RE: IML: Great Race Report 8- Imperial Expeditionary Force (61)

John;

I’m really enjoying reading your daily reports on the progress of the race, but I have a question—I have looked through all of the nine or ten zillion pictures on the Great Race web-site for all of the stages so far, and there are multiple pictures of many of the cars, but not so much as an end of an Imperial bumper or the point of a fin off on the edge. Is the official race photographer an Imperial-hater, perhaps? I’ve really been looking forward to seeing this vehicle, but no such luck!

Well, it sounds like it’s fun, anyway. Shanghai the guy at gun-point, if necessary and make him take at least one-or-two pictures!

Kristian Oyen

1963 Imperial Crown Southampton 4-door

1966 Imperial Crown 4-door

1967 Imperial Crown Coupe

From: mailing-list-owner@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:mailing-list-owner@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of John Corey
Sent: Sunday, July 02, 2006 12:25 AM
To: mailing-list@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx; mailing-list@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: RE: IML: Great Race Report 8- Imperial Expeditionary Force (61)

Well. Humbled by Life again. If Pride Goes Before a Fall, then I guess we were proud going into today. We figured after two good days that we were dialed-in. Today's run was a LOOOONG one, mostly on US 50, from WIchita, KS to Pueblo, CO. There's no better cruiser for that run than an Imperial, so were looking to do really well and move on up in the rankings! We executed perfectly, too, with not a single uncompensated error: we figured at the end that there was no way we'd be over 30 seconds error - MAX - and we hoped for a 10. We were crushed to see 1 minute 21 on the clock as we pulled in to Pueblo! Early on every leg, and pretty near proportional to the leg lengths. I think we messed up our speedo calibration. You'd think a couple of engineers could work a simple instrument, wouldn't you? Sigh. We sure can't blame it on our car today!

We placed 60th today; 15th in Rookies. Bleeaaah. I'm feeling very annoyed with myself and Dave is almost as put out as I am (he needs more sleep, so he's put off his mad til morning). We fell to 65th overall and to 13th in Rookies. There are still five other rookies within a minute or so, so we aren't doomed to the bottom, yet.
I'll write in brief notes, because it was an interesting day (until we got our score, anyway).

1) Kansas is flatter than a pool table and the roads go straighter than a parolee in a police station.
2) It was hotter than a blow torch today. The local bank showed 101 F at our afternoon pit stop. There were 8 DNFs today and a lot of those were heat related. WE each drank over 5 litres of water today, and still found little need for restrooms!
3) Great heat mirages! The road shimmered like water ahead. Ha! Just hot asphalt. It's easy to see how the early settlers went nuts seeing those in their heat and dehydration. We ran top-up all day in hopes of keeping our faculties functional through the whole stage (prior days had shown us that the last leg was where we made all our significant errors). That seems to have worked, anyway.
4) This is cattle country and we passed feedlots and rendering plants. Feedlots make a lot of flies - but how they get into cars passing by at over 50 mph is beyond me! It's clear why the ancients thought flies just appeared out of thin air. Of course, once they're in the car, they can't find a way back out. They just flit about annoying the hot, tired people there with them.
4a) Rendering plants are really odiferously malodorous in the summer heat - 'nuff said! On the other hand, we passed one field that had a strong and very nice scent of lavender! We couldn't see any source, but it was sweet strong - most refreshing.
5) We hit one of those summer thunderstorms that seem only to come in the high, dry plains. The wind whips up a visible wall of dust ahead of the storm (and we drove into it); then the lighting crackles all over the darkening sky and you can see torrents of rain ahead and above in the clouds- but none makes it to the ground because it evaporates faster than it falls! That evaporation cools the air as if all the heat's oppression were broken by a cool revolution in the sky! We felt it fall from over 100 to the low 70's in no time at all.
6) The wind here comes continually from the south. It shapes the trees (almost all of which stand alone as arboreal sentries over grassland and fields). They mostly look half knocked-over in the steady blow. Today's storm gave us high headwinds from the west, twisting the trees and power lines in new directions. One let go in front of us and we had to leave US 50 and detour on to local unpaved roads for many miles (or around one block, in local scale). One other car had a flat in the rough, but we made it through OK. While there, we flushed a pair of wild pheasants!
7) Today we left Wichita, passed through Dodge City KS, Garden City (?) KS, and Lamar CO. It's amazing how fast the land use changes right at the Colorado line - from irrigated fields to sage brush. We learned that there is a century-old water rights deal in effect that prevents Colorado from drawing 'Kansas water' and so prevents irrigation there.
8) We ended in Pueblo, CO. It's home to all US government publications, y'know - I wonder if there's a huge Indiana Jones style warehouse around here someplace, where they keep all those free publications, just waiting for us to write and request one? We didn't see it, but the old downtown is very cool. The train station (Atcheson, Topeka & Santa Fe Depot) is a redstone beauty - all restored as a meeting and banquet hall! I could stand to live in this town!

Our car ran beautifully today, as we knew it would. The heat never bothered it at all (it never ran above normal range). AS usual, it attracted an appreciative crowd both at stops and honking and waving all along the route. We've arranged it with US flags in the windshield bar receivers when the top is down. A perfect parade car! Still no official photos on the GreatRace website (is that photographer BLIND?!), but we were interviewed by the Hutchinson News in Dodge City, maybe he'll post some in tomorrow's paper there (see www.hutchnews.com). We're all out of handout postcards of the car, and I tried to get new ones at the all-night Kinko's in Wichita, but it turned out to be far away late at night. Sleep seemed the better option. Refilling will just have to wait for our rest day in Durango! Sorry, Kids!

The sudden dust and rain today got the car filthy. We did a wipedown 'wash', but it needs a real bath. Not tonight. Off to bed! jc