Dave Meier was bushed. He had arrived minutes earlier in Chula Vista, Calif., parading up Main Street with 92 other participants in the 20th annual Great Race, every so often tapping the air horn of his '38 Kenworth at appreciative car nuts, many of whom had put their own vehicles on display.
This was the close of the seventh leg of the rally. It had begun a week earlier in San Antonio, gone east to Houston, then backtracked through Fort Worth, Tex., Clovis, N.M., and Williams and Scottsdale, Ariz., as more than 90 participants in vintage cars and trucks made their way to the West Coast. The rally would end the following day, June 22, in Anaheim.
But the leg from Phoenix to suburban San Diego was about the roughest because desert heat had soared above 100 degrees. Meier's KW had a show-quality interior, but like the other old vehicles, no air conditioning.
This was the 13th Great Race for Meier, 41, of Bettendorf, Iowa. “But it's not our lucky 13th,” he said, then smiled weakly at his navigator, John Fry, 17, a family friend from Bloomington, Ind. Fry was a rookie at the complicated sport of rallying, which involves careful timing between checkpoints along the rigidly laid-out route. They weren't doing well.
By now Meier and his five-person support crew didn't expect to get anywhere close to claiming any of the cash prizes in various classes, and they didn't. Wayne Stanfield, a plumber from Santa Ana, Calif., who had run in every previous Great Race, grabbed his fifth win the following day. He drove a 1934 Ford Indy Racer and was guided by teenage navigator David Dingman of Nassau, Bahamas.
Win or not, there is adventure in competing, partly because it ain't cheap: The entry fee is $5,000, and there are en route motel rooms, meals, fuel and other incidentals to pay for. Fortunately, Meier's sponsor, as in past years, was CAT Scales of Walcott, Iowa, which has long used the 64-year-old Kenworth for promotions.
The Cummins-powered KW was a Seattle fire truck before Meier bought and restored it years ago. It was the only heavy truck in the annual race; there were many '40s and '50s pickup trucks, and most vehicles were former race cars and passenger cars. They were a sight to behold when they came into town, and they'll be doing it again next year, at regional rallies and the national event. Find out more at www.greatrace.com.
