Per our pre-rally instructions, we were to meet at 8:00 am at the Rambler Ranch, which was due east from Castle Rock, Colorado. I made it out the door on time at 7:00 am, fueled up, and made my way over there, not knowing what to expect. After all, it was the first Lemons Rally I would be participating in.
One thing to keep in mind is that other than the cities/towns we are headed to, with recommended hotel and get-together locations, we know nothing about the route ahead of time. At first I wondered about the significance of the Rambler Ranch, but I discovered that it is a museum for the Nash Rambler and other cars made by AMC, who acquired Nash and a handful of other smaller manufacturers several decades ago. The indoor exhibits are fantastic, with over 300 vehicles on display, along with other memorabilia. Any car buff is well advised to stop there if they are in the Denver area–it is a unique exhibit in an out-of-the-way location.
But I’m jumping ahead by a few minutes. The entrance to the ranch was a bit difficult to find–driving into the morning sun with a bug-splattered windshield, and navigating the rural roads, I missed the small sign for the ranch the first time. And I also noticed a couple of other rally cars doing the same. But once we got in, we pulled into spots along the driveway and got a first glance at many of the cars we would be sharing the journey with.
Not often you see a Focus with an Amazon LED light bar, or a pink…van? With tentacles?
The owner of the Reatta later told me he picked this car only because it had pop-up headlights. The El Camino was abandoned for over 30 years, I believe, successfully revived and brought to the rally.
Yes, the Beetle was for sale. As-is, presumably. (All joking aside, I believe another rally participant did purchase it after the rally.) The 4-4-2 was a bit of a sleeper–I later found out that it incorporates a 7-speed Corvette transmission, which has a 1:1 ratio for 5th gear, and two overdrive gears beyond that. That patina is deceptive.
Smokey and the Bandit?
One of two sets of inmates. These prisoners traveled by Bluebird bus, in costume, for the entire rally. The other inmates were in the Porsche Cayenne rental car (which the rally master dubbed the “Porsche minivan”), riffing on the news about Hertz arresting customers for not returning cars…which had already been returned.
This isn’t the first time that creative use of painter’s tape was used to theme a car, although probably the first time done on a Ford Contour…with a mustache.
A 1953 MG TD, and an old pickup pulling a horse trailer, whose occupants were sporting a Kentucky Derby theme.
Once we completed the driver meeting (be safe, don’t be an idiot, don’t die), we were free to view the museum and depart at our leisure. Not having the luxury of time to research any of the locations we had to reach on our first day (especially for those of us going solo, without someone riding shotgun to help with the clues and the navigation), we had to make do with what we had.
Fortunately, the checkpoints in the rally are not something you simply punch into your navigation and head towards–they often take further research to locate. Our first stop was a good example. While there was no official entry in the navigation for the Russell Gates Mercantile Co., a minute or two of research located it for me, and driving the state and county roads, it was not too difficult to find.
The birds, of course, took all this in stride.
The next checkpoint would be one of three “muffler men” we would have to locate on this rally. This one, which was described as a “honky tonk muffler man,” turned out to be located at a honky tonk in Colorado Springs called Copperhead Road Bar & Nightclub.
In 1962, a large fiberglass figure of Paul Bunyan was created for the Paul Bunyan Café on Route 66 in Flagstaff, AZ. When the original workshop was bought out in 1963, the new owner used the molds to create other fiberglass figures, in various sizes and with minor variations depending on their promotional usage. As many were used at service stations, they were called Muffler Men since they would often be holding exhaust system parts. Dozens remain around the US, and a few are located in Canada, although one with a beer, cigar and guitar is probably unique.
Each day there is a Lemons Rally Find It challenge, and with assistance from a fellow rally participant, we found that it was located in a neighborhood not too far from the Copperhead. The clue pointed us to a famous physicist who built a laboratory in Colorado Springs but only used it briefly. That turned out to be Nikola Tesla.
The actual location was a little difficult to find, though. The historical marker was located at the edge of a sports park…
…but the actual laboratory was located about a block and a half away, in a neighborhood. It wasn’t difficult to guess where it was located, since the only house in the neighborhood with a wrought iron fence and numerous “No Trespassing” signs around it more or less gave the location away. It is even blocked out on Google Maps Street View…unless you view it from down the street:
Having completed our last stop in the Colorado Springs area, it was time to head down to Pueblo for our next checkpoint.