Day 1 Martinsburg, WV to Athens, OH

Team Mustang Girls is on the road again! This time they’re headed to Rt. 50 for Rally North America! The trip started out Saturday afternoon. After a quick stop at Impact Image Group for some last minute decals, Courtney Barber headed to the Charlotte airport to pick up teammate, Lea Anne Powell. Lea Anne’s flight was delayed and luggage lost but after an hour and a half of becoming best friends with American Airlines customer service and hearing promises of seeing the bag again in the future, the girls were off! They made it to Roanoke, Virginia around midnight and enjoyed some fancy bologna sandwiches at a Super 8. 

The next morning they were up early and headed to Martinsburg, VA for the drivers meeting and laps at Summit Point Raceway. After a quick stop at a truck wash were Courtney was able to convince them to let her sneak the car in, it was off to the track. The Mustang did great! Putting to the test all of Speed Direct’s amazing suspension upgrades, Courtney adjusted the shocks and the ride felt great. A lot tighter than last year’s laps at Watkins Glen International Speedway. After playing at the track the group headed back to the hotel for the charity auction. So far over $102,000 had been raised for The Accelerated Cure Project for Multiple Sclerosis and after the auction that number was over $105,000!

Monday morning the City of Martinsburg welcomed all the cars to line up right downtown. The girls were late as usual but luckily out of 80 cars there were others still trickling into line as they searched for caffeine to help set the day in motion. After everyone was lined up the Budweiser girls waved the green flag and Rally Route 50 was in motion!

Well “in motion” lasted for a second anyway, long enough to grab the checkpoint card and pull over to figure out where the heck they were going next. On the card there were pictures of statues, a flagstaff, scenic overlook and an insane asylum…. this had the makings for an interesting day! The first three stops were easy enough once the girls posted the clues to the Teams Page on Facebook. Courtney is anti trivia so thanks to everyone for helping with that! Who knows where they would end up without some guidance. There may or may not have been a trail of papers left last night to help in finding the way back to the hotel room!

The next stop was the Trans Allegheny Lunatic Asylum. Courtney decided to pass on the tour. She’s had some weird experiences with ghosts and didn’t want to end up with one along for the rest of the ride. Luckily Lea Anne was excited to check it out and braved the tour with everyone else. 

Then the day got interesting thanks to the good ole GPS. If you’ve ever driven on Route 18 in West Virginia you’ll appreciate this story. Let’s start with the warning from Tony at the driver’s meeting the night before. He said if your GPS tells you to go on some random country road with a lot of goats it’s not his fault. Well the girls found a lot of goats! And a family of deer, dump trucks, tractor trailers full of logs and all of this was on a 10 mile stretch of dirt road filled with pot holes and single lane bridges. The GPS went out and luckily another Mustang was behind them. Wiley still had some service in his ’89 Stang so the girls asked him to lead the way. And after a long hour on the dirt road from hell the ponies made it back to Rt. 50 and were headed to the hotel for the night in Athens, OH.

During the last 70 miles the headliner was being belligerent just like on Bullrun last month. Every gust of wind pulled it down and the metal bows smacked the girls in the head. Then Courtney got out a knife. One cut didn’t do it but 15 gashes later and they are hoping the problem is solved for the rest of the journey! The beer tasted great when they got to the hotel!

On day two they head to drag strip for some fun before continuing on to Indiana. If you like trivia and road trips be sure to follow along on Facebook and share your wealth of knowledge. They need it!

Team Mustang Girls would like to thank Kicker for keeping the tunes sounding great, Speed Direct for a smooth ride with Steeroids Rack and Pinion and Mustang Vector Series Suspension, Performance Plus Connection for saving the spark plugs, Scott Drake, NPD, and Impact Image Group for making the car look great, Old Air Products for keeping them cool and Badcock for keeping them looking good with comfy tanks for driving and custom Team Mustang Girl Shirts!