Nine thousand five hundred kilometres, 22 days, two countries and some of the best classic cars in the world. Leading most of the way? A Triumph Stag.
The Triumph Stag has a reputation, and it isn't for reliability. So when two seasoned rally drivers turned up in Halifax, Nova Scotia, in June 2015 with a 1977 Stag for a three-week run to San Francisco, a few eyebrows went up. The rally's own organisers called it "a most unusual car choice".
By the end of the first day, it was leading.
The odd one out
The Trans-America Challenge was run by the Endurance Rally Association, the people behind Peking to Paris. More than 40 crews left Halifax's historic Citadel on 6 June 2015, in everything from a 1927 Bentley Le Mans to the youngest car in the field: the blue Stag, wearing number 27.
The crew knew what they were doing. Phil Garratt and Kieron Brown had already finished second in the previous Trans-America in an E-Type Jaguar, and had won Peking to Paris in a Chevrolet coupe. Phil had owned the Stag for 25 years, and Rally Director Philip Young had suggested bringing it after a chat at Peking to Paris in 2013.
As far as the organisers' records showed, it was the first time a Stag had ever competed on an international endurance rally.
Built for the job
This wasn't a car pulled out of the shed and pointed west. E J Ward Motor Engineers prepared it, and the engine was completely rebuilt to their specification, with balanced components, a lightened flywheel, stainless valves and bronze guides. The Phoenix exhaust manifolds were coated by Zircotec in a silver thermal barrier to keep under-bonnet temperatures down, which matters when you're asking a Stag V8 to work hard for three weeks straight.
This kind of rally isn't a flat-out race. Crews are timed on regularity sections, where the job is to hold a set average speed to the second, on gravel and back roads, often for kilometres at a time. That explains the dashboard: trip meters, stopwatches and a satnav, bolted in beside the walnut.
Leading the pack
The Stag set the pace from the start. On day 1, from Halifax to Moncton, it was third after the morning circuit session and first by the end of the day. On day 3 it was one of only six crews to post a perfect score on the Glendyne regularity, near the St Lawrence River.
Then it simply kept going. Into the United States, through the Adirondacks, past Niagara Falls on the Buffalo rest day, across Michigan, along Lake Superior and out onto the plains of North Dakota. Day after day, the leaderboard had a Triumph Stag at the top. By day 10 at Duluth, the lead over Peter and Zoe Lovett's 1973 Porsche 911T was a slender 20 seconds.
Through South Dakota, past Mount Rushmore and along the Needles Highway, the Stag held on. On day 16, after the Little Big Horn and a regularity up Black Mountain at about 2,700 metres in the Big Horns, it was still in front, but only by seven seconds.
Day 17
Then came the leg from Cody, Wyoming, through Yellowstone to Idaho Falls. Somewhere along the way the Stag lost its transmission, and the day ended with car 27 on the back of a flatbed truck.
What happened next is the best of the classic car world. A replacement differential and seals were sent up from Arizona, a local garage in Idaho Falls offered to help, and an hour after the parts arrived the new diff was in. By the next night the crew were back with the rally, though no longer in first place.
"It howls like a hyena and drips a bit of oil, but it seems to work."
That was the crew's verdict on their repaired Stag. It had lost the lead, but not the will to finish.
San Francisco
From Idaho Falls the route went past Craters of the Moon to Nevada, over to Reno and Virginia City, then through the Lassen country to Eureka and the giant redwoods. On 28 June the field rolled down the Pacific Coast Highway, across the Golden Gate Bridge and into San Francisco.
The Lovetts' Porsche took the win. But a car some people reckon can't make it across a car park had led a world-class field across most of a continent, and it drove under the finish arch with its crew spraying the champagne.
What's the longest trip you've done in your Stag? Tell us in the forum.
Written from the Endurance Rally Association's daily reports and Sports Car Digest's report on the event: The 2nd Trans-America Challenge 2015 at the ERA and Trans-America Challenge 2015 at Sports Car Digest. Photos from our archive.