Oklahoma Team Wins Great Race

Cunningham and Geoppinger hold on to win the World's Richest and Longest Running old car race

TACOMA, WASHINGTON  July 9, 2005: The Great Race, Presented by the National Guard Finished today in Tacoma, Washington after rally-racing on the back roads of America for the past two weeks. The race began in Washington, D.C., on June 25 and traveled through fourteen states, stopping in forty-nine different communities along the way.

Greg Cunningham and Sam Geoppinger, from Ponca City, Oklahoma won the 23rd annual Great Race with a total time of 1:41 seconds off the computer calculated "perfect" time for the 4,250-mile event cross-country event. Driving in a 1928 Ford Speedster, the pair led the cumulative standings since the third day of competition but had to struggle to do it, blowing an engine on day seven. They spent the night replacing the motor with the help of fellow competitors, completing the job at 5:00 am, just in time to make the next mornings start. "We knew that from that point on it was only going to get harder," said Greg Cunningham. "We struggled before that night and we did our best. But to be able to race with people like Dick Burdick and Wayne Bell was great. They inspire us& its unreal." Cunningham and Goeppinger won the Grand Championship, two daily stages and a total of $52,000 dollars for their efforts.

Five-time Great Race Champions Dick Burdick and Wayne Bell finished second, 22 seconds behind the winners.

The Rookie Class winners were Jeff and Eric Fredette, a father and son team from Beecher, Illinois driving a 1933 Ford Pick-up. Eric, age fourteen is one of a few kids under the age of eighteen who have excelled in Great Racing, navigating the Ford Pick-up to seventeenth place overall. "He did a real good job. I'm very proud of him," said father, Jeff Fredette. "In the computer age, its hard to get kids involved in something that their Dad likes and with Eric, its always 'we're doing it again'."

The X-Cup winner was the team from Ponca City in the 1930 Ford Model A Pick-up with a score of 5:27. Second place was the team from Walla Walla High School with a score of 7:16.

The Great American City winners were; Maysville, Kentucky for the best Pit Stop to win $3,000 for their local library; Williamstown, Kentucky for the best lunch stop to win $5,000; and Twin Falls, Idaho for the best Overnight stop to win $10,000.