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!…

A Backhoe, Tractors, Truck … don’t they know we are rallying?  What a day!  The weather was a 10 – perfect … sun, no clouds … awesome!  Then we started rallying … covered bridge, slow speeds, lovely Pennsylvania farm scenery… which means farm equipment.  Remember, Farmers are out early in the morning doing their “stuff” and we are on the same roads.  There is nothing so “special” as coming around a corner and being behind farm equipment doing 15 miles per hour going up hill … what do we do?  Do we stop?  Do we drop to 50% of speed?  What is the right answer?  How do we stay on speed/time?  Well, obviously Tim & Alex Mitchell figured this out today as they won today’s Race.   Or, they were lucky … if they were 5 minutes later the whole scenario could change.  THAT is Great Racing and THAT is what makes it fun.   Bravo Great Race!  We can’t wait for next year!!

One of the most frustrating things about being in the Great Race is when we are in small towns or “villages” and come up to a stop sign … and a local comes over to the car to chat.  There is nothing we love to do more than talk with folks about the Great Race, but when we are on-the-clock we just don’t have time – we are timed to one-hundredth of a second.  So, as Patrick is counting down 3 – 2 – 1 and I am watching for traffic and preparing to go – I try to give the folks a 3 second conversation.  We fear we have left people all over the country thinking we are the rudest people in the world; and for that we apologize!   This year to try to “make peace” we have “trading cards” to give to people as we zoom off from the stop sign. But no need for you to apologize for not having your Donation to the 4th Annual “Auction for Autism” in yet – there still is time!  We would appreciate knowing what your donation is by June 1st if possible.  Check out the very awesome donations we…

You may know the great aviation story about “Wrong Way Corrigan” who mistakenly flew from New York to Ireland when he was supposed to be flying to California … let me tell you about the Great Race legend “Wrong way Menneto”.  In 2005 we were Rookies with Jim Menneto (President/Publisher of Hemmings Motor News).   Our Rookie year we soon learned if we were going the same direction as the big blue Hemmings Dodge – we were going the wrong way.  That is unless they were passing us trying to get back on time.  (Please understand, over the past 6 years they have become VERY good!)  The fun part of Great Racing is no matter how many years you have done it – you still make mistakes … and hopefully laugh about it!   Remember Rule #1 – Stay on Course! Hemmings is right on course with their donation of a FABULOUS one-of-a-kind Hemmings Hot Rod Pedal Car to the 4th Annual Auction for Autism!  The custom built Hot Rod is Black with Flames and of course, the Hemmings Logo!   This Hemmings Hot Rod Pedal Car is perfect for your Kids, Grandkids or sitting in your shop!  Thank you Hemmings, we know…

I will never forget on the 2005 Great Race we were heading toward Clovis, New Mexico on the typical back roads (with no center line) when we encountered huge winds – then torrential rains and quarter size hail.  A number of cars pulled off the road, but since we were topless we chose to continue on, very slowly, in search of clear weather.  The rains were blinding and Pat put an umbrella over my head to shield me from the painful hail.  (Dick Burdick suffered numerous bruises and a fat lip from being hit by the HUGE hail.) Behind us was the Great Race Camera Crew in a modern SUV and we figured they would get some great shots of the cars in the storm.  (Afterwards they told us they were too scared to take pictures.)  Since I could not see the road I pulled in close behind a car with big taillights and followed his every move.  As the wind and rain continued we had to ford numerous flooded sections of the road while keeping an eye on the car ahead of us to see if it disappeared in the water! As the weather started to clear we found…