as they finished the race.
6/27 Stage 6. Binghamton > Providence, RI
Ken and I caught a ride with another support crew to Providence and then waited for cars to arrive. Upon Erin and Tom’s arrival, they reported having brake problems. We worked on the brakes into the early hours of the next day. While doing a test drive in the parking lot of the hotel, the car shuddered violently. The four bolts holding in the transmission had come out! This spelled the end of the road for the other Kieley/Roberts team.
Aftermath
Tom’s wife, Autumn and their youngest arrived just in time for our race to be done. The family carried onto Maine where we transitioned into tourist mode. The girls explored Freeport while the boys shopped for Corvettes in neighboring New Hampshire. We got to visit the Thomas Moser showroom, which has been on my bucket list for some time.
The cars were shipped home and we began the three and a half day drive home in the truck.
When the cars arrived, Ken and I began investigating the cause of the clutch failure. It turns out that we overfilled the transmission on Day 2 and it had been leaking onto the clutch.
We are incredibly grateful for the opportunity and our entire Great Race family. We are already thinking about 2025.