Buzzing the race was a bad idea

It’s been more than 25 years, so the statute of limitations has probably expired. That means it’s safe to tell the story.
It was 1988, and for the second time Portland’s George Reitenour was driving his 1936 Studebaker in the Great American Race, the cross-country road rally for vintage vehicles.
George and his buddy/navigator, Al Hadley, had tried the race in “Spirit of Jay County,” as the Studebaker was called, in 1987 and had run into trouble. That first year, George and Al had run the race from Disneyland to Disneyworld.
The 1988 route went north from Disneyland to San Francisco and Sacramento, then headed east across Nevada, a bit of Utah and Wyoming before moving into Colorado. The final destination that year was Boston.
My role was covering the race for the newspaper, which meant writing stories on a Radio Shack TRS-80, known affectionately in the news business as a “Trash-80,” then hooking the little laptop up to acoustic couplers and attempting to transmit my words back to the newsroom.
I was also the driver of what was referred to as a pace car, a new Pontiac Bonneville covered with promotional stickers. My companion was a guy named Tom Kelsey, probably the best news photographer I’ve ever known.
Kelsey worked at the time for The Los Angeles Times but served as official race photographer during his vacation. We’d traveled together in 1987 and had hit it off, so it was inevitable that we’d team up again in 1988.
The race started without much fuss, though George and Al had mechanical problems with the Studebaker. The drive up the California coast was beautiful, and it was extremely cool to drive across the Golden Gate Bridge while Kelsey stood on the passenger seat halfway out of the car through the sunroof and shot pictures of the vintage cars behind us.
Difficulties popped up near Reno when the Bonneville’s transmission went out, but Kelsey managed to talk his way into a replacement from Pontiac. We simply moved the promotional stickers from one car to another and took off.
Utah was gorgeous, and we had buffalo burgers with Miss Wyoming at Cheyenne.
But the stretch in northern Colorado was flat and boring.
That’s what probably got us into trouble.
Kelsey had shot hundreds of old car pictures over the years, but he’d always wanted a shot of one of the Great Race cars with either a train and a low-flying airplane in the same frame.
So there we were, driving a long straight stretch beside a railroad track, and he started talking about getting that particular picture. The next thing I knew, he was telling me to pull up at the next ranch.
He’d spotted a small hangar and grass runway for a private plane, and was cooking up a plan. Within minutes, he’d talked the rancher/pilot into taking his plane up and making a somewhat low pass over the highway while the parade of old cars was moving through.
It was a little crazy, but by then we were both a little punchy. I drove us back up the “race course” and we waited for the plane to come along.
As we did, who would show up but George and Al in “Spirit of Jay County”? I pulled into traffic a safe distance in front of the Studebaker, Kelsey got halfway out the sunroof and we waited for the airplane.
We didn’t have to wait long. He was coming in low. Really low. Much lower than he and Kelsey had talked about.
In the Studebaker, George and Al were freaking out. This guy was going to buzz the car.
Kelsey was freaking out as well, laughing and yelling and taking pictures.
Then the airplane came down between our car and the Studebaker, touched the pavement with one wheel, and zoomed over us. Kelsey dived back in, and when I looked in the outside rearview mirror all I saw was the airplane’s wheel.
There was a lunch pit stop about 10 miles down the road, and when we got there, George and Al were gunning for us.
“Do you two idiots know anything about what went on back there?” they asked.
Only they didn’t call us idiots.
And they could tell by the looks on our faces that we were 100 percent guilty.