2025 Spring Rally — Owensboro, KY

The 2025 Coker Tire Great Race Spring Rally presented by Stahls Automotive Collection is now in the history book. As usual, it was a highly anticipated, highly competitive, and highly enjoyed event. Eighty (80) teams were entered. Nearly two dozen rookie teams received their first dose of live action Great Racing, while the returning competitors honed their skills for the upcoming 2025 Great Race, which kicks off June 21st in St. Paul, Minnesota, and finishes in Lake Murray, South Carolina, on June 29.

This year, I’ve teamed up with Great Race Legend Curtis Graf. Curtis is the only person who has competed in every Great Race, starting with the inaugural event in 1983. I’ll do the math for you; that was 42 years ago. I also got my first taste of the Great Race in 1983. However, I was not a contestant, I was a checkpoint worker in Salado, Texas.

Curtis and I have known each other for decades, but last Thursday was the first time we were ever in a car together. We drove south on I-165 out of Owensboro, Kentucky, to calibrate the speedometer. Then we headed east on rally roads so I could get comfortable with his driving methods and he could get accustomed to my navigational approach.

At the completion of Stage 1 on Friday, the new team of Graf and Rowland ended the day in 2nd place, with a score of 8.1 seconds. Additionally, we received five (5) Ace Awards that day, for having perfect scores on five of the nine legs. I don’t know what the record is for quantity of Aces on a single stage, but that has to be close. The Fredette team edged us out by 0.76 seconds with a score of 7.34 seconds to grab first place for the day, which they held on to the next two days to win the overall event.

On Stage 2, I made a costly navigational error, which knocked us down to 12th place in the cumulative 2-day standings. It is said, “We learn from our mistakes,” so I guess that makes me much smarter now.

Not to be deterred, we entered the final day of competition with gusto and managed to improve our overall standing for a top-10 finish. Not too bad for our first rally together. We are determined to do even better in the Great Race next month.

Official Coverage

Official Great Race photographers took all the photos in this article, which were originally published on the Great Race website. The image at the top of this article was taken on Stage 2, probably somewhere in southern Illinois after crossing the Wabash River.

Below are links to the original Great Race articles, containing dozens of great photographs of participating vintage automobiles.

• Great Race Spring Rally 2025 Day 1 Coverage
• Great Race Spring Rally 2025 Day 2 Coverage
• Great Race Spring Rally 2025 Day 3 Coverage

Selected Photographs

Here are a few of my favorite photos from the above articles:

It rained all three days of the Spring Rally. Brad Phillips (driver) and Dan Stahl (navigator) will claim you haven’t really rallied until you’ve done it in an open car. You can’t see it in this photo, but I bet you a dollar that Brad is smiling.

You can almost see daylight under the left front tire of the rookie team of Arianna Martinez (driver) and Ty Hendrix (navigator). Ty’s entry makes for three generations of the Hendrix family participating in the same event.

Randall Hendrix (driver) and Todd Hendrix (navigator) are the other two generations of the Hendrix family in this event. Here they are crossing the (Wabash) Cannonball Bridge. This beautiful Corvette is also the poster car for the 2025 Great Race.

Here is the winning team of Jeff Fredette (driver) and Eric Fredette (navigator). This is a rather sedate photo of this team, as the photographer usually captures them in a high-speed turn like the Studebaker photo above.

If it weren’t for bad luck, they’d have no luck at all. The team of Hedke, Hedke, and Hedke was plagued with electrical problems on all three stages. Despite valiant attempts, the Daytona was not able to overcome its electrical obstacles. However, DO NOT COUNT THIS TEAM OUT. I bet the Studebaker arrives in Minnesota next month with a pristine electrical system and a team determined to generate a podium finish.

Curtis and I were mentors to rookies Dan Ownby (driver) and Bill Wallace (navigator) out of Houston. They gained valuable experience on the Spring Rally and now have their sights on next month’s Great Race.

I have a fondness for 1970 Challengers and also for the Plum Crazy Team of Dave Wallace (driver) and Liz Wallace (navigator). They won the Rookie Division last year, and I have been providing them with navigational tips to help them make their mark in the Sportsman Division this year.

Here is Curtis Graf (owner/driver) and I on our way to our 8-second day on Stage 1. Model year 1932 was the first year for Henry Ford’s V8 engine, which makes ’32 Fords a popular vehicle choice among Great Race veterans, as they provide both raw power and a desirable age factor.

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I’ll see y’all in St. Paul next month. In the meantime, don’t forget to change your batteries.