Day 14, Stage 13
Friday, July 8, 2005
Hotel: Courtyard Marriott, Tacoma
Weather: AM - Clear, sunny & warm; PM - overcast, rain and cold

We are in Puyallup! It was a very tough day. The final two days are called the Championship Run not only because these scores must be counted for everyone, but because they are designed to be difficult enough to discriminate among the top teams. Today's course lived up to that purpose. There were eight legs with a large variety of terrain, roads and maneuvers.

Leg 1 included an intricate maze of interlocking loops through a residential area of gravel roads holding a constant speed of 15 MPH. Cars were going in all directions reminiscent of an old Laurel and Hardy movie. We were pleased and surprised to score our third Ace on this leg. Leg 2 was more of the same and we got a 4 second score. So far, so good.

The AM pit stop in Benton City
 We then had a transit to our morning pit stop in Benton City, Washington. Following this was a marathon 4-hour leg through the flat farm country of eastern Washington, most of which was at 35-45 MPH and included 21 high-speed 90 degree turns. My trusty "nagitator" never missed an instruction, turn or speed change so I guess the driver must be responsible for the poor showing of 29 seconds early on this leg. We have concluded that I must have been taking the turns faster than I did when preparing the performance figures. Leg 3 was a short run to get us to our lunch stop and we did well on this one - 3 seconds.
Our lunch break was in the very generous little town of Naches, Washington. They not only had a great crowd but they treated us to steak dinners directly off the grill. While Dawn and I were enjoying this repast, we were suddenly startled to see Sharon, Drew and Dawn's whole clan running over to us. They had driven from Kent to surprise us here at the lunch stop before going back to the finish at Puyallup.

The lunch stop in Naches

The whole gang that greeted us in Naches!!!

The soggy PM pit stop in Packwood
 Shortly after lunch, the skies began to unload and it rained heavily the rest of the day. It turned quite chilly as well. We entered the hilly wooded area near Mount Rainier and spent the next few soggy hours negotiating these steep, narrow winding roads. We did OK on legs 5 and 6 with scores of 6 and 3 seconds and brought us to our afternoon pit stop at Packwood, Washington. Although the rain was coming down, we were greeted by a good crowd with umbrellas as well as a good fruit and snack buffet.

The next leg was our downfall. It was over 3 hours long and required holding 20 and 25 MPH for very long stretches through quite hilly terrain. Obviously, I am not very good at this because we came in with a score of 31 seconds. The race staff completed the day with a short final 10 minute leg on which we got 4 seconds. If you have been keeping a running total, you realize our score for the day is 1 minute and 20 seconds. Not exactly what we were hoping for but the Ace helps ease the pain. There were many scores worse than ours so we do not expect to drop much in the standings. Tomorrow will be our last opportunity to excel.

The Parc Ferme was in downtown Puyallup, Washington and there was a large crowd despite the rainy conditions. All of Dawn's family was on hand to greet us and "Motormouth", our Great Race announcer recognized them as we came through the gate.

Today's course took its toll on some of the cars. Our good friends, the Stumbs, came in on the sweep truck. Their race is done because of a connecting rod thrown through the side of the engine. Also the defending champions from last year who were running second this year so far had to resign because of rear end failure.

Tomorrow's final stage will determine the champion and the final standings.

HomeThe TeamThe CarPreparationRace RouteStagingTrophy RunTyson's CornerHarrisonburgAshlandLouisvilleUrbanaGurneeDavenportDes MoinesGrand IslandWestminsterRock Springs Twin FallsWalla WallaPuyallupTacomaAwardsEpilogue

Contents Copyright 2005 by Jerry L. Gregg