2014 Great Race to stop in Millsboro June 24

Millsboro will host a lunch stop on the 2014 Hemmings Motor News Great Race presented by Hagerty Tuesday, June 24, race promoters have announced.

The Great Race, the world’s premier old car rally, will bring more than 100 antique automobiles downtown to Town Hall for the $150,000 event.

The race will start June 21 in Ogunquit, Maine, and weave its way 2,100 miles over nine days down the Atlantic Coast through 13 states before the finish in The Villages, Fla., Sunday, June 29. They will start that morning in Valley Forge, Pa.

The Great Race, which began 31 years ago, is not a speed race, but a time/speed/distance rally. 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 either early or late. As in golf, the lowest score wins.

The cars will arrive after 11:15 a.m. at one-minute intervals for more than an hour and a half and stay parked for an hour each hour to allow spectators to visit with the participants and to look at the cars. The Town of Millsboro is helping with the plans locally.

Cars built prior to 1972 are eligible, with most entries having been manufactured before World War II. In the 2013 Great Race down the Mississippi River from Minnesota to the Gulf of Mexico, a 1913 Premiere and a 1916 Hudson were the two oldest vehicles. There were also a 1917 Peerless and a 1920 Model T in the event, and many of those cars are expected back again in 2014.

Humpy Wheeler of Concord, N.C., will be participating with his grandson in a Fabulous Hudson Hornet decked out to look like Doc Hudson from the Pixar movie, "Cars." Wheeler is the former president and GM of Charlotte Motor Speedway; he was considered one of the best promoters in NASCAR history.

The 2014 winners will again receive $50,000 of the $150,000 total purse.

After leaving Millsboro, the cars will head south for the day’s finish in Norfolk, Va.

The event was started in 1983 by Tom McRae, and it takes its name from the 1965 movie, "The Great Race." "The Great Race" gained a huge following from late-night showings on ESPN when the network was just starting out in the early 1980s.

For more information, go to www.greatrace.com or contact Jeff Stumb at jeff@greatrace.com or 423-648-8542.