They start and end at different places every year. Next year they are doing Route 66.

What a fun time had by all. I would like to thank Allan Stone from the villages AACA for making this possible. This was a once in a life time event. We had a few people from our club (the villages mustang club) welcoming the racers to the villages and had a blast. Thanks again for a wonderful time.

Hooray AACA
 

You got that right, it was Allan's club, The Villages Region AACA, that was responsible for bringing the event to The Villages. Both Disney World and Daytona International Speedway turned it down, I was told. On Sunday he had over 300 volunteers lined up from 15 clubs to personally welcome each driver and navigator to our "Friendliest Hometown".

Yet I never saw an article in The Daily Sun on Saturday giving more details about the race coming the next day. Just the same ad that ran before. Today, was just a short article. What happened, Daily Sun? Were you asleep?

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Two fun cars were the Mayberry '64 Ford police car that played the theme from The Andy Griffith Show and the '69 General Lee Charger with the Dixie horn.Attachment 43522Attachment 43523

I loved the license plate that said Mr. Fife on the police car.

I too was disappointed about the coverage given to this event. No large news service picked it up and the daily sun did a horrible job of promoting it. We figured if it was a political event of republicans the sun would have done a huge spread. Shame on them for screwing this up. Oh well enough said other than that I think everyone that showed up had a great time. Talking with the driver we had she said that the turn out here is wonderful and she liked the whistles that we blew when the cars came across the finish line was a "hoot".

Screwing this up?????


How could it have been more successful? Sun or no Sun? The online news gave it excellent coverage.

Local news do not dictate if the AP wire is going to find something newsworthy.

I don't know why they didn't give it as much coverage as they should but hindsight is sometimes far better.

bump. It was wonderful. Thank you to all who made it so terrific. We got to watch history being made. So many people there for such a hot day.

I guess I should have worded my response another way. What I meant about local news was the local television stations around Orlando could have aired some of the race. I know all about newspapers being a little one sided and the villages news online a lot of people don't see that one. And they did a great job with reporting the race.

I have to agree with delima2000 on this one. The Sun coverage was very poor. Any other time we would have seen a map of where they were entering TV which would have made it easier to find a place to stand. On the other hand, I thought maybe all the talk of thousands and thousands of people descending on Sumter Landing might have made TV nervous.

Now I'm a real villager. I got to go in the Square and perform, It was an absolute hoot as Gracy has said I love this place!

Nice cymbals.

I heard the Orlando media WAS invited but usually don't come to The Villages because they are not welcome here.

WUCF was here and filmed some footage. I saw them.

The AACA Club was honored at the race banquet for all the effort they put in to bringing the race here. Allan and the rest deserve a lot of thanks.

The race teams and support staff in the event filled 3 hotels in the area. All picked up a copy of The Daily Sun on Sunday when they arrived and saw NO STORY about The Great Race coming to The Villages.

BUT they DID get a Sales Packet and Lifestyle DVD, however!

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