The Great Race road rally will bring vintage cars to Cape Girardeau

If you ask Danny Essner, downtown Cape Girardeau is the place to be June 25.

That's the day hundreds of vintage cars will rumble into town on the fourth leg of The Great Race, a cross-country road rally.

"The Great Race is billed as the premiere vintage car road rally in the world," says Essner, who as a member of the River City Rodders helped bring the race to Cape Girardeau. "In its 30-year history, the Great Race has never passed through Cape -- and may never again. This might be a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to experience the Great Race without leaving home."

The race is a competition of precision and endurance, not just time.

"The Great Race -- which tests the time, speed and distance endurance of vintage cars along with the ability of their drivers and navigators to follow instructions very precisely -- is held over a nine-day period and utilizes a different route every year," Essner says.

This year's race will follow the Mississippi River from St. Paul, Minn., to Mobile, Ala., challenging drivers and navigators with a course that avoids highways in favor of a more scenic route. Previous races have traversed the Appalachian Mountains from Tennessee to Vermont, crossed the country from the West to East coasts and wound around the Great Lakes.

Seeing the cars roll into Cape Girardeau and head down Broadway will be a glimpse of the past -- the newest vehicle in the race is a 1969 model, Essner says.

You "can watch (the cars) cruise down Broadway, which was a tradition when I was growing up in the '60s, and then drive to downtown Cape, where (you) can view them up close and visit with the drivers and navigators," Essner says. "The race cars will be cruising down Broadway starting at 5 p.m. about one minute apart for an hour and a half."

In addition to the race cars, more than 100 local vintage cars will be on display in downtown Cape Girardeau.

Various businesses -- including Mississippi Mutts, Patrick Furniture and The Bank of Missouri -- will be hosting Pit Stop Parties.

Sherry Jennings, Mississippi Mutts owner, says her business will have extended hours and have some other special activities planned. "We'll have treat samples for dogs, who are welcome as always," Jennings says. "We're also going to have root beer floats with homemade ice cream and a special car-themed dog biscuit that we'll introduce that day. We're going to make it old-fashioned with decorations and oldies music playing."

In addition to the Pit Stop Parties, the Cape Girardeau Convention and Visitors Bureau is encouraging businesses on Water, Main and Spanish streets to host welcome parties.

"I am looking forward to showcasing our newly renovated Broadway corridor and our historic downtown area to both the participants in the Great Race and to all the visitors we are expecting," Essner says. "I am looking forward to filling downtown Cape with old cars and people. This will be a festive family-oriented event that promises to be a lot of fun."

How it works

The Great Race's winner is not the driver who covers the route in the shortest amount of time. The victor will have performed the best at navigating the nation's byways according to time specifications. The course purposefully includes slow maneuvers and secondary roads and drivers are clocked at secret checkpoints every day and given a point if they cross a checkpoint marker too slowly -- or too quickly.

"You want to stay on time, all the time," race director Jeff Stumb says. "The goal is to get zeros on all the legs."

A good day's score is just six or seven seconds off the target time, he said.

This information originally appeared in the Southeast Missourian.