The annual Hemmings Motor News Great Race of antique automobiles will wind through northeastern Oklahoma and half of Missouri on Route 66 next week.
The event will make a lunch stop at 12:15 p.m. Monday at the Heart of Route 66 Auto Museum in Sapulpa, Oklahoma, and make an overnight stop in downtown Joplin, Missouri, starting at 5 p.m.
The next day, racers will make a lunch stop at 11:45 a.m. at Benton Square in Rolla, Missouri. The race will depart Route 66 that day so it can overnight in Cape Girardeau, Missouri.
This year’s race begins Saturday at Alamo Plaza in San Antonio and ends June 27 in downtown Greenville, South Carolina. It also passes through Kentucky, West Virginia, Virginia and North Carolina.
The event, which has been run since 1983, only is open to vehicles made before 1974. It typically includes more than 100 teams. The vehicles, each with a driver and navigator, are given precise instructions each day that detail every move down to the second. They are scored at secret checkpoints along the way and are penalized one second for each second they’re early or late. Keeping the vehicle running so it remains on time is half the battle.
The race originally was scheduled for 2020, but it was postponed due to spikes in COVID-19 cases.
The 2022 Hemmings Motor News Great Race will start in Warwick, Rhode Island, on June 18 and finish in Fargo, North Dakota, on June 26, race organizers have announced. The nine-day, 2,300-mile trek will wind through Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin, Minnesota and North Dakota.
(Image of a 1937 Bugatti Atlantis convertible during the 2015 Great Race at a stop in Albuquerque by Dick Thompson via Flickr)