Dick Frantzen’s situation was little better. His El Camino had a heater, but Frantzen had no driving relief. Gottlob curled up in the passenger’s seat and slept for the first time in four days. Jeri, Janet and co-driver Dave Dooley would all travel separately by air. If everything went right – and nothing had so far – the entire group would meet in Daytona on Friday morning. Ten hours of driving crawled by. Passing through Shreveport, Louisiana at about 6 am on Thursday, a strange vibration came from somewhere under the front of the Corvette. Blatchford and Wanko pulled over and raised the hood to find that the bolts on the left side exhaust header had rattled out. They found new bolts, secured the exhaust header again, and kept going. Some time late on Thursday afternoon, Gottlob finally woke up after sleeping nearly 20 straight hours in the front seat of the El Camino. Twelve more hours went by. It was 4 am on Friday morning. The weather in Florida was no improvement. In 32-degree temperatures and freezing rain, Blatchford could barely feel his hands by the time he entered the unlit outskirts of Tallahassee. With no defroster, he was constantly wiping the inside of the windshield with a rag to maintain any semblance of visibility. At the first stoplight, Blatchford had to rev the engine to get the car rolling in first gear. “Here I am trying to get a big block engine to launch from stoplights with a 2.73 gear under it at 3,000 rpm’s from Kansas to Daytona,” Blatchford said. “How many cycles that clutch went through on the way down there, during the race and on the way back is phenomenal.” Blue lights flashed in his rear view mirror. Blatchford pulled over as a Leon County Sheriff’s Deputy walked to the driver’s door. What would he write them up for... improper license tags? A city noise ordinance violation? Maybe the deputy was a Ford man? There was no shortage of possibilities. Blatchford rolled down his window and braced himself for the worst. “Is this your car?” “No sir,” Blatchford replied. “The gentleman up there in the front car, he’s asleep. You see, he’s really tired, and we’re headed to...” The deputy looked down at the black number 89 painted on the doors. “I know where you’re going. Good luck.” 26 Blatchford’s heart started beating again. He turned on the windshield wipers and fired the engine to resume the final leg of their journey. Gottlob took a turn driving the El Camino, but later turned it back over to Frantzen and fell asleep again. After driving non-stop for nearly 40 hours, the ragged, unbathed crew staggered into Daytona and pulled over just outside the race track where the spark plugs, tires, oil filter and other necessities were changed back into race configuration. Blatchford got back in the L88 and drove it through the tunnel, under the track surface and out into the rain. A single attendant stood inside the guard shack at the entrance to the infield. His wave motioned the L88 onward. It was here that Blatchford could finally assess his surroundings. Looking through the rain that beaded on his windshield, Daytona’s massive, 3.8-mile road course spread out before him. It seemed to stretch from one horizon to the other, surrounded by grandstands that reached 5 stories high and provided seating for over one hundred thousand fans. “It was spectacular,” Blatchford remembered. “It was a great place. I’d never been there before.” Blatchford pulled into a parking spot adjacent to the nearest building, a single-story structure lined with undersized palm trees and fronted by the flags of various nations. A big blue and white sign overhead designated the building as “24 Hours of Daytona registration.” The office looked deserted. All four ticket windows were shuttered. The team was obviously late and by this time completely unexpected. Blatchford climbed out of the L88 again and gazed around in awe. John Wanko got out of the passenger’s seat, stretched, and looked at this watch. It was ten o’clock. Dick Frantzen drove in behind them as Gottlob slowly awoke from the only useful sleep he’d had since Sunday night. No one could believe that they had actually driven L88 Corvette #21550 from Kansas to Daytona. Too embarrassed to admit that he had no trailer, Gottlob spent the rest of the weekend telling everybody, “this was my break-in procedure for the new engine.” Jeri, Janet and Dave Dooley were already there, having flown in to the Daytona airport shortly before. Against all odds, the entire team had actually arrived at Daytona International Speedway as planned. Something had finally gone right. Surely the hardest part was behind them now.
