Jack Hausmann has run the Great Race at least seven times and is going this year again with his granddaughter, Zoe. She is his navigator, as she was last year when they raced from St. Paul to Mobile! This year, the 2014 event will start in the state of Maine on Saturday, June 21, and end in Florida nine days later on Sunday, June 29.
It will mark the first time the Great Race has been to the state of Maine, and it will be the first time in 10 years that it has been in Florida. In 2004, the Great Race started in Jacksonville. Other states the Great Race will pass through in 2014 will be Massachusetts, Vermont, New York, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia.
They will be giving a running commentary here and friends and family are welcome to contribute encouragement and accolades!
Comment
Tuesday was touted to be the longest driving day of the race, and it lived up to
it's reputation. We had a relatively early start, flowing through Delaware
traffic down 202 to I-95 for our speedometer check. Following our speedo check,
we turned south onto the Del Mar peninsula. A very nice road, a little warm, but
okay. We did very well through stage one; we restarted correctly and all was
good. However, the second restart was a bit of a challenge, and I second guessed
Zoë, and messed up our start. This resulted in a 45 second error. But we had a
fun day, and did our best.
It looks like New Bern, NC tonight! http://www.visitnewbern.com/event_details.php?2359
John Corey's article on http://www.greatrace.com/ reports that the Race went over the Chesapeake Bey Bridge/Tunnel from PA to Virginia Beach. It is just a quick trip to get the lunch stop in Elizabeth City, NC. I am told the Race stopped at the Waterfront Park there and the city had invited a large crowd out to say hello. The NC Outer Banks is one of my favorite places on the East Coast.
Hey Jack!
Strap a couple of Lobsters on top of the Beetle and drop em off when you come through SC!
Looks like an amazing event!
Sounds like you guys are having a great time with little bumps along the way - Have fun - miss you - see ya soon!
Wow! Great pics!! :-)
We were car 99 yesterday, so we were the last car to start. It puts you in a
tough spot, because there's no one to look for if you get lost. In spite of a
bit of a rocky start, we finished in 27th place yesterday. The roads were some
of the roughest Jack has encountered in his years of Great Racing. As many as a
dozen cars encountered mechanical difficulties, and had to be brought home by a
car ambulance (Tommy's tow truck). We arrived at the almost new Valley Forge
Radisson Hotel and Casino to a huge crowd. Jack met a lady who had only owned
Volkswagens her whole life. She is just one example of the many people who love
our car and it's brethren. Later in the evening, you could look and see lights
burning in the parking lot: racers preparing their cars for the longest day of
the race. Today promises to be exhausting, and will require all the attention
and focus we can muster.
In 2011 a hundred year old Velie won the The Great Race. Click on the photo to read the story. :-) The link right is a video of it in the rain! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RThWw7oA3kQ
Velie was a American car make produced by the Velie Motors Corporation in Illinois from 1908 to 1928. The company was founded by and named for Willard Velie, a maternal grandson of John Deere. :-)
Jack and Zoe, what an adventure !!!!! Just keep those big Hausmann smiles !!!!
Good Luck with the rest of your trip. Sure do miss you !!!
As per usual, the beetle had problems, the locals and other racers came to the rescue. Somewhere along the route, we lost our oil cap, and oil spewed out of the filler tube. In Poughkeepsie, NY, Jack chatted with some of the locals who had come out to see the car, and got lucky. Kevin Tiberio and his family were VW fans, and he knew a guy (his father-in-law) who knew a guy (a VW mechanic). Jack was going to drive out to them, about a half an hour away, but then our second problem became crucial: our lights didn't work. We were saved by the kindness of strangers, when the Tiberios drove to us. Jack met the Tiberios ten minutes outside of Poughkeepsie, them in their VW bus, and got an oil cap. Back at the hotel, our lights still didn't work. As luck would have it, we were parked next to a master mechanic, Jacques le Blanc, who fixed our lights. What would we do without the help of all of these wonderful old car enthusiasts!
Hey Jack!
one mile a minute is 60 MPH in case the speedometer breaks again!
Good luck. following progress from SC
Adamson
I wonder if Wayne is trying to copy Corky's mustache? :-)
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