Rocky Mountain Race Week 2021: Day Five - Morrison, Colorado to Kearney, Nebraska

06/17/2021
10 min read

Rocky Mountain Race Week 2021: Day Five - Morrison, Colorado to Kearney, Nebraska

06/17/2021
10 min read

Day five is, in theory, a relaxing day for the racers of Rocky Mountain Race Week. This is the second "drive day", where all they have to do is hit the road and make the cruise from Morrison, Colorado to Kearney, Nebraska, which is just about 400 miles away, regardless of what route you choose to take. Now, take "relaxing" with a grain of salt here. These are race cars that have already been on the road for several hundred miles, and have more than a few quarter-mile blasts on the clock this week alone. This is where many drivers are going to become very watchful about what their machine is and is not doing, because nobody wants to find themselves on the side of the road in western Nebraska. We aren't saying it's desolate out there, but when the birds fly by your car because they haven't seen another living thing in hours, that's not a good sign!


However, no racer who breaks down is usually alone for long. One of the very cool aspects of RMRW is a kind of "no man left behind" mentality, where if somebody is pulled off on the side of the road, several other cars will be pulled off with them, with other drivers doing whatever is necessary to try to get the wounded car back up and running, even if it's just to get it to the next truck stop for bigger repairs, or to a local machine shop, or to get it off of the highway in preparation for the ceremonial throwing-in of the towel. That's not a discouraging point at all, it's just the nature of the beast when it comes to RMRW. It's designed to be a test of man and machine, and the machine has the harder test to pass.


Happily, a drive day leaves a lot of open time for work to take place. Some drivers bolted towards Kearney the second they ran a quarter-mile time they were happy with and were relaxing at the hotel for all of day five. Others stayed back at Bandimere, utilizing the many available speed shops and parts stores to their advantage. As long as they are in Kearney in time to make a pass down the quarter-mile, it's all good. And that is where we will find our racers for day six, at Kearney Raceway Park.

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