We finished friday night at the NHRA Museum at the Fairplex in Pomona. Our hotel was right next door so it made it really easy to get cool quickly, get cleaned up and ready to hit the sack. You would be amazed at how filthy we get after being in that open car out in the elements all day long.

Great Race rally master John Classen and crew set the order of the transit (parade) into the finish city of Anaheim by using reverse cumulative order after the next to last day’s scoring. Since after Laughlin, Nevada we were in 16th place, we were 16th from the last to leave the Fairplex in Pomona. All the finishing Great Race participants drove the 30 something miles down to the City of Mickey Mouse. Each car was supposed to be separated by 30 seconds intervals(according to our instructions). I don’t know if you have ever driven LA freeways but when you do, you do whatever the rest of the traffic is doing too. They also made us seal our cell phones and blackberrys again like any rally day. They staple them in a brown paper bag so you can still get to it incase of emergencies, but.. I wasn’t really sure what that was all about but, we did it anyway.

By the time this last day rolled around we felt like it has been months since we were in Concord, North Carolina or even Chattanooga. That is not a bad thing, it’s just that so much has happened and we have been to so many places, and seen lots of really good friends and made new ones! We have had a fantastic time, and had some good scores and some bad ones, …even some really bad ones. After Chattanooga, we were in 52nd place (look it up for yourself!). Then look at the final cumulative score. We moved all the way up to 13th place!

Cameron Coker and Greg Cunningham finished in 25th place in Greg’s 1928 Model A Ford Speedster. They had a great time and worked well together.

We had a wonderful reception by the folks in Anaheim on the Grand Promenade. Bob Labine and Charlie Wheeler won the event in their 1928 Ford. They had a total cumulative score of 1020. You can see all the scores here at Greatrace.com

My friends at Coast Media were waiting for us to cross the line and filmed us. I also did some interviews with some of the other racers. You will hear more about whats up my sleeve with that later. Two weeks earlier, we saw my buddy Wade Kawasaki in Concord, North Carolina for the start of the race. Since he lives in SoCal, he brought his sweet wife Rose, and his son, Timothy and daughter, Allysa down for the finish. He is a real friend. I met Dennis Webb, who built the Shafer 8 body for my friend, Tom McRae back in the early nineties. The Shafer 8 performed perfectly the whole way across the country. I can’t tell you how nice it is to have all the power you want when you have to zip around a car or climb a big grade like we did going over Big Bear!

My Aggravator xxxxxxxxx oops, I mean Navigator, (wife Theresa) did a superb job. She was so patient with me when I did not like our score and she just kept on doing it better and better. Moving from 52nd to 13th is certainly a huge feat! She can do this thing! She’s kind of fun to have around too!

The awards banquet was down the street at the Anaheim Convention Center Saturday evening. We had desert and a slideshow of all the photographs the Great Race folks took during the event. You can see some of these on the Great Race Website too. They handed out the checks and the trophies to all the winners. I can’t say enough thanks to the Great Race staff and volunteers who make this thing happen! We appreciate you! I told the crowd that it is fun having a Great Race family and family shouldn’t say good bye, only see you later!

I was surprised to be awarded the Tom McRae Spirit of the Great Race Award. It was very humbling. I remember Tom McRae and boy did he have spirit! I can remember that rascal pointing his stub index finger at me telling me what he thought I needed to do or which adventure he was convincing me that I needed to participate with him on. Tom would be proud that the Great Race is still moving and we are still having fun celebrating this wonderful country we live in, having a great time with family and friends enjoying old cars. It is what it is all about. No more trailer queens, or garage kings….we have to get them out and drive em! Theresa and I, Cameron and Greg, and Honest Mike and Honest Dolus have done just that….we got em out and drove em! What’s your excuse? Let’s do it! Because…..you can’t get the smiles unless you do the miles!

From the road,

Corky Coker