We were done house hunting and didn’t plan on geocaching today either, so we were trying to figure out what we wanted to do, when Donna saw in the local paper that something called the Great Race had a lunch stop planned at Crater Lake. The Great Race is a timed rally of vintage automobiles that started in 1983 for pre World War II (since changed to pre 1967) automobiles. The route varies each year and this year’s event started in Riverside, CA and after 9 days will finish in Tacoma, WA.
Their lunch stop was planned for noon and it was already 9:30 and we hadn’t really started moving yet. Crater Lake is about an hour and a quarter north of where were sitting, so we jumped into high gear, getting dressed and packing some snacks. When we arrived at the south entrance of the park at 11:30 there was a line to get in, that had traffic backed up to the main road so that people coming from both directions had to alternate getting off Oregon 62 into line. We sat there for a few minutes barely moving before changing our plans on the fly.
We knew that the cars were coming from Grants Pass so the only way the could get to the park is via OR62, so if the cars hadn’t made it into the park yet, we could catch them on their way up. We got out of line and headed west on 62. And if they were already in the park, we could loop around on OR230 to the north entrance of the park and catch them on the way out, when they started to their overnight spot in Bend, OR. About five miles later we passed by a large parking area for a sno-park and there was a small sign on the side of the road that read, Great Race, and sitting there was a minivan with its back hatch up. I pulled a U-turn and parked near the minivan.
There was a couple of folks sitting behind it, facing the road, with a small table set up, they we official timers for a running check point. We asked if all the cars had been through already. They said that none had been there yet and as a matter of fact, the first car, if it was running on time, would be here in 10 minutes. It was our lucky day. We peppered them with questions for awhile and then left them be to carry out their duties as the cars came by. One hundred and six cars, out of 150 starters in Riverside, started that morning at one minute intervals and they started coming by at pretty close to that pace.
We hung around and watched a couple dozen cars before continuing west passing more race cars as they headed towards their lunch stop in the national park. We stopped a couple more times along the side of the road to watch a few cars go by before turning back east to Klamath Falls.
I took about 15 or so photos using the cell phone camera, but because of shutter lag and my ineptitude maybe 5 had the whole car in them. The best one is probably the one above which was the first or second photo I took. But do your self a favor and click on this link – Great Race – and check out the professional photographers pictures from this leg.