"Get your kicks on Route 66!"
That seems to be the theme of this year's Hemmings Motor News Great Race presented by Hagerty as the vintage car rally will travel along historic Route 66 for the 2015 event.
The Great Race, the world’s premiere old car rally, will start in Kirkwood, Missouri, just outside of St. Louis and finish at the Santa Monica Pier in California. Along the 2,400-mile route, competitors will travel parts of The Mother Road in each of the eight states it originally ran through – Illinois, Missouri, Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico, Arizona and California.
With a purse of $150,000, the stakes are high, and the event will feature 120 of the world’s finest vehicles from 1915 through 1972, with any vehicle built before '72 eligible to compete. While most have been manufactured prior to World War II, you never know what you'll see.
The Great Race, which began 32 years ago, is not a speed race, but a time/speed/distance rally. The vehicles, each with a driver and navigator, are given precise instructions each day that detail every move down to the second. They are scored at secret check points along the way and are penalized one second for each second either early or late. As in golf, the lowest score wins.
Each stop on the Great Race is free to the public, and spectators will be able to visit with the participants and to look at the cars. “When the Great Race pulls into a city it becomes an instant festival,” race director Jeff Stumb said. “Last year we had three overnight stops with more than 10,000 spectators on our way to having 250,000 people see the Great Race during the event.”
In the 2014 Great Race from Maine to Florida, a 1915 Hudson racer, a 1916 Hudson Hillclimber and a 1917 Peerless were the three oldest vehicles. All of those vehicles are participating again in 2015. Last year’s winners, Barry and Irene Jason of Keller, Texas, drove a 1966 Mustang and won $50,000. It was the first time a post-war automobile won the Great Race. The 2015 winners will again receive $50,000 of the $150,000 total purse. The overnight stops, in order, are Springfield, Missouri; Oklahoma City, Oklahoma; Amarillo, Texas; Santa Fe, New Mexico; Gallup, New Mexico; Flagstaff, Arizona; Lake Havasu, Arizona; and San Bernardino, California; before finishing in Santa Monica.
To find out more about the Great Race, visit www.greatrace.com.