It all started at the 50th wedding anniversary party for Frank and Evelyn Currie. One of the many guests, Wayne Stanfield-chief operating officer for Rally Partners, who organizes the National Guard Great Race-was engaged in a conversation with Frank and Jerry Kugel discussing the upcoming event.
Stanfield extended an invitation to Jerry and Frank to bring their street rods and participate in the 2006 event in a special VIP class. The special class would be a way to judge the reaction of other participants. You see, this is a group of purists and the organization was concerned that the upstart street rodders would jeopardize the flavor of the event in the eyes of the longtime participants ... old-boy networks being what they are.
It turns out that nothing could have been further from the truth. The pair of '32 Ford street rods were welcomed with open arms by the entire group of enthusiastic racers. They wanted to know all about them and took every opportunity to praise the cars and discuss engines/drivetrains with Frank and Jerry. Most, it turns out, had similar cars at home in their collections/garages. So encouraging was the reception of the street rods by participants, the organizers decided to expand the entries to also include street rods and musclecars up to 1969 and some alternative fuel/new-technology vehicles. The purse has also been increased to 350K to broaden the interest; however, the crowds at the various venues we visited still tend to gravitate to the old-time cars. The race itself started in the center of Philadelphia looking right down Ben Franklin Boulevard from the steps of the building that Sylvester Stallone made famous in the "Rocky" movies. With similar music playing, and a slight mist falling, each racer left the starting arch in one-minute intervals-the beginning of a 4,180-mile trek across the heartland of America. "To finish is to win" was the most often-heard phrase by the racers, and it certainly turned out to be true.
While it is called a race, it is in reality, a time/distance rally where the navigator is as important as the driver. Lengthy pages of instruction, dictating where, when, and how fast a contestant must go, no maps, no highway numbers, just "turn left-turn right-go straight-don't miss a sign, and maintain XX miles per hour for XX minutes." It is surprisingly tough to do, as I found out when I subbed for Judy Kugel as navigator in the Kugel Komponents '32. We started out taking the exercise very seriously and as we made mistakes and had to retrace our steps, we started laughing and the change in attitude made the event much more enjoyable. This tone had been set when, on Friday before the official start, we competed in the Trophy Run (a one-day, get-acquainted run) with yours truly in the rumble seat. Well, we encountered a thunder shower that drenched me and soaked the sleeves of Jerry and Judy. We laughed about our condition upon arrival back at the hotel and exchanged tales with the people in open cars. We looked like drowned rats. It was hilarious. (We learned later from the scorer that the rookie Kugel team had achieved a .01-second time on the last leg of the day-near perfect-and Judy was ecstatic. She was obviously taking this much more seriously than Jerry and me.)
The variety of cars participating is splendid, with old cars like a 1911 Velie H1 racer, a 1917 Hudson-powered IndyCar, several Model A Ford speedsters, and some newer stuff, like '55 T-birds, a '53 Corvette, and a '49 Olds convert. All told, 103 very interesting cars left the starting line.
We developed several terrific relationships with many of the support crews that traveled the highways in everything from pickups to motorhomes. All car guys and gals, we swapped stories of breakdowns and spare parts and who was capable of what. The variety of components carried in many of the support trucks was infinite. We watched every evening as crews changed transmissions, rear axles, whole rearends, water pumps, head gaskets, etc., all with style and grace. There was no screaming and throwing of parts and wrenches, just plain old car mechanics doing what they were supposed to do. Owners pitched in when appropriate and some did their own work. It was like a pit at a '50s drag race; everybody helped one another, and it was quite a sight to see.