This is it! The last day - and everything counts!!!! I felt like I was in a cheesy Hollywood movie.... after a week of nice weather, it rained today. I mean it rained ALL day. And the problems started early - we got behind a school bus (school is still in session??!?!) and had a series of stop-and-go delays. Honestly, I lost count of the time we had to make up. Good thing Joe is on the ball. And then we ran into Vermont State Utility workers..... At an intersection that required us to make a 15 second stop (at a stop sign) and turn right, the VSU guys had a truck, chipper, and crane all crammed into the intersection to do a little tree/brush removal. I saw the #37 car go around the truck and so followed suit. Apparently that wasn't the right answer. A nice VSU workers threw his helmet to the ground and started making threatening gestures.... so I went around him. It was at this point that the crane swung his arm around, blocking the road ahead - and the truck backed up, blocking the road behind. We were boxed in; no place to go. After a few minutes (2? 3? 4?), the crane let us through - but we had no idea how many minutes to make up!!!
I figured the day was shot, so we might as well enjoy the drive up to Stratton Mountain Ski resort. I relaxed a bit, tried to keep the speedo close, and enjoyed myself. The run up the mountain was okay - no overheating problems. The tram ride was nice (boy, that's a LONG way to ski down the mountain!!!). And the drive into Hemming's was nice too. I had abandoned all hope at this point and resigned myself to a none-paying finish.... Oh well.
Turns out we did okay - not great; not bad; just okay
Leg 1: 2 sec late
Leg 2: 7 sec early
Leg 3: 3 sec early
Leg 4: 4 sec late
Leg 5: 5 sec early
Leg 6: 4 sec early
Leg 7: 6 sec early (Thanks again VSU!!!)
A score of 31 seconds adjusted to 24.18. Ho hum.
So we made our way from Hemmings head-quarters to downtown Bennington for the finish-line and finale. The winner and Grand Champion was the 1911 Velie driven by Howard and Doug Sharp (congrats guys!!!). This car deserves to win considering the insurmountable obstacles it has faced over the years (IE: they fixed a leaky radiator with cement - no, that's not a typo - I said cement!) and Howard has been chasing the dream since 1993 with this car so I couldn't be happier for them. Nice job guys!
Oh yeah, when they announced the Sportsman Class winners, turns out we came in 2nd place!! YGTBSM!!!! A podium finish after all!!!! I couldn't be happier. And the icing on the cake - we finished 14th overall out of 64 cars, so we stay in Sportman next year and don't move up to Expert!!! My goal is to never compete with the Jason's, Caldwell's, or Feeney's!! They're all REALLY good. :-)
Just as long as the radiator didn`t leak.
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