Stitched from the Road: Turning a Great Race Adventure into Art

Some Great Race stories are told in photographs, some in scorebooks, and some around the dinner table long after the cars are parked. For Team 158, the memories of the 2026 Great Race found their way into something a little different: a one-of-a-kind piece of fiber art.

After returning home from the Route 66 race, Bram Starr was greeted by a wall hanging created by his wife, Janet, that brought the team’s adventures to life in wool, fabric, photographs, and plenty of thoughtful details.

Bram shared the story behind the piece with us:

Having faithfully read each of the weekly dispatches from Great Race Central detailing various teams’ (mis)adventures from the 2026 race, I thought you might be interested in seeing what greeted our team, Car 158, upon our return home.

My wife, Janet, ever an enthusiastic supporter of my obsession with the Great Race, transformed our team’s many tales from the road into this storyboard in wool, borrowing heavily upon her skills as a fiber artist.

Dedicated to our sharp-eyed and clever 18-year-old navigator, whose love of all things vintage includes cars, music, and, fortunately, his 67-year-old driver, this wall hanging incorporates many of our grand adventures from the 2026 Great Race over Route 66.

The foreground is an artful reproduction of our 1963 Rambler’s dash, including the Timewise clock and even the blank covering over the odometer and factory speedometer, featuring a 1933 Packard in fabric.

Around the edges are many of the symbols used to represent landmarks in our daily course instructions. The states through which we raced are displayed in the center, with the route shown in contrasting beige.

The backgrounds behind, above, and below the car represent the scenery we traveled through along the way, including tall prairie grass, cornfields, desert, the Petrified Forest, and even the brief section of Route 66 that still consists of bricks.

Above the dashboard, two black musical notes coming from the radio represent our tastes in traveling music — think Marshall Tucker meets the Rolling Stones at Sinatra’s place in Palm Springs.

Whether airing from our parked car while awaiting the start of the next timed segment or playing at the end of a race day, Cotton’s varied musical tastes were welcome companions along the route.

In the bottom right is a photograph transferred to fabric showing Cotton’s computational notes. Above that are our four aces, earned despite our occasional distractions while discussing a variety of pressing topics vital to an 18-year-old.

The piece also includes a label dedicating it to Cotton, and Janet had the chance to present the finished artwork to him herself.

It is now a pretty special reminder of everything we experienced together during the 2026 Great Race.

And by the way — Cotton and I plan to reprise our act in 2027!