Hemmings Great Race

The Great Race, presented as the Hemmings Great Race presented by Coker Tire, is a time-speed-distance rally for antique, vintage and collector vehicles. Driver and navigator teams follow precise course instructions on back roads and are scored on accuracy rather than speed, per the organizer. It is based at 1317 Chestnut Street, Chattanooga, Tennessee.

History

The organizer’s history page traces the event to a phone call in 1982, when Tom McRae heard from Curtis Graf about a planned pre-World War II car race from Los Angeles to Indianapolis with $250,000 in prize money. When that event struggled to find entrants, McRae brought in Norman Bubba Miller, and the first Great Race ran in 1983. The site keeps an archive of routes from 1983 to 2026.

The next edition

The 2027 route, Gulf to Great Lakes, runs from Saturday 19 June to Sunday 27 June 2027: about 2,400 miles through seven states from Mobile, Alabama to Buffalo, New York. Overnight hosts include Montgomery, Cartersville, Chattanooga, Somerset, Dayton, Marietta, Erie and Buffalo. More than 120 cars built in 1974 or earlier are expected, and the purse is more than $160,000, with $50,000 to the overall winner.

The Spring Rally is a separate, shorter event in Chattanooga, from 29 April to 2 May 2027, in a cloverleaf format that returns to the Chalet Hotel at the Chattanooga Choo Choo each night. It is open beyond Great Race entrants and to collector cars outside the usual field. Veteran teams pay $1,350 per team; rookie teams enter free with a $250 deposit refunded on arrival.

What race week is like

Each day brings a new section of route revealed only to competitors, a lunch stop in one host town and an overnight in another, where the cars are usually on public display. Assigned average speeds on highways are often 50 or 55 mph, per the regulations. A sweep truck follows the field and collects broken cars, and teams may repair them at the hotel at night. Hotels near each host city are arranged by Great Race and paid for by the teams.

Who it is for

The main event is for vehicles generally from model year 1974 or earlier, per the participant FAQ, and perfect restorations are not required; mechanical dependability matters more. New teams usually start in the Rookie division. The X-Cup program covers entry fees for ten student teams.

How entry works

An entry application with the full fee and photos goes to the Great Race Entry Committee, per the 2026 Event Regulations. Those regulations set $7,500 a car for a private entry and $10,000 for a corporate entry, for a team of up to four people, with $250 for each extra person. The 2027 field is already sold out, and the organizer runs an official wait list.

The rules

The regulations describe timed, controlled-speed endurance rallies, not top-speed races. A team is automatically disqualified if a crew member is cited or warned by police, or judged by officials, for dangerous or reckless driving, which may include speeding, or for driving under the influence or drinking while participating.