“A Math Quiz with a Car”

“Minnie the Moocher” by Cab Calloway blared through the signature speaker installed on the roof of a 1974 Plymouth Blues Mobile replica made famous by the film “The Blues Brothers” as Louisiana resident Stephen Haybert drove into Cape Girardeau with his brother-in-law for the 37th-Annual Hemmings Motor News Great Race June 22. Each wore the respective black fedora and sunglasses to complete their transformation into Jake and Elwood from the movie.

“I guess I like the stress, really,” Haybert said of why he enjoys participating in the event. “I retired at a young age, and I needed something to do besides watch my wife do Sudoku. So, we decided to do a math quiz with a car, and that’s what this race is. A math quiz with a car.”

Jon Cramer drives down Main Street during the Great Race stop in Cape Girardeau. Along the race route, cars stop in nine designated towns.

The Great Race is an annual premiere car show with a variety of overnight stops. The 2021 race began in San Antonio and featured stops in Temple, Texas; Nocona, Texas; Joplin, Mo.; Cape Girardeau; Owensboro, Ky.; Lexington, Ky.; Beckley, W.Va.; and Mooresville, N.C., ending in Greenville, S.C. The travel route was 2,300 miles long and took place over nine days. While in Cape Girardeau, drivers drove their vintage automobiles down historic Broadway Street onto Main Street as an announcer informed the crowd about the cars and participants.

The goal of the drivers, along with their navigators beside them in the car, is not to be the fastest, but instead to be at specific speed limit signs along the route at a certain time. Cars arriving on time would not receive a point, but ones arriving late would, with the winner being the car with the lowest amount of points. Winners receive a $50,000 portion of the total $150,000 cash prize.

This year, Olivia and Genna Gentry, a rookie team, were the first all-female team to win the race. The racing duo drove a 1932 Ford Coupe.

A car depicting the race route is displayed while the passengers chat with a race official during the Hemmings Motor News Great Race stop in Cape Girardeau. The race began in San Antonio and ended in Greenville, S.C.

The Great Race was started by Norman Miller and Tom McRae in 1983 after McRae heard about The Great American Race from Los Angeles to Indianapolis, which was only open to pre-World War II automobiles; the winner received $250,000. The car enthusiast duo decided to buy out the original promoter of the event, and from there, the Great Race was officially out of the starting gate.

The route for the race can run from east to west or west to east, but, due to many of the cars’ inability to drive safely on the interstate for extended periods of time, it includes mostly back-road driving. The benefit of this aspect of the race allows the participants to see many “hidden” parts of America.

Tallahassee, Fla., resident Mark Kramer navigated a 1952 Hudson Hornet in the Great Race along with his cousin in the driver’s seat.

“As a navigator, I have to make sure we are on the correct road, and then what is the next instruction and then where is it,” Kramer said. “Because you have no idea, and it could be a speed limit 35 sign. After that, whatever you see doesn’t matter because now you’re on to the next instruction. If you don’t pay attention, it’s really easy to get lost.”

The combination of older vehicles and thousands of miles to travel means there is the occasional mishap. New Yorker Jesse Jamison is a bridge builder and was a participant in this year’s Great Race.

The crowd reacts to driver James Goode and navigator Lou Goode driving down Main Street in their 1965 Chevy Corvette during the Great Race overnight stop in Cape Girardeau. The purpose of the race is not to be the fastest but to be at specific speed limit signs along the route at a certain time.

“We started out with a 1917 Hudson down in San Antonio, Texas,” Jamison said. “This year, I got two blocks out of the starting line, and the rear end just completely blew out.”

Jamison has several other cars that participated in the race this year, including a 1972 AMC Javelin. This car was one of the 16 original Alabama State Highway Patrol cars incorporated into patrol to keep up with the other hot rods on the road at the time.

For Jamison, the event is about more than cars.

“It’s a family thing,” he says. “I’ve got 14 people with us in three cars. My grandkids and son are with me, and we just go out for like three weeks every year and have a good time working around cars and driving around the country.”

In the end, the Great Race is about accuracy and bringing people, families and communities together, creating a future generation of historic car enthusiasts.