There are lots of tips and tricks when it comes to being a competitive team in the Great Race. One of them is the navigator being able to focus sharply on the instructions, instead of fooling with the booklet and potentially missing an important course instruction. Bill Loubiere shared a few photos of his custom roller board, built specifically for rally instructions. It allows the navigator to scroll through the instructions efficiently and it helps with roadsters to keep the papers from flying in the breeze. Check it out!

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Ladies and Gentlemen, start your engines and join the VCRA Race For Autism “Fighting Autism One Mile At a Time” – the official fundraising charity of this year’s Great Race!

As you may know fundraising for Autism Charities has been an integral part of the VCRA & Great Race Rallies for many years. Since 2005 the VCRA has donated over $300,000 to Autism support programs!

The VCRA Race for Autism is simple. Each Race Team (Driver, Navigator & Support) that accepts the challenge will be entered in the “Race” to raise money in the name of their Team. Participation is, of course, voluntary. Check out the website: Race for Autism

We have worked hard to make your participation as easy as possible. Each Team has a Team Website already set-up where you can accept online credit card Tax Deductible Donations. Online donors will receive an automated Thank You and tax receipt.

Our Goal for the 2012 VCRA Race for Autism is to raise $50,000! We need your help to accomplish our goal and continue this great tradition of helping Fight Autism One Mile At a Time!

RACERS – CHECK YOUR EMAIL for more information and your Official Website Login Information! (The email is coming…

If you would like to try a Great Race style rally to get ready for the Great Race, check out the Northeast Rally Club 3-day rally in beautiful northeast Pennsylvania on May 18-20. This is a fun rally with instructions and rules very similar to the Great Race. Got to the Northeast Rally Club website: http://www.northeastrallyclub.com/ and click on “Forms and Paperwork” for more information and an entry form.

Last week we competed in the VCRA All Stars for Autism Rally. It was a fun event with great people. We were able to use this to help prepare for The Great Race. It was the first rally for Maxine with the new motor. We were pleased with the performance but Gary found some problems that he will fix before the Great Race. Once again Maxine is “apart” in the garage. Gary has assured me he will have everything fixed in plenty of time. It is hard to believe that it is only six weeks until we will be in Traverse City for the start of The Great Race. Time for the final countdown!

The Great Race is pleased to announce that Best Home Furnishings will be the sponsor of this year’s Ace Award, and the team with the most Aces will receive a $1,000 check while another team will win a recliner donated by Best.

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I love my job. The other day, we had a group from a magazine company here at Coker Tire and Great Race world headquarters to do a story on the history of tires from 1910 through today. And for the article, they wanted a car to represent each decade, and we provided one for eight of the 10 decades. Our good friend Jeff Lane of the Lane Motor Museum in Nashville provided the other two cars.

Click HERE for the story!

Is the Great Race on your bucket list but you don’t have an old car to participate in, well how about this 1916 Buick Speedster that Great Race veteran Bryan Dickson has for sale. And it’s a steal at only $15,000.

Click the picture for MORE pictures of the car!

Click HERE for the story!

It’s Not a Passing Grade!

It’s said that in any project you have three concerns: quality, cost, and schedule.  But you can only control 2 out of 3, even in a successful project.  Here, we had a tight schedule; and Bob Ensign and I are both artist enough to demand high quality.  That means this was bound to be expensive (and it is).  But now I fear we are losing the schedule, too.

It’s April 25.  We’re now down to less than 60 days to Great Race time.  The speedster chassis is nearly ready (still need to repack the wheel bearings), but the engine has yet to run again (carbs and manifolds are still a week away).  That seems quite do-able and not far off the schedule I posted in March.  But the body has progressed much more slowly and lags well behind the plan.  Not that the work is bad: on the contrary, Bob and Chuck and Ensign Autobody are doing a very fine piece of work in coachbuilding.  But it’s a lot of hand work and it’s taking way longer than estimated.

Unlike MOST speedsters, this one is designed as a full roadster – with fenders and operating doors!  That…

When I looked at the calendar this morning I realized it was just a little over 2 months till the 2012 Great Race. I immediately thought I needed to run to the nearest store and get my much needed blue and pink highlighters for the event. (I know I’m a little obsessed with the highlighters) This year I have a pleasant surprise of knowing that “Maxine” (our 1938 Ford) is actually all together and running since last year Maxine was still in pieces scattered around the garage at this point. Maxine has a new engine and “purrs like a kitten”. I’m concerned that our performance charts might need some adjustments. Actually I think the biggest problem will be with my driver driving like he did with the old engine and being too fast. I constantly must remind him that he is not in hot pursuit!!

Our expanded Rookie Mentoring Program is underway for this year’s race.  Carolyn and I have volunteered to coordinate this program.  We have over 25 rookies entered in the 2012 race.  We have 21 mentors that have been matched up with the rookie teams.  We still need some additional mentors so that each rookie team will have a mentor.  If you would be willing to be a mentor, please contact us at www.whcroker.com or 530-432-0505.

We will be sending information to the rookies and their mentors about car preparation, rally equipment, car calibration, and rally techniques.  These will go along with the videos that are already available on the GR website.

In Traverse City, after the regular rally school, we will have a special rally school for rookies, although anyone can attend.

Then for the Trophy Run rally on Friday before the start of the GR, we plan to start each rookie team behind their mentor, so that during lunch and the transit zones, the mentors can answer questions that rookies might have.

Got our 1936 Packard out the other day and started driving.  We put in a new pressure radiator to hopefully overcome the overheating problem we had last year.  Now it…