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WARWICK — To the cheers of massive crowds, the drivers of a legendary long-distance driving competition set off for the Midwest on Saturday morning.
They took their 130 classic cars out of Rocky Point State Park on a mostly secret 2,300-mile drive from the shores of Narragansett Bay to Fargo, North Dakota.
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Not really a race, The Great Race is a 39-year-old rally event that challenges drivers to complete an epic course with precise timing and navigation.
The event drew thousands of spectators to Rocky Point and to viewpoints along the ceremonial opening route on local roadways.
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What is at stake for the winner of the Great Race?
The rally is named after the 1965 film starring Tony Curtis, Jack Lemmon, Natalie Wood and Peter Falk. Competitors compete for prizes including a $50,000 first place purse.
Before Saturday’s start, The Great Race had never visited Rhode Island. North Dakota is now the only state in the continental US not visited by car enthusiasts.
With a northern breeze keeping the temperature comfortable, a long line of classic cars awaited the start of the trip on Saturday morning.
The cars and their drivers were standing on the paved road that runs along the rocky edges of the park by the bay.
Curtis Graf, who has taken part in every Great Race rally since 1983, was parked towards the front.
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Not far behind Graf was a first-time Smithfield rookie, Tom Laferriere, driving a 1939 Packard Model 120.
His navigator, AJ SanClemente, 57, of Northborough, Massachusetts, was already in the passenger seat and ready to roll.
“I don’t care where I come from, I just want to make it big,” said the 55-year-old, who makes a living buying, selling, dealing and servicing vintage cars.
Laferriere’s father bought the Packard in 1970, which Laferriere restored in 1988. He said he wanted to compete in the race for 40 years.
When he heard the race would start in Rhode Island, he couldn’t wait any longer.
“I said, ‘I have to do this race,'” the Smithfield resident said.
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The race started in both Connecticut and Massachusetts in the past, and ended in Massachusetts, according to Graf.
“But we never made it to Rhode Island,” said Graf, 77, of Irving, Texas.
He was standing next to a 1932 Ford Roadster.
Graf said he enjoys the camaraderie and the opportunity to help other competitors complete the course.
Ed Chapman, 67, of Auburn, Maine, drives a 1948 Ford sedan.
To compete, he said, he had to upgrade the radiator and attend to various other components.
Planning for the unexpected on the long journey
This is all part of the drama of a contest involving vintage cars.
Getting vintage cars to travel long distances reliably isn’t “always easy,” Chapman said. “Tolerances and things like that are a little different on an older car.”
The oldest cars in the lineup at Rocky Point on Saturday were a pair of 1916 Hudsons, according to the racing guide.
More than 50 vehicles built before World War II were entered in the competition, with all other cars built before 1975, the guide says.
While drivers and boaters aren’t competing, things can happen when vintage vehicles are put to the test.
In 2018, for example, the race reached the top of Mount Washington during the New Hampshire leg of its journey from Buffalo, New York, to Halifax, Nova Scotia, race director Jeff Stumb said.
En route down Mount Washington Auto Road, some elderly people lost the brakes on their 1955 Buick pickup, Stumb said.
“I mean they were falling,” Stumb said.
A jogger saw what was happening and put his car in front of the Buick and stopped them “so they wouldn’t go off a cliff,” Stumb said.
Brad Epple, 67, of Jefferson City, Missouri, owner of a banking software company, has been running the Great Race for 10 years.
Epple is in the expert class of the race. His team drives a 1964 Falcon Sprint convertible with a V-8 engine.
A careful strategy for time management.
He is a careful tactician capable of delivering a seminar on strategies to complete the course within time constraints.
He said he and his son drive the Falcon 5 mph below the speed limit to create a margin for error if their navigational calculations cause them to go too fast.
Rhode Island Governor Dan McKee thinks the runners are going to run into a lot of people as they cross the country over the next nine days.
He asked them to tell everyone they meet where their adventure began.
Stumb said he expects a big crowd in Fargo at the end.
They then left Rocky Point one at a time.