Hundreds welcome Great Race back to Joplin
Jun. 28—Hundreds lined Main Street to welcome the Hemmings Motor News Great Race 2023 and the flood of car clubs that on Wednesday poured into downtown Joplin.
Teams of drivers and navigators in 120 classic and antique cars are trying to turn in the best time when they finish the 2,300-mile race route from St. Augustine, Florida, to Colorado Springs, Colorado. Only cars built in 1974 or earlier are eligible to participate.
Joplin was the overnight stop of day five of the nine-day race.
The Great Race has been held for 40 years and is billed as the world's premiere old-car rally, with most of the entries having been manufactured before World War II.
There are five classes of competition. The Grand Championship division is open to teams that won a past Great Race. The Rookie, Sportsman and Expert divisions are progressive classes based on the levels of achievement teams reach as they compete.
The X-Cup division is a youth program that includes students from high school and technical colleges. That group is one the Great Race is trying to attract to the hobby and business of collecting rare motor vehicles, and to the crafts required to restore and repair old cars.
Teams pay an entry fee to participate and cash prizes totaling $150,000 are divided among the winners in each class.
Nine-year-old Beckett Bartlett, of Carl Junction, likes to go to car shows and was one of those who weathered the 98-degree heat to see the Great Race entries. He said his father told him there was to be a car show downtown and that his grandfather brought him. The cars, he said, "are really cool. I like them."
He didn't have a favorite car. "I like all of them," he said.
In this race, winners are not determined by speed. This is a rally of time, speed and distance in which a course master has driven and mapped a course and provides precise instructions on how fast competitors should drive and what turns to take. The drivers take off one minute apart. In addition to staying on time, the drivers are challenged to get to the day's finish line without a malfunction or with a quick repair if one happens.
The cross-country trip is expensive for its sponsors because it involves 550 people in the racing crews and support staff and volunteers for the event, spectators were told.
The race has stopped in Joplin at least three times, according to the course narrators who spoke to the crowd.
"We're going to enjoy this little strip of road and this street party Joplin has got going on," said one narrator, whose name was not available. "We've got lots of sponsors and lots of volunteers, and there is no way, no matter how much money or time we put into it, that we could do it without you. Joplin is the best, and that's not lip service. Joplin is the best every single time" at hosting a race stop.
Janet Jordan of Lenexa, Kansas, said she and her husband are car enthusiasts who go to car rallies and shows in their area and in several other states each year. They own some classic cars and a drag strip race car.
When they learned Wednesday morning the Great Race was stopping in Joplin, they drove down from Lenexa to see the event. It was their second time to see it in Joplin, she said.
She enjoys "just seeing the races and being away with my husband."
