Hunt for race repeatedly misfired

It should have been easy.

Or maybe easier.

But as it turned out, I didn’t have a clue what I was doing.

The first inkling that the Great Race might be going through Jay County popped up on a Sunday morning a few weeks back.

The Auburn tourism folks had run a nice quarter-page full-color ad alerting folks that the race was going to be spending an overnight visit there that Wednesday.

Before I go any further, I should clarify some nomenclature.

The Great Race is not a race; it’s a road rally for vintage vehicles that tests teams of drivers and navigators following sometimes cryptic instructions to post what is described as “perfect time” through a specific course.

And, second, the Great Race used to be known at the Great American Race, until the Indy 500 and the guys at Daytona wanted to argue that the title was theirs.

And, thirdly, none of this has to do with the “The Amazing Race” that sends couples through a reality TV obstacle course around the world.

So why did the news that the Great Race — not Indy, not Daytona and not an obstacle course — was going to be in the neighborhood get me excited?

Because I’ve run it two and a half times. 

The first two were when I was covering George Reitenour and Al Hadley and “Spirit of Jay County” when the 1936 Studebaker made cross-continent runs in 1987 and 1988. The half a run was in 1997 when I served as driver for a buddy of mine who was official photographer; my salary consisted of t-shirts.

The race itself — back when it was Great American — made a stop in Jay County in 1996, earning a prize for the library as best pit stop.

So I was primed for another contact.

The race website said it would be spending Tuesday night in Franklin, Indiana, then stopping for lunch in Wapakoneta, Ohio, before heading up to Auburn for another overnight stop on its way to Traverse City, Michigan.

OK, I thought, there is no way you can go from Franklin to Wapak without going through Jay or Randolph or Mercer counties. And I was determined not to let that traveling circus make its way through our neighborhood without getting pictures.

Trouble is, the exact route of the road rally is a very closely held secret. And nobody was going to let the cat out of the bag.

Not a problem, I thought. I’ve done this enough that I know how the routes are drawn up, I figured. They’ll stay off interstates as much as possible and focus on two-lane highways. There will be an emphasis on attractive scenery or points of interest, though that’s not the main focus.

By Wednesday morning, I had cleared my calendar to allow for a wild goose chase.

I’d set out, I figured, and using some logical methods I’d find the race on its way through the county.

In other words, I had no idea what I was doing.

I started out by taking Indiana 67 from Portland to Redkey, keeping an eye on county roads that might be involved in the route. At Redkey, I turned south on Indiana 1.

My assumption was that the people drafting the route would make use of Indiana 1, 3 or 9 as north-south highways then use U.S. 32, Indiana 28, 26 or 18 heading east.

So I drove south on Indiana 1, taking a long look at 28, then going on to Farmland. There, I gave up and turned back north, stopping again at 32, 28 and 67 in Redkey before heading up to Pennville and “old 22” and 18.

What did I find? Nothing.

At Fiat, I turned east on Indiana 18 and took that to Bryant. Still nothing.

So I headed east into Ohio.

If I were drafting the route, I told myself, I’d take the cars up 67 to Portland then 26 to the state line. There, I’d go north a bit to Park Road and head east on a lovely bit of backroad that passes over the Wabash River then connects with Ohio 49. There, I’d send the racers into Fort Recovery from the north so they could see all the murals and the old service station that has been re-purposed as a visitors’ center.

It made perfect sense. To me.

But just about the time I reached St. Anthony on Ohio 49 heading south, my phone buzzed. There was a voicemail from Barry Hudson: Four old cars spotted at Circle K South in Portland.

We’ll not talk about the speed limits between St. Anthony and Portland.

Let’s just say that, with a few minutes to spare, I made it back in time to get a shot of a 1931 Auburn Boattail Speedster as it zipped past the Eagles Lodge.

Easy, right?

Wrong.