Stage 10 started EARLY. Official start time was 6 AM. Since I am posting this a day late I really do not remember what our “out” time was. That’s rally lingo. I guess our Rally Staff realized that since all us Car Crazies would be revvin our motors to get ready to go, we picked up our instructions at a McDonalds. Was pretty smart actually. Solved two problems at once. While all those smart navigators were settin their clocks and pickin up their route instructions (no sooner than 20 minutes before their out time)…all us “dumb drivers” got a McMuffin or McGriddle so we could Mcmake it to lunch! Also the folks at the hotels got to sleep without all the ruckus.

If you have ever driven across the desert, the ONLY real way to do it is to stare at a speedometer at 55 mph for 8 hours. Ain’t much to see any way. Sorry, not really true. I like the desert some. Just not much. We saw Ships Rock. It’s a big ole Outcropping sittin out in the middle of nowhere like it don’t belong. Didn’t look like a ship to me though, come out here ‘n look for yourself.

Can’t tell you too much about Rallying. Theresa and I must be trying to make this thing too hard trying to factor for tires and altitude and stuff. It was so serious that we actually discussed buying an altimeter during our short lunchtime visit to Cedar City Utah. Sick. No wonder our scores are just okay. The Great Race COO Wayne Stanfield, who is a 5 time Grand Champion says “keep it simple, stay on course, stay on time”. Sounds easy. Yeah right.

We lost eight cars yesterday from one thing or another. This Great Race is endurance for Man and Machine.

We finished the day in Tonopah, Nevada. Those folks worked very hard and received us well. They have some Great Race history too. George Schuster and guys came through Tonopah in their 1907 Thomas Flyer and got some repairs done in town during the Great Race from New York to Paris in 1908. The Tonopah townsfolk commissioned a Mural depicting the arrival of the USA team in their town which was unveiled during our parc ferm’e. (explained that word earlier).

Andrew put a new tire on the Shafer. The old one was slicker than snot on a door knob so we changed it.

Theresa and I splurged and had dinner in a “sit down restaurant”. Usually we either don’t have time or would rather go to bed. Days are long on Great Race.

I will mention that this post is a day late cause Tonopah Verizon has a computer to probably handle the calls of 150 townsfolk and here we come and jam their lines with hundreds of cell phones. I absolutely could not get a download.

Both cars are performing flawlessly.

Oh, one interesting story before I move on to Stage 12. The car in the lead is piloted by David Reeder and Sawyer Stone, David’s 13 year old Grand son. All the Great Race participants came across the desert where the cattle roam free. Yep, he creamed one.

From the road,

Corky