WAPAKONETA — West Auglaize Street was full of people and vintage vehicles when The Great Race contestants stopped in town Wednesday afternoon on their way from Jacksonville, Florida, to Traverse City, Michigan.
The street was lined with people and vehicles before the racers began their procession into town. Wapak residents and out-of-town visitors were lined along Auglaize street in camping and lawn chairs as though they were waiting for a parade. In a way they were.
Auglaize County Vietnam Veterans Association organized a car show, which was set up alongside streets connected to Auglaize Street, to coincide with The Great Race.
“We started making out plans about four moths ago,” Mike Borges, of the association, said. “We were inspired by the race coming through town.”
The Great Race is a yearly event challenging the precision skills of drivers and navigators. Each vehicle has one driver and a navigator.
“The race isn’t about how fast you can go,” said Dave Archer of Marietta. “It’s about how far you can go while driving at certain speeds under certain conditions.”
Each team receives a booklet filled with instructions and directions at the beginning of each day, Archer said. The instructions are lists of directions telling the navigator to head down a certain road at a certain speed for a set amount of time, he went on. The navigator informs the driver of each step and the conditions he or she must meet along the route. Each year the race is usually between 2,000 and 2,500 miles long, Archer said.
“Most vehicles have special odometers measuring speed to the half mile an hour,” Archer said. “When your instructions say you’re speed has to be 26 and a half miles an hour they mean it.”
He said, it’s not uncommon for drivers to end the day exhausted and cross-eyed from driving so precisely. Archer has not been able to race the last couple of years because of illness but Dean Booth was driving his car in this year’s race and Wally Kandal has been navigating.
“They’ve been doing really good,” Archer said.
Donna Grube, executive director of the Auglaize and Mercer Counties Convention and Visitors Bureau, was contacted by representatives of The Great Race informing her of their interest in stopping in Wapakoneta as the race moved through the state, Wapakoneta Mayor Thomas Stinebaugh said. She sent out an email asking if anyone wanted to take the lead on organizing the event and Stinebaugh said he volunteered right away.
“I responded saying I would do it because I wanted it to come to Wapak,” he said. “I knew it would be great exposure for Wapak.”
After agreeing to organize the event, Stinebaugh contacted the Wapakoneta Area Chamber of Commerce to get their help planning.
Melissa Carlin, executive director of the Wapakoneta Chamber of Commerce, said part of the reason the director of The Great Race, Jeff Stumb, was interested in bringing the race through Wapakoneta was because of the historic downtown.
The Great Race competitor James Goode, of Jefferson City, Missouri, said that’s exactly why Wapakoneta was chosen. Historic, classic looking towns add to the showmanship of the old cars rolling into town, he said.
“We love coming to places like this,” Goode said. “It’s beautiful.”
He has competed in The Great Race for four years. Goode was driving a red 1965 Corvette.
By 3 p.m. the last competitors trickled onto West Auglaize Street, most had moved on to the next phase of the race. The crowds had mostly moved on.
“It was a great success,” Stinebaugh said while surveying the dwindling crowd. “The downtown was full. That’s all I could hope for.”
